722: (3 of 8) Career Clarity: How to Use the 5 Whys to Find What You Actually Want from Work (And Don’t Want) | What Fits You

[00:00:00] Scott Anthony Barlow: What do you want? It's a simple enough question, and I bet you can't easily answer it. Go ahead, try it right now. You'll probably find it's harder than it looks. But what if you could answer that question? What if you could clearly name what you actually want from your career and your life? Would it then be easier to go after it on purpose?

[00:00:17] Of course, you stop being someone who's been thinking about career transition and become someone actually making one. There's a simple question that I want you to try and answer right now. "What do you want?" Not what you don't want, not what would be better than this. What do you actually want from your career?

[00:00:32] If you find this question harder to answer than it seems like it should be, you're not alone. After helping thousands of established professionals make career changes, I can tell you that it's one of the most consistently difficult questions someone can face. Not because the answer doesn't exist, but because nobody has ever given you the right tools to be able to find it.

[00:00:50] By the end of this episode, I'm gonna give you one of the tools that we use with our clients, and you're gonna be able to answer this question with much higher clarity and confidence. This is day three of our What Fits You eight-day mini course. And if you're just joining us, I would encourage you to go back in your feed and start with the introduction to the What Fits You mini course so that you have the full context.

[00:01:12] Each day builds directly on the last. Also, if you haven't registered for the complete course experience, including the emails and guided exercises, do that now. Go to happentoyourcareer.com/8day, or just click into the links in the show notes and it'll be right there.

[00:01:28] When we very first start working with almost every single one of our clients, here's what happens. Ask the question, "Tell me about what you know about what would be an extraordinary fit for you?" And then they tell me what they don't want. "I don't want to keep managing up in a broken culture. I don't want work that doesn't use what I'm actually good at. I don't wanna keep doing something that has stopped being interesting three years ago."

[00:01:52] This is the place where everybody starts. It's how the brain works. We're wired to notice what's not working as a survival mechanism. The problem is that knowing what you want to leave is completely different from knowing what you want to run towards, and you can't navigate toward a destination that you haven't named and haven't specifically identified.

[00:02:12] Now, if this weren't difficult enough, here's another piece that makes this harder. What you want isn't fixed. It's dynamic. What mattered to you most at 30 is probably not what matters to you most right now. The priorities that drove your first decade of your career have probably shifted. What once felt like a dream role can, over time, become the thing that you're trying to get out of, not because something went wrong, but because you evolved and the role didn't.

[00:02:39] It took me many years to recognize this for myself, and I don't want it to have to take that long for you to recognize that you might have outgrown a situation. I've been really fortunate to have many what most people would call dream jobs that I loved, and every single one of those at some point became no longer a dream.

[00:02:58] What was most important to me before I had children evolved when my first child, Mackenzie, came into the world, and then it evolved again when she'd graduated high school and then went to college. Sometimes those external circumstances like getting married or having children or getting a new boss or many others can cause what we want and what we need in both work and life to change and evolve.

[00:03:19] And this is why it's so important to become great at understanding and prioritizing what you want. It's a skill, set of skills even, that you can use for the rest of your life. Here's one of the tools that we use to do this here at HTYC. It's called The 5 Whys. It's a problem-solving methodology popular in Kaizen, Six Sigma, and other lean frameworks that helps get to root cause.

[00:03:41] Now, we've adapted it for your career. And the idea is simple. Instead of trying to force yourself to articulate what you want from scratch, you start with what you don't want, which is almost always easier to name, at least at first. And then ask why five times in a row until you reach the real need, the real want that's underneath it.

[00:04:00] Many of your don't wants are pointing at something, and the five whys helps you see what it could be pointing at. Here's how it works. I want you to start with the number one thing that you don't want in your work right now. Whatever is loudest, the thing that you find yourself complaining about on Sunday nights that your spouse or partner is probably tired of hearing about.

[00:04:21] Write it down as a statement, and then I want you to ask, "Why does that even matter to me?" Write down your answer, and then ask why again, and again, and again, at least five times total. Each why takes you one layer deeper from the surface complaint to the underlying value or need that's actually driving it.

[00:04:39] Let me walk you through a quick example here. Our client, David, came to us after 20 years in financial services with a director level title while managing a team of analysts. His don't want was straightforward, "I don't want to do work that feels purely technical with no connection to people." Now, why does that matter?

[00:04:57] Well, he went on to say that, "Because the parts of my work that I love the most have always involved developing other people." Well, why does that matter? "Because I feel most energized when I see a direct impact on someone's growth." Okay, but why? Why does that matter? "Because I want to feel like work has a visible human outcome, not just a financial one.

[00:05:19] Because I've spent two decades being excellent at something that doesn't reflect what I actually value." Great. Why does that matter? "Because I don't want to spend the next two decades the same way. I do want to have my work feel aligned with my values." Okay. Well, tell me more. Why does that matter? "Because I want a role model for my kids, and I feel like I'm a better parent when I'm surrounded by people who have similar values."

[00:05:42] Okay, so let's review what just happened in that scenario. He came in saying he didn't want technical work. Great. He left that conversation knowing he wanted a role centered on people development with visible human impact in an environment whose values matched his. And more importantly, he feels like he's a better role model for his family that way.

[00:06:03] That's his reason for seeking a career change. The don't want was just the beginning. It's just the front door. All right, now it's your turn. I want you to get out a piece of paper, or you can pull back open the document that you've been using through this entire mini course. Pick out your biggest career don't want right now and write it at the top.

[00:06:20] And then ask why five times. Write every answer down. Don't filter, don't edit, don't jump ahead. When you reach the fifth why, you'll have something that looks a little less like a complaint and a lot more like a compass point. Okay, so a couple of pro tips here.

[00:06:35] Number one, if it's not working for you to ask why strictly You can say, "What's causing this?" Or, "Why am I feeling that way?" Or, "Why is that important to me?" Any variation of that can be a slight difference. Some people get stuck with the question why alone, without additional context.

[00:06:52] Another thing to keep in mind is there's no wrong answer here. The goal isn't an elegant statement, it's an honest one, and a lot of times it's clues to an honest one. It doesn't always come out in its entirety right away.

[00:07:03] A third thing to know is that this is actually really challenging to do. So just because you understand the five whys exercise does not necessarily mean that you're automatically practiced with it immediately. It can take quite a bit for practice using this technique. It's like anything else. The very first time I got on the ice playing ice hockey, I was not very good, shall we say. But after many, many times on the ice, you slowly get better.

[00:07:29] A last thing to point out is that if one of your don't wants surfaces three or four other don't wants underneath it, that's okay too. You can actually pull those out and start to run this exercise on each of those. It becomes all useful information.

[00:07:45] What you're building across days one, two, and now three is the raw material for everything that comes next in this course. A specific honest picture of what you're great at, what your past is telling you, and what you actually want moving forward. Your action for today is complete the five whys exercise from your biggest career don't want. Write those answers down. Come back, leave a comment. Share just one thing that this exercise led you to think about or uncover. You can put it in the comments below.

[00:08:14] Day four is next. I want you to, if you haven't already, click subscribe or follow wherever you're listening so that these episodes land in your feed automatically. And if at any point during this course you decide you want to talk to our team, talk with a team of experts to help you through all of these really difficult pieces and help you recognize what creates a phenomenal fit and make that happen, well, then email me directly, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com. Put 'Conversation' in the subject line.

[00:08:45] I'll connect you with my team, and we'll have a real conversation about where you are and help you build a plan to where you're trying to move to. I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, I'm Scott Anthony Barlow. Adios.