Visioning: A Tool To Decide the Direction of Your Career

WHAT DO YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO?

When you “Find” something you’re placing a lot of the control elsewhere. It’s happening by chance. Even though there may be effort involved “finding your ideal career” is unlikely to simply happen unexpectedly. You’re not going to be walking around looking for it one day like you’re looking for your lost car keys or cell phone and be like “Eureka” (do people actually say Eureka???) “I just found the perfect career for me. It was right here under the couch cushion the whole time. I been sitting right on top of it watching Game of Thrones for nearly two months!” It sounds silly. But this is also actually how we act (not judging, I’ve done it too, that’s how I learned all this stuff!) Here’s some examples of trying to “find” a career that makes us happy: We surf the online job postings hoping that we’ll see something perfect for us. We take assessments hoping it will reveal the answer, but when it tells you your choices are accountant or taco historian we know that it’s not the answer. We change jobs thinking we’ll find the answer in the new role We consider going back to school thinking that will help us find the answer. Notice that all of those are actions (even though they require effort) are actually passive and waiting on someone or something else. They are “discovering or perceiving by chance” NOT by your own design. Meaningful work doesn’t happen by chance. Sure there are many unpredictable elements, but you don’t simply go looking for it and then “discover” what it is. It happens gradually. Over many actions to “bring it into existence” just like in the definition of “create”  

YOU CREATE A MEANINGFUL AND FULFILLING CAREER FOR YOURSELF NOT FIND IT.

This distinction messes with the minds of many people because they haven’t been exposed to other ways of doing things. It dissolves into a billion questions of “well don’t I have to wait for the companies and when they’re hiring?” “don’t i have to wait on budgets and until HR posts the job?”. The short answer is “No” (most of the time) Here’s a couple pieces of logic that I’ve built my personal career off of and that we’ve now taught to thousands of people who’ve made their own transitions.

1) IF I WANT SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN WHAT EVERYONE ELSE HAS THEN I WILL HAVE TO HAVE A DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT APPROACH THAN WHAT EVERYONE ELSE DOES

Less than 13% of the world are truly engaged and excited about their work, the people that are often aren’t getting their roles through conventional job search methods. >>> Here’s some examples of how to connect with people you don’t know using introductions. Just one method of many that we teach our students in Career Change Bootcamp  

2) IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, YOU’RE MORE LIKELY TO GET WHAT YOU WANT

Ok, this one is pretty obvious… and still most people really aren’t sure what they want most out of life and work or what they need to feel more happy more often.  

3) WE CAN’T PREDICT THE FUTURE, BUT WE CAN SET THE DIRECTION WE’RE HEADING.

Let me explain one of the tools that we use in our career change bootcamp program to help people identify that direction. If you’ve used visioning before you might already know how powerful it can be. If you haven’t you probably don’t yet realize how many successful people use this to create both direction and movement in their lives. Here’s some people you’ve probably heard of that use visioning and visualization to “Create” their future. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he employed this during his quest for office in California:

It’s the same process I used in bodybuilding: What you do is create a vision of who you want to be — and then live that picture as if it were already true.

Oprah Winfrey has used visioning for many years in various forms (even vision boarding)

Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.”

“Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.

Will Smith too has used visioning and visualization:

In my mind, I’ve always been an A-list Hollywood superstar. Y’all just didn’t know yet,

This is powerful stuff. Primarily because until you define a direction you can’t move intentionally towards something OR if wandering towards someone else’s vision for your life (which is a proven method for unhappiness) Here’s one of the exercises (out of many) that we give our students in our Career Change Bootcamp program to help them determine their direction using visioning, Check it out by clicking here and you can make a copy or download to a PDF.  

WHY IS THIS SO POWERFUL? HERE’S A PERSONAL EXAMPLE.

This is a similar exercise in visioning. I wrote it about 4 years ago. One thing you’ll notice is it’s very very specific. The other thing that may not be as obvious is that many of the items (though not all) in that visioning document from 2014 are now reality, less than 4 years later. Some of them are way off, Some of what I wrote down as my younger self, I realized as I started moving down the path that I don’t actually want them and have since shifted the vision or direction. Here’s what I’ve learned over the years: Had I not ever taken the time and effort to envision what I want my future to look like, then likely none of these would have happened at all or wouldn’t be anywhere as near as close as they are now! Plus, you don’t do it just once and you’re done for the rest of your life. That’s not reality. Instead it’s a continual refinement process. In fact Alyssa (my wife) and I just went out for coffee and sat down again to refine where we want to go together. We did it a few months back too, and we do at the beginning of every year.

DO YOU HAVE A VISION FOR WHAT YOU WANT YOUR LIFE AND WORK TO BE LIKE?

Are you moving toward a clear vision? If you do have one, is it specific? If not I would suggest using this worksheet to get started. If you’re tired of living someone else’s vision and want help creating your own vision for your life and work I would encourage you to check out Career Change Bootcamp where we help people break free of normal and systematically take continual steps to create the career and life that is meaningful to you. Get started on your vision, it’s one of your biggest tools to live an intentional life! (and a “Yes, And” life) I can’t wait for you to begin getting some serious momentum on creating your own career change that aligns with the life you want.