When you're planning to re-start your career after a break, one of the challenges is working out whether to go back to your old field or to try something different .. and if so, what? One of my clients told me she wanted to develop an internal compass to point her in the right direction towards a job she would enjoy and find fulfilling.
How do we go about developing our own internal career compass? Thanks to recent positive psychology research, we're now much clearer on what makes us happy at work. Studies consistently find that one of the key aspects is using your strengths. A true strength is something that you are good at AND energised by - maybe developing new ideas, analysing, seeing the big picture or empathising with others [We can be good at things but find them draining; these aren't strengths in this sense].
Why focus your career choices on your strengths?
People who use their strengths more*:
1. Are happier
2. Are more confident
3. Have higher levels of self-esteem
4. Have higher levels of energy and vitality
5. Experience less stress
6. Are more resilient
7. Are more likely to achieve their goals
8. Perform better at work
9. Are more engaged at work
10. Are more effective at developing themselves and growing as individuals
*Source: Centre for Applied Positive Psychology.
Convinced? So, it's clearly a good start point to ask yourself which jobs would best play to your strengths. However first you need to work out what your strengths are ...
Identifying your strengths
I've found that most people can give a long list of their weaknesses, but few can describe their strengths in detail, and even fewer can pinpoint what strengths differentiate them from the next person. Often we don't value our natural strengths: if you naturally get on with most people, you may assume that it's nothing special and not realise that building relationships is a core strength for you.
Ways to build up your personal strengths list
1. Use an online strengths assessment: Strengthsfinder 2.0 is a good choice & one of the easiest to interpret yourself
2. For another perspective, get strengths feedback from your friends & family: ask them what they think you're good at and to give you specific examples so you don't just think they're 'being nice' (& resist the temptation to ask them for your weaknesses too!)
3. Keep a note over the next few weeks of times when you are engaged in an activity and feel highly energised. Think about whether you are using one or more of your strengths at these moments. It can be helpful to talk this through with a friend who can help you to 'strengths-spot'.
Once you've better understood your strengths & thought about where you can best use them, you're on the way to setting your career compass. We'll talk more about other aspects to consider (such as values and interests) in future posts.
Further reading
For more tips and advice on career decision-making see: using your instincts, too few choices and too many choices.
Posted by Julianne
"I'm thinking about applying for corporate jobs again and have been approached about a part-time Marketing Director job. I know it would be a good move and work with the family but for some reason I'm putting off making the phone call to the recruiter."
Marion had left the corporate marketing world 6 years before to spend more time with her two children who were approaching senior school age. She now felt keen to return to work and had been focusing on the logical plan of using her past experience and networks to get back into a leadership position. She'd had a few promising leads but noticed that she was dragging her feet and putting off following up on them. Why was she making this so difficult for herself?
As we talked, I noticed that Marion's energy soared when she spoke about friends who had set up their own businesses and about her own 'impractical' entrepreneurial ideas. When she reverted to talking about the 'realistic option' of going back to mainstream corporate life her energy drained away like a pricked balloon. Her tone of voice and body language were telling a different story from her words. As we talked, she identified a strong reluctance to give up her freedom and autonomy and the focus of our conversations switched to the feasibility of entrepreneurship. Having turned down a second round interview for the Marketing Director role, she is now enthusiastically developing her own venture.
Rational vs Instinctive Decision-Making
Many of us tend to believe that our decisions should be directed by our rational brains and we distrust our emotional response. But we need to remember that our experience of working, be it positive or negative, is subjective. Whether we enjoy a job depends just as much on how we feel about it as how good it looks on paper. Our emotions are often linked to underlying values, like Marion's pull towards freedom. And an instinctive reaction can pick up something intangible (like a company culture or a manager's personality) that does or doesn't feel right before you can explain the reason why.
And there's another reason to listen to your intuition. It's true that 'gut feel' can be misleading and lead to faulty conclusions*. On the other hand, psychology studies show that we do not always think best when we rely on reason alone. For more complex decisions (like career choice) our rational brains can hit information overload. If we put our attention elsewhere and allow our unconscious mind time to work through all the factors and come to a decision, we are more likely to make an 'instinctive' choice that we will be happier with over time, even if goes against a logical pros & cons evaluation**.
Ways to incorporate the emotional & instinctive in your decision-making
1. Follow your energy. When you talk about each of your options, notice when your energy levels rise and when they drop. What are you most drawn to investigating? Ask your friends/family what they have noticed too.
2. Try describing yourself out loud in each of the different options: "I'm running my own business", "I'm a Marketing Director". Which intuitively feels best? Which feels more like 'you'?
3. When you find yourself over-deliberating about your options, take a break, engage in an activity that distracts your mind for a few hours and then write down your decision before consciously thinking any more about it.
And in general, when you're considering your next move, value your emotional reactions just as much as your logical analyses.
Note: names and some details have been changed to maintain confidentiality
Further Reading
* For examples of biases see Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast & Slow
** One study by Dijksterhuis & van Olden asked participants to look at 5 posters and choose which one they liked best using 3 different techniques: 1) pros & cons 2) gut feel 3) look, solve anagrams, look again, decide. A month later the 3rd group were happiest with their choice. This Unconscious Thought Theory effect has been replicated in more complex decisions such as renting an apartment (See Richard Wiseman, 59 Seconds).
Posted by Julianne
