Articulating priority factors in your career future!

In my last blog, I discussed what exactly a career vision is and how it can be helpful to you.  Now let’s shift into doing a little bit of work, articulating priority factors in your career future. As I go through this, it is likely going to bring up some things for you, and it may not be comfortable. I know from experience helping thousands of clients this can be an uncomfortable process for people.

Why? Here’s one reason: I’ve done quite a bit of work with personal development guru Tony Robbins, and he talks about the concept of certainty versus uncertainty. As humans, most of us are really drawn to a life that’s fairly certain. We want to know, within a predictable sense, what’s going to happen. But when we’re creating a vision, we’re asking ourselves to just take a leap of faith to describe something that we’re uncertain about, and that can make people uncomfortable.

But, it also has value, as we’ve talked about in the first section of this presentation, so I just want you to acknowledge that it will probably feel uncomfortable, and I’ll give you some strategies for how to be strong through it.

As we go through, define what you can, because some is better than none. There have been studies recently that have popped up showing that if you put a label to your discomfort, whatever you might be feeling–which might be fear, frustration, anxiety–give a name to it. It calls it out of the shadows and allows you to make some progress.

Now, get ready to take some notes about your vision! By the way, actually hand-writing your vision (longhand) programs the concepts in your brain in a more significant way than typing. But typing is alright, too! Okay, here are the questions:

• Where are you in your career vision? Physically, where do you imagine you might be?
• What might you be doing in that picture?
• What activities in your career future give you joy and pleasure? I often get the question around this one, does that mean this would just be work related or can it be whole life related? Whatever works for you. There are no real parameters around this.
• What topics, issues, and thoughts are taking your attention much of the time?
• What benefits does your expertise create for others?
• What other pieces of your life exist and are important to you, but aren’t in this picture that you’re visualizing right now?

Sidebar: You’re doing great! I just want to give you a little quick pat on the back for whatever progress you’re making on this. As I said earlier, I know from experience that of all the assignments I give clients, this is the toughest one. So, any progress you’re making on this is more than what most people are willing to do. So hang in there. Let’s see how it keeps going for you.

It may also help if you can view things from a longer timelines. Giving yourself as long of a timeline as it helps you to feel comfortable with the concepts you’re considering. So if saying, “This is a six-month vision,” makes you anxious, push it out to two years, or five, or 10, or whatever makes sense for you. Now, more questions:

• What are your longer-term goals?
• How are you progressing in developing yourself? What sorts of things are you doing to continue growing in your vision.
• Ultimately, what are you aiming to achieve? What is the great big picture of what you’re looking to accomplish?
• What decisions have you made that support what is important and meaningful to you? I

Done! Nice work. Next time, I’ll discuss some specific action steps to increase your chances of achieving this vision, including that surprise tip I mentioned before. See you then!