career drivers

In the previous episode, I talked about how you can learn a lot of details about what motivates you and what drains you from your daily work life. That was episode 3, which you can find at barbarakandersen.com/3.

Today, I’ll show you how to take a long-distance view and get a bigger perspective. Because you’re going to take a look at (and hopefully appreciate!) everything you’ve done in your career so far. 

A Trip Down Memory Lane
One of the most popular exercises I use with my clients when we work on their career and work situation is one I call “The Career Journey”. 

My clients like it because it’s a very positive exercise that allows you to remember and rediscover all your achievements, the problems you’ve overcome, the challenges you worked through, the great people you met, etc.

And I enjoy guiding my clients in the exercise because it invariably brings smiles to their eyes and pride in their voices when they take me through some of the important highlights of their career and life choices.

The thing is, that in our day-to-day work we’re so busy focussing on all the boxes we still haven’t checked. The things on the to-do list we still haven’t done and everything else that’s not yet been achieved. 

And with our eyes fixed on that, we completely lose sight of everything that we have done, all the things we have achieved in life and work. The challenges we’ve overcome. The projects and tasks we succeeded in. 

When you shine a light on everything you’ve done in your past there’s normally a lot of pride, motivation and energy you can reap from it. Pride and energy that can help you in your journey going forward.

And there is also a lot you can learn – or rediscover - about yourself. About your values, your strong and weak points, and the things that drive you. Things you really should take forward. Because the essential elements of your good work experiences (and the less great ones) are key also for what gives you a happy work-life today.

Get Creative
It’s a visual exercise and if you’re just a bit of the creative kind it’ll spark your artistic energies.

But don’t worry, even if you don’t consider yourself creative at all, it’s an easy exercise that will give you a great overview. And this time you’ll do it all in one go – there’s no need to carry a log with you.

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/4. 

Hello, and welcome to this second episode in a small series I’ve called: “What Drives You – And What Drains You?”

 And I thought that that would also be a fitting title for today’s episode.

In the previous episode (the one I called “Your UN Career Project Starts Here” – which is episode number 2) I talked about how we can easily get so caught up in work and the struggles of daily life that we lose track of what we really want for ourselves. 

So, for many of us, we’ve gotten a bit out of touch – or maybe actually a lot out of touch - with the person we dreamed to be. And the professional life we dreamed to have when we started out in our career. 

Of course, what you want could have changed over the years. But do you ever set aside the time to reflect on what it is?

Where are you going?
Imagine that you’ve been driving your “career car” for a while now. You’ve been driving a bit fast because it feels like you’re late all the time. The traffic is dense and you’re starting to feel tired and in need of a break. You’re busy following the GPS instructions, so you’re not really noticing the direction you’re taking. And you’re no longer entirely sure what the address is that you put in? Or if that is still the place you want to go to? And with the weather conditions and the traffic – you’re also not completely sure that you’re even following the best route?

So, this is your opportunity to pull over, get out of the car, have a good stretch, look at the map (remember those paper maps that you fold out to get an overview of the landscape?), and ponder the best way to go from here.

Set aside a bit of time to put a spotlight on you and your dreams and ambitions for your UN Career.

And the best way to start is by taking a good hard look at the present realities. To stay with the “career car” image, you need to know where you are right now in order to get the best use of the map.

So, in the previous episode, I advocated that you should invest some time in collecting data for your “Project You” – your own personal UN Career Project. Just as you would if starting on a new work project.

In essence, I recommended that you write down what you’re doing every half hour for at least a day – and preferably up to a week. And that you put a smiley next to each task or activity. Using happy smileys, neutral smileys and unhappy smileys.

And if you did what I suggested last time, you then reviewed everything you wrote down - your log - and tried to think a bit like an anthropologist. Being curious and investigative about all the various activities you’d written down.

I thought I would share that the reason why I recommend this exercise is that it’s very helpful for many of my clients. But also because it’s been enormously useful in my own life. 

I did it first time around 12 years back when I worked with a psychologist to get back to work after stress leave. There it helped me find the times of the day that were the most stressful for me and find solutions to those. 

 And later I’ve used it exactly like we use it here today – to find out what were the tasks and actions in my work that gave me the most energy and made me feel good about myself when I left the office at the end of the day. And this became the starting point for the way I changed my own career tracks.

Digging deeper
So, today, we’re going to go more into detail with the analysis of the data you collected – your log. And we’re going to start looking at what you can do to get more of “what drives you” and less of “what drains you”.

Last time, I suggested that for each day you count how many happy smileys, neutral smileys and unhappy smileys you have... Go to Barbarakandersen.com/3 to see the full show notes.