Career is a path each individual takes and walks through learning and work in life. And during all my professional time, I did not meet many people who said that for their career path, personal and professional development is not essential.
It is one of the human needs, and finally, what we all strive for is our flourishing.
More and more individuals are searching for work that combines personal meaning, continued income, and social impact. To live fulfilling and satisfying careers. But many of them have no idea where to start and how to get there.
There are so many high achievers out there who are dissatisfied, feeling unfulfilled at their work and left with no true sense of success.
Who are questioning their current jobs and the careers they have built, but still sticking to it. Even though their jobs lead them to feelings of wasted time and their full potential.
And most of all – with no idea what their future career path and development should be. To find the satisfaction, fulfillment, and sense of success they are yearning for.
What is usually keeping us from finding our future career path?
Why is it so hard to get clear on your desired career development and to decide with confidence on your next career move that will lead to ultimate satisfaction, fulfillment, and success?
You are the owner of your career path.
Getting clarity on your desired career move and future career path that will be worthwhile for you is the responsibility of each individual.
And it takes the courage to fully acknowledge that you are the owner of your development, growth, and career journey you walk.
By ownership, we mean that you need to take active decisions by setting clear career goals that are your own and move forward by following them through.
But it all starts with first conscious decision and commitment that you’re going to go ahead and take control of your career growth and development.
If you don’t like how your career is, change it! It is you who holds the power of choice, and it all begins with it.
Coming back to basics that make the most significant difference in how your career works out. And from there making the right choices that will bring more fulfillment, happiness, and joy into your daily working lives.
Do you know what you really want?
It sounds simple, but the reason why you are settling for less, and getting stuck in an unfulfilling job might be that you do not know what you want.
Let’s be honest – it is easier to state what we don’t want, right?
We all get into the moments when we become full of sound and positive intentions to finally take our professional and personal growth back into our hands.
We recognize that it is time to improve our working lives and career, and something needs to be changed.
And then, when it comes to the question of where to start, we are finding it hard to turn these intentions into actions.
What about if you would see this moment as an opportunity to step back for a moment? To dig deeper into your inner world and drivers so that you could make a clear, intentional career decision?
With most of our clients, it was not the lack of motivation to create change that was keeping them from finding and starting to design a meaningful and successful career path.
After the decision to take control of their career development, it was the fact that they didn’t know what they want. What is the change they are yearning for and later on, how to move towards it.
From this fact comes all the waiting and indecision. While the time passes by and you feel never being ready enough to make a move but always yearning for it.
And we quickly find excuses for our settling too. To name just a few: I don’t have enough time to make the transition; I need more experiences; I need to gain some more new skills; What if I am not good enough and can’t do it.
But most of all, we have a lot of fears. Fear of losing a steady income, our current status and reputation. Fear of having to start all over again and of failing. Or that we could move into a job where things could be even worse.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
The only way to overcome your indecision and inactivity is to get clarity on what you truly want.
To get clarity on what is the contribution and impact you want to make while bringing all your potential to work. And living what matters most to you.
Do you ever ask yourself how you want to measure your career?
Four pillars for reaching true clarity on your future career path.
Career is an authentic experience, and as everyone is unique, there are as many meaningful and successful careers as there are many human beings.
And the success and true rewards come from building an experience that is enjoyable and worthwhile.
Everyone deserves a career that encompasses a sense of meaning, success, and fulfillment.
And we believe anyone can reach it by an intentional process of reconnecting with your career, your self, your values and drivers.
Positive change and growth come out from figuring out what is that you want, whom do you want to become. As from here on, there is only ‘how to move forward’ and create that.
How to move from the career we should have into the career we want.
To get clear on your future career goals and design your career path into a significant, successful, and joyful one, these are the four essential pillars to acknowledge.
1. Know yourself
How well do we truly know and understand ourselves?
How many times did you invest your effort and energy to ask yourself what makes you thrive at work and in life consciously? What makes you excel?
It is vital to understand yourself and gain true self-knowledge that is broader to your current level of self-awareness, which is apparent to you.
The first step is to admire your true reflection.
What I am best at and what matters most to me are the two essential questions to incorporate into your awareness.
And manifest the answers into your career pathfinding and development.
2. Stop improving your weaknesses and associate with your strengths
It is not who you are that holds you back. It is who you believe you are not.
We all have our innate talents. They are already there within us, and they are deriving from our inner needs. They are our naturally recurring pattern of feelings, thoughts, and behavior.
To be outstanding in your career, you need to leverage your core strengths inside you and stop focusing on improving your weaknesses. That is not energizing. That is not engaging. It is draining.
Learning and growth should not be built on the weaknesses basis because it smothers it. Our weaknesses should be identified and managed. Our strengths are our development and growth areas.
Excellence comes from using your strengths. Empowerment comes from living your strengths.
The distinction is within you and should come naturally as an expression of your self-awareness and authentic manifestation. It can be cultivated, but it is unforced.
Do you know your signature strengths?
3. Acknowledge your definition of career success
What is the true definition of career success? It is so arbitrary.
The only success that matters is the one that is yours. What you might consider successful could not matter less and mean nothing to someone else.
But many times, our career success is assessed from the objective metrics, such as level of pay, position, seniority, prestige. It is a result of a contest, and it is our external environment that defines it.
So do you live your success or somebody else?
It is time to ask yourself: What does success look like to me? What do I want from my career?
Is it making a transition into a new kind of role, that will stretch and grow you, on your terms? Do you dream of starting your business? Is it getting to work from anywhere? Or finding more meaning in your profession in making your impact and contribution that will be aligned with your values?
It could be any of that or anything else.
The answer to that question is where your values and your “needs” have been hiding out.
And let me throw a bonus question at you: WHY is those your terms and definition of success?
4. Tailor your career goals
There are so many opportunities out there that you can think of as career options for your future career path design.
Those who are mastering their career growth tailor their goals.
Decisions and career goals should derive from the reflection of your strengths and full potential, your real career drivers and true success definition, aligned with your values.
Finding purpose and fulfillment in a career is nothing more than aligning work with all that.
This means that your goal enables you to bring your full potential to the world.
It means that it is you who defines what truly matters to you.
You determine which values you want to incorporate into your career journey.
You decide what the lifestyle that you want your career to enable you is.
And finally, it is you who creates meaning for your work, and it is you who decides what a fulfilling and successful career path is.
Give yourself the permission to get clear on whatever wildly (and sometimes for your outside world unrealistic) desire and goals you have.
And once you know what you are chasing, then you can start to make clear decisions on what is the best plan to achieve it.
Career clarity is the foundation.
Taking ownership to gain your self-awareness and incorporate all that new self-knowledge into the clarity of what you want from your future career path, is the power to act and grow personally and professionally.
It is a positive change that leads through learning to growth. The growth that is so natural as it comes from your authentic best version of self and your full potential. Aligned with following your career drivers and living by your values, as everyone should.
Because only with that clarity, all the pros for the change you are yearning for can outweigh the fears. And only with this, you will acknowledge your options to act and make a genuine commitment to the career goals you tailor. And are your own.
With your full clarity, the finding and the design of your future career path should begin, because you deserve nothing less than to build a career that will be rewarding. In many more ways than just financially.
I am not a big fan of other people’s quotes, but this one resonates with me a lot. As Steve Jobs once said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Design your future career.
With following those pillars to gain your career clarity, we firmly believe you are making the right move to finding your career path. And start developing and designing your career into a one that is worthwhile.
As the readiness to finding and start designing your meaningful career while doing great work comes from this clarity. It is a process of stepping back, taking time to dig deep into your innate world, and desires. But you do not have to walk it alone.
And remember, a career is not a thing; it is an always creating and evolving journey, connected to a lot of other aspects of our lives in so many ways.
Career is all about growth and change, as are our lives. And it is never too late to find that.
As you grow as a person and professional, you will have to reconnect and recalibrate with your career path clarity and goals many times again.
But each time you only need to decide on your one next career move.
Our career decisions and the path that we choose is truly our opportunity to learn, grow, contribute, and be recognized. By bringing our full potential to the world while following our dreams, values, and desires.
Find the courage and decide to fully recognize and start lining up together the ‘who you are,’ ‘what you believe,’ and ‘what you do.’ And manifest your future career as a portfolio of experiences and adventures, mistakes that taught you valuable lessons, and made you know yourself better. But most of all, a collection of your achievements and satisfaction!