Career Goals – What Do YOU want?
When I graduated from college I didn’t have a job. I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do. Wait, that’s not true. To call a spade a spade, it’s a lie. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but I was ignoring my intuition, my inner voice and instead of focusing on what I knew I felt at a soul level, I focused on the external world: The people in my life…family, friends, people I had just graduated from college with, people I had known in high school. Society at large was deciding what job I was going to apply for rather than what I wanted for myself.
When I did secure my first job – I think it was a couple of months after I graduated (my memory is a little hazy since that was almost 25 years ago) – it was at Nike. When people heard this, they were impressed. I’ll admit it, I was impressed with myself too. On paper, my life looked amazing. I had somehow gotten in my mind that Nike equaled prestige. Never mind that at that time, outside of being an avid tennis player, I had absolutely NO interest in sports. This meant that the fact that I spent my days talking to professional sports teams about sample uniforms was a total mismatch with my core values and needs.
From the outside it looked like I had done it. I worked at Nike. Thing is, I HATED my job. I was BORED. I was NOT FULFILLED. On paper, my life looked amazing. I didn’t stay with that job for very long. I wish I could say that instead I took on a job that was everything I wanted, desired and thrived on, but the fact is, this applying for and accepting jobs that were not a good fit was a recurring theme in my life. For a number of years I focused on the external versus the internal. I was a hard worker but I somehow was missing the fact that what other people thought of my job or career was something that just did not matter.
The rest of that journey, the jobs I did to please others is a story for another time – what I want to focus on today is that you might just be at a point in your life where you are actually checking off all the boxes that outwardly suggest you are super successful, but internally you want something different. The desire that women have to change careers, whether that be working for someone else or opening their own business, is increasing right now. Research supports that the pandemic has allowed for space to re-evaluate our goals, our core values, what we want, what is important.
What is it that you have been thinking about for yourself?
What has stopped you or slowed you down from grabbing the bull by the horns and charging forward?
Take some time and make a list of things that you like about your current job or career.
Now, make a list of the things that you do not like about it? How do these two things relate to your truth – what you know deep down is what you would really like to be doing with your life. What do you think your like/don’t like lists would look like with your dream job/career?
Sit with that.
Take it in.
Now, write down what action step you need to take to start moving toward your career goal.
What do you want to do, not because “on paper, my life would look amazing” but because it WOULD BE amazing?
If you want more assistance with this, consider joining my FaceBook Group Jump Starting Change or reach out to me directly through my website. I am here to support you!