If you are feeling exhausted, struggling with self-worth or imposter syndrome, wondering how to find joy in your work, or looking for your next role, a strategic self-assessment can help. This reflective practice can help you to gain clarity on your professional direction, recognize and celebrate your achievements, build confidence in your abilities, identify areas for growth, and ultimately, align your values and strengths with your career goals for a purpose-driven path. Having a job and career that brings you energy, fuels your enthusiasm, and aligns with your personal life is something everyone deserves, so if you haven’t found it yet, follow these steps and get started on your strategic self-assessment:
1. Consider your values and what motivates you:
Reflect on your core values. What are the principles and beliefs that are most important to you? You can find a list here to help you think through this exercise. Additionally, what ethics, work environment, and societal contributions matter most in your professional life? Identify activities and projects that inspire and energize you. What tasks make you lose track of time? Pinpointing these passion points provides valuable clues to align your career with what brings you joy and fulfillment. Ultimately, you want to understand what truly motivates you. Is it personal growth, making a positive impact, financial stability, or a combination of factors? Recognizing your motivational drivers is crucial for setting meaningful and fulfilling career goals.
2. Consider your past successes, both big and small:
Document your achievements by creating a comprehensive list of accomplishments from major milestones to minor victories throughout your career. This can include successful projects, positive feedback, learning moments, or instances where you overcame challenges. Expand the reflection to include areas of your personal life that feel important and impactful, especially if you’re involved in passion projects or communities that you feel strongly about. Where possible, quantify the impact of your achievements. Whether it's increased revenue, improved efficiency, enhanced team dynamics, or making the world a better place through community initiatives, attaching numbers provides context for your success.
3. Identify the skills and strengths that contributed to these successes:
Identify the skills, both technical and soft, that played a crucial role in these achievements. Look for recurring themes or patterns in your successes, because these often showcase your strengths. Think about how you approached these situations initially and what strengths you leveraged that contributed to positive outcomes, including creativity, leadership, teamwork, adaptability, etc. For insights that might not be apparent to you, ask colleagues, mentors, and friends who were involved in those achievements for concrete examples of skill and strength areas where they believe you excelled.
4. Expand on that inventory of your skills:
This includes the technical skills you are proficient in, relevant to your industry or field like programming languages, specialized tools, and specific domain expertise, as well as the behavioral skills, such as communication, leadership, adaptability, teamwork, and problem-solving, which are just as critical as technical abilities. Rate your proficiency in each skill on a scale and evaluate how each aligns with the requirements of your current or desired role. This can help you identify areas where you excel and areas that may require further development in a way that is directly applicable to your career goals.
5. Align your career goals with your strengths and values:
Think about your career goals. Do you want to manage people or be an individual contributor? Do you want to get promoted or have a wider breadth of scope? Do you want to provide impact in a specific domain or are you interested in a wide variety of possibilities? Do you want to help nurture something or do you want to disrupt? Are you a pioneer, eager to explore new areas, or a settler, happier when there are some paved paths ahead of you? Do you want flexibility in your work location or hours? Do you have a minimum requirement for compensation to support yourself and your family? Ensure that your career goals resonate with your answers from each of the previous steps in this process. If your values center around innovation and creativity, for example, your career goals should involve roles or projects that allow you to express these values.
6. Evaluate how your career goals align with your personal life:
Consider both your personal life and your career goals and assess how your professional aspirations align with your family life, hobbies, health, and personal development. Reflect on how your career goals might positively or negatively impact your personal well-being. Strive for a holistic approach integrating your work and personal life in a way that allows you to excel professionally without compromising your health, relationships, or personal interests.
7. Picture your career north star for a purpose driven career:
What does success look like to you? Imagine the type of work you are doing, the impact you are making, and the level of satisfaction you are experiencing. Define your career aspirations and where you see yourself in 5, 10, or 20 years. Be specific about the role, industry, and the contributions you are making. If you have strong feelings that your future could be one of a few possibilities, do this exercise for each of those. Try to prioritize and limit your north stars to no more than five possibilities.
After completing your self-assessment, the next step is to convert your insights into an actionable plan that leverages your strengths, addresses areas for improvement, and aligns your skills and values with your career goals. The reflection and feedback gathered through this process are invaluable tools for navigating your career path with intentionality and confidence.
In the pursuit of a fulfilling purpose-driven career, introspection and vision-setting are powerful tools. By reflecting on values, envisioning a long-term future, and balancing personal and professional goals, you're not just shaping a career; you're taking an intentional approach to creating a life that resonates with meaning.
Sign up for a free coaching consultation today for support and guidance along your journey.
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