How do you find your purpose and passion in your career?

As a Career Transition Coach, it is crucial to look at what you are qualified for AND what you are passionate about. If you are taking the step to make a transition, you want to make sure both of these align. I always ask my clients for 3 of their top skills from their perspective as well as 3 skills that family, friends, and colleagues turn to them for. We can often be bias against ourselves, so we must lean into how we are seen by others as well!

These assessments are a great way to begin to understand where you can find success. I love the tool Culture Index. It is a very quick and accurate way to get some ideas on where you can potentially succeed. Granted, you have to be sure to not let these paint you in a box. Rather, you should use them to help guide your conversations. Additionally, they are great ways to take an introspective look at your opportunities and grow.

Pay attention to the type of tasks that your managers ask you to do consistently. Your strength can be how you accomplish tasks your team trusts you to do. Early in my career, I noticed my managers tasked me with reading their work and asking for my feedback on emails, press releases and presentations. From there, they trusted me to own some of that work because they trusted my eye for editing and my skill for writing. Understanding that helped inform what direction I wanted to pursue in my career.

Assessments can be helpful but one thing you can also do is to use the power of self-reflection to better understand your strengths, interests, and things that you enjoy doing. One simple place to start is by writing down all the projects you worked on over the past 6 months, and identifying A) the ones you really enjoyed working on and B) the skills you used when you were doing them. With that information, you have a much better idea of what you not only are good at but also what you enjoy doing

Agree to above, I also thing your strengths and interest change and widen over time as we gain more experiences and challenge ourselves. All the frameworks are just guidelines and if you take the same assessments after few years. You will be surprised to see the changes in those as well.

Whether it’s a job, or a responsibility at work, volunteer efforts or artistic expression, identifying what gives us a sense of purpose is vital to feeling fulfillment. If you haven’t yet found what drives you, it’s never too late. Some tips I recommend to discover your purpose are: - Become aware of your skills and diversify where possible. - Fuel yourself with what inspires you or sparks curiosity. - Evaluate what you value to create alignment. - Be comfortable stepping outside of your comfort zone. - Embrace your authentic self. - Don’t limit yourself. Everyone should be able to lead their lives or careers in a way that gives them meaning. Remember, the experiences we gain in life give us the wisdom to continue discovering who we are.

One of my favorite activities to do is a career values exercise. This is a chance for you to evaluate and identify the values that are most important to you, and then to see how they are/are not currently in your life. Here is an example of a popular one that has been put together by Carnegie Mellon https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/career-guides/myCareerPathGuide2018-2019.pdf

Research is a key part of this. One you have done the analysis on your values and what you are looking for. Then its time to research companies and careers that align with that. The key way to do this is to speak to lots and lots of people. As you can read articles and job descriptions but when you speak to people you realise the day-to-day. The not so exciting stuff that formulates a job or a position. If you are someone who likes to read then read articles written by people talking about their roles and their day-to-day. This will help you find a role, company, and even people that align with your values and passion.

In your research process, keep in mind that it's important to remember that your business, product, and service needs to be different than everything else out there. You're going to increase your chances of success if you're not competing in a lane where there's a lot of really similar products and businesses.

What makes you really happy in your current job? What are some of the things which you would change if given a chance? What are some of the things you don’t like in your current role? All the above can also help you in making the decision on your next opportunity as well. Keeping your purpose and passion at heart and also thinking about where you want to challenge yourself as well

Too often in the pursuit of purpose, we put too much pressure on ourselves - ironically leading us to feel more unfulfilled. Life is a journey and should be treated as such - we don't have to make the right decision every time, but we should always learn from those decisions. When I was first in college, I tried economics, then finance - both of which were ill-suited to my skillset. After the 3rd pivot to marketing in my 3rd year, I finally found my home which set me on my path. Experiment with different fields, skills, industries - you never know which one might just tickle your fancy.

I have always love the Napoleon Hill quote, “Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.”. Most let the fear of failure keep them from greatness. While it is actually the act of failure that makes you great. Michael Jordan articulated it perfectly when he said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again. That is why I succeed.”. Run towards failure...not away from it!

The pivot is a really part of an entrepreneur's journey. You're going to start off with a strong vision of your product or service, but the reality of that is going to constantly be changing as the world is changing. It's important to be ok with that idea, and to realize that pivoting is a sign of success rather than a sign of failure.

These are great resources but consider the approach you're having to these conversations. Most people reach out to mentors, coaches, or other contacts and the conversation is more often than not positioned as "how can you help me." Instead of making the outreach about you, make it more about who you're reaching out to.

A career transition is near impossible without support! You are busy building a career and there are so many people (especially alumni!) that are ready to help you transition. Why? Because they have done it before and want to support you in achieving career fulfilment. I would highly suggest conducting informational interviews - find out more about the roles and companies you are interested in through your connections and employees in those roles & companies. In addition to giving you insight, these connections will prove to be powerful in your network and connect you others who will aid in your job search.

I believe that your career is a team sport and not an individual one. Think basketball, instead of golf. While you are ultimately the "star player" you, like anyone on a team sport, needs the help, guidance and effort of others in order to achieve your goals. Making sure that you have your own "career team" and people on your team to help and support you is critical. When you have a career team, you can ask for things like guidance, feedback, opportunities to get exposure, connections to other people. Ideally, your career team is a diverse group of people, but they should all share one thing, in that they are committed to helping you achieve your goals

Making sure you celebrate is a critical component of this. It's very easy to go through life and your career without making time to review or reflect on what you learned or to celebrate your milestones. One simple thing you can put into practice is a quarterly report/reflection. Each quarter, set aside some time to reflect on the things you did well, what you learned and how you grew. That way, you can see how much you are progressing

So true! I feel like purpose and passion change over time too. Your vision and mission can still be the same but purpose can evolve as you grow and keep moving forward in your vision. Vision is your North Star, the why? Purpose and mission can become the what and solution and path can become the how

We are in a constant state of evolution. What you enjoyed doing in your twenties might be different in your thirties. It's okay to seek other ways to tap into your potential and find other paths to grow. By regularly checking in with yourself, you can be honest about what is fueling you and what is no longer serving you.