The one question behind every good career decision.
A simple exercise that works at any career stage, for any kind of work.
How do you describe your work? Is it a job, a career, a profession, a calling or something else entirely?
In my years of coaching, I’ve seen that people use a lot of terms to describe their work, and often the language they choose says something about what their work means to them.
Any job approached with integrity and a commitment to lifelong learning can become a career, and any line of work can be a profession. Intention is what makes the difference.
The starting point is knowing what matters most to you, and then using that knowledge to design a work life that aligns with your priorities, now and at any stage of career.
A touchstone for making better career decisions
Identifying what matters most to you is the first step in my Professional Careers by Design model. You can use it as a touchstone for any professional decision. You don’t need the book to try it, but it’s available here if you’d like to go deeper.
Grab a piece of paper or open a doc and settle into a quiet, comfortable place. Think about your life holistically: work, of course, but also family, friends, personal interests and goals. You have one wild and precious life, as the poet Mary Oliver wrote. Use this as your lens.
List your top 10 priorities. Here’s a made-up example:
Time with my children
My painting hobby
Traveling the world
Saving for kids’ college
Starting an organic flower stand
Connection with my spouse
Becoming a partner at my firm
Giving back to my faith community
Building a fitness habit
Supporting my father through his illness
There are no wrong answers. Everyone’s list will look a little different.
What does a list like this have to do with career design? A few items speak directly to work: becoming a partner, saving for college, and perhaps time with family if this person can pull back on their schedule.
But dig in a bit, and you start to see where personal and professional intersect. Suppose this person ranks the list in order of priority:
Time with my children
Connection with my spouse
Supporting my father through his illness
Saving for kids’ college
Building a fitness habit
Giving back to my faith community
Traveling the world
My painting hobby
Starting an organic flower stand
Becoming a partner at my firm
The ranked list tells a clearer story. What this person seems to want most is time with family and the resources to support them. That insight shapes better career decisions. Maybe time with family takes precedence right now over the work it would take to become a partner. Or maybe becoming a partner IS the path to more time with family and better compensation, and the list gets reordered again.
Identifying what matters most is just the beginning. More Than Work is where I continue this work: tools, frameworks and real conversations to help you create greater alignment between your work and your life, at any career stage.
The question works regardless of how you’d describe your work, or what stage you’re at.
This is part of a small collection I’m sharing ahead of the launch of More Than Work, my new newsletter for professionals at every career stage figuring out what comes next. If what you read here resonates, the newsletter is more of this, every week. I’d love to have you on the list.