The Most Important Exercise You Can Do For Your Career

One thing I do more than anything else in my professional life - perhaps even in my personal life - is talk with people about their careers. We discuss their job history, their career goals and aspirations. And, of course, we discuss details about career opportunities.

Even given the powerful new technologies in the recruiting field that utilize AI and big data to identify qualified candidates, a recruiter cannot be effective without the ability to have these conversations, and make them fruitful. After having these conversations thousands and thousands of times, I have began to see some themes surface.

The open-secret among many professionals is that a lot of people are wrestling with is if their current career is the "right" career for them. This nagging thought plagues almost everyone, individuals who are just starting out and those who occupy established careers. No single point in a career can equip us with the antibodies to fight it off. This thought comes from a much deeper place than can often be rationalized away. And it's understandable. A career is a big decision; it's a monumental commitment that can only be rivaled in its carefully considered undertaking by the likes of either mortgage or a marriage.

More people than you are aware wrestle with this conundrum. Though, to be fair, having questions regarding what we want to do in our career does not have the some effect on everyone. Some people don't give their career that much attention. There are individuals who are just happy to have a job and be earning a salary. Whereas for others, every career decision is considered meticulously and is carried out with a weight that almost feels fatal. Every. Decision. Matters.

I've been on both sides of the coin myself. I know how exciting new opportunity can be, almost alluring at times. And I know the terror of walking a tight rope terrified of the next gust of wind that may take me down. I know both waves of thinking, while often mutually exclusive, are valid. And no matter what side someone may happen to be on - short of inspirational quotes penned on stick-it notes outlining their bathroom mirror - I have never heard anyone mention a professional tool, method, or practice (perhaps prayer, for many) that they could reliably turn to to navigate career decisions and keep them on course. Because the results of unknowingly making half a degree change in course, given enough time, can lead you into entirely uncharted waters.

So imagine my delight when I came across an exercise a few years ago that I felt?finally?offered the tools I needed to help myself and others navigate career decisions. It provided me with the tools to begin evaluating, deeply, my career and its desired trajectory. But not just my career. It crossed over into my life. And everything in between. My desires. My motives. My drives. My ambitions. My fears. My dreams. My hobbies. My interests. My relationships. What gives me life. What sucks the soul out of me. My past. My present. My future. It not only made me intimately aware of all of these (at times conflicting) parts of me, but it helped me understand these parts of myself. It helped me to understand how all these things are subconscious drivers of my decisions (or indecisions). And I realized that, maybe more than anything, not having a deep awareness of all these things lead me to be operating out of sync at times. I learned that, at least occasionally, I need to calibrate myself again. To check in with myself to make sure we're still on the right* path. It reminds me of the popular analogy of an airplane's flight course being off by just half a degree at departure can result in the airplane arriving in an entirely wrong country.

(*note: I hesitate to even use the word "right" because I don't think there is an objectively "right" path, more like our "true" path. But this isn't intended to be an amateur pseudo-philosophical piece, so I digress.)

The tool I discovered is The Self-Authoring Suite. This is a guided writing exercise that helps you unpack your past (Past Authoring), write about your present (Present Authoring), and plan your future (Future Authoring). It's amazingly powerful (and therapeutic!)?For the sake of focusing on the point of this article, we will just discuss the Future Authoring portion.?It will be invaluable to help plan and chart a future for your career.

This exercise cannot be completed in a day. And isn't intended to be. An hour or two a night, through the course of a few days to a week is recommended.

At this time, we don't discuss the Past Authoring and Present Authoring programs. Those would require another article to do justice. If you wish to learn more about the full suite of writing tools, there is plenty of information available on the website.

To conclude, I hope you all make (because you won't just find it) the time to?complete the future authoring program at least.?In itself, it is still quite the undertaking. And quite powerful.