photo by pdeee454
In the last week I’ve spoken with three friends who are in ‘reflective moods’ with their current jobs. All three know they’re in the wrong place. That sense of dread comes over them when they first see their building every morning. And for two of them the vocation itself is not right.
But knowing you need to make the change is the easy part.
How do you avoid jumping out of one fire and into another?
Ensuring your fit at a company comes down to fit on several levels which we’ve previously touched upon.
But what if you don’t even know what you want to do? It starts with vocational fit. And while this is well beyond the purview of RoundPegg, we’re not afraid to stretch ourselves.
(Note: Po Bronson’s What Should I Do With My Life? won’t give you any answers, but if this is constantly on your mind it will help tremendously just knowing that all these other people are in your same boat. Recommended.)
Career Visioning
Are you in the right field? Do you daydream of being a doctor when you ‘should’ be pouring over another spreadsheet? This is one of those big existential questions that’s ‘above our pay grade’ as Obama would say, but if you’re looking to help answer this question try the following:
Andy Chan, the head of the career center at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, hosted one of the best career exercises I’ve ever done. The purpose of which was to envision myself at work 20 years in the future.
If you try this give it at least 15 minutes and don’t be shy about doing it multiple times over weeks (or months) building upon the last vision. Turn out the lights, light a candle or two if it helps and close your eyes.
Describe the office. What does the furniture look like? How many people are around? What color is the flooring? Is it carpet? Wood? Look out a window. What do you see?
What does your office look like? What’s on the walls? Are there walls? Any books lying around? What are they?
What kind of activities are the people around you doing? How do they treat you? How do they treat each other?
What does the relationship between you all feel like? Someone just walked into your office, what did they say?
How do you feel? Look on your desk, on what were you working? You recently had a great idea that you’re excited about for your next project and you put it on a sticky note on the desk. What’s that note say?
And on it goes. You can ask yourself a thousand questions but be sure to record as much as you can afterward and always focus on the smallest details. Focus on how you feel and what’s making you feel that way.
Frankly, I’ve found this to be far more useful than the question “if you knew you’d make $500,000 every year what would you be doing?” For me that one always devolves into an extended vacation.
While it may sound a little new-agey I found it pretty effective. Personally, the key was identifying what it felt like. What were the things I was excited about?
If you give it a shot and you feel comfortable sharing we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Though this was six years ago I still remember my vision. And in the interest of full disclosure here it is. I saw myself in an office with trees all around with a tight-knit collaborative team of which I felt a lot of pride because I was largely responsible for bringing everyone together. Our offices weren’t fancy – kind of warehouse modern and we were all huddled around a white board trying to figure out how to optimize working relationships.
It took five plus years to act upon it, but RoundPegg is making progress on just that. Though currently without the warehouse modern décor and lush tree forest.
No related posts.
Copyright ©2008-2009 RoundPegg Inc.