In my first leadership role, I began to notice the frequency of the 'goals' conversation. This came from two sources. One was 'for me', where people asked me what my career goals were, so they could provide me with potential advice and support. The other was 'from me', where people would ask what goals I had that led me here, so they could glean insight and advice.
Unfortunately, I'm not motivated by goals. No. No that's not right exactly. I am often motivated by goals of achievement — like launch product X, or create a structure that achieves Y — but not where the goal is just about me. I've never had a career goal.
And in part, that is because I have been immensely privileged in my career. I have been presented with opportunities and, have largely said yes to each, even if unsure they were what I wanted. And yes, it is possible to be privileged, while simultaneously working hard and being good at what you do.
Due to suddenly noticing this question, and feeling a strong sense of imposter syndrome, I engaged a coach. She was and is fantastic, and while our initial conversation included a question from her on what my goals were, we quickly moved on. I learned a lot from her, as with a lot of great coaching experiences, I learned a lot from myself as well.
And a big part of what I learned, was what I now call decision based career development.
A lot of determining this approach was about deconstructing what I had always done, and then learning to be more deliberate about it. And the reception from others, who were similarly feeling the "oh God, not another goals conversations" dread, was really encouraging.
I have always been driven more by experience than by destination. I could probably also call this approach "experience driven career development". I have never sought out a particular role, or had a clear long term plan in mind, but as I interrogated myself, I started to realise that while it seemed like everything was accidental, there was a bit more going on under the surface than I realised.
So … how do you know if a decision driven approach might be right for you?
- You don't know what you want to be when you grow up
- Your aspirations have more to do with experiences you'd like to have, rather than role titles
- The "where do you see yourself in 5 years" question fills you with dread, because you know your answers will be unsatisfying to the questioner
If you answered yes to a couple of those, then read on …
Where to start
- Get to know yourself, without judgement. I wrote a piece awhile back on Knowing Yourself as a Leader. That's probably not the knowing yourself I'm talking about here. This is more like the activity outlined in the How do I work out what's important to me article. If you're not feeling like going into that much depth, try a simple Wheel of Life activity — just google it, there are heaps of examples.
- Reflect on what you enjoy doing (and what you don't). This is the small stuff, not the big. Grab yourself an index card, or a two page spread in your notebook. Put a happy face on one side and a sad face on the other. Or yay / nay. Or whatever words work for you. Then, for two weeks, check in with yourself a couple of times a day. I often suggest setting up alarms or reminders or similar to trigger this. The first thing you're going to do when you 'check in', is flip to the side of the page or index card that best reflects how you're feeling. Don't overthink it. Then write down what you were, or are doing. Not why, just what. Like … "in a 1on1 with colleague", or "working on x report" or "procrastinating" … whatever it is. Once you have a couple of weeks worth of data, see if any patterns emerge. Your answers won't be here, but it might raise some interesting questions to ask yourself, and challenge yourself on what you do and don't enjoy, and then step a little deeper into the why. For example, you might not enjoy every 1on1 with a colleague, but get great satisfaction over the longer term in guiding or partnering with that person. You might hate working on report x because it's repetitive and you never learn anything new.
- Ask others. Ask a few people who know you well, what they think you're best at, or when you seem to be most enthused, or most inspired. Giving feedback is hard — it is a gift to ask someone specific questions — so much easier than responding to "do you have any feedback for me?"
Rather than reflecting on myself and coming up with goals, I reflected on myself and came up with criteria. What was it that made me want to say yes the most? At the time (because yes, they're allowed to change) my primary criteria were:
- doing things I don't know how to do (a.k.a. learning)
- contributing from my own expertise and knowledge
- working with people from a variety of cultures (which, on reflection is about learning, at its core)
I say primary, because the list can be endless, but you'll need to work out what you're willing to trade off. I like limiting the primary ones to three, but of course, you'll have a number of "additional criteria" — for me they included things like 'helping others grow' and 'delivering something tangible / measurable'. Sometimes you might even have enough of the additional criteria fulfilled that you might trade them for one of your primaries.
It also means that you can take your primary criteria and add some examples to illustrate. For example, I had a shortlist of things I was particularly interested in learning more about, but made it clear that the list was not exhaustive.
And those criteria can and will change and evolve over time, because you do. For example, for many years, my desire to work across cultures, meant I was willing to work across some pretty silly timezones and have a pretty gruelling travel schedule. More recently, a criteria around working more sustainably emerged, which meant making choices that allowed me to work more sensible hours and to spend fewer nights in hotels.
Having clear criteria also makes career conversations with others easier — both for you and for the person who is looking to understand how to support you. Rather than looking like a deer in the headlights when asked the goals question, you can respond with "I have a decision driven approach to my career rather than having specific goals for myself — I would love to talk about what that means."
So no, you don't need to know what you want to be when you grow up. But it's super helpful to know enough about yourself that you can help others help you grow.