It’s surprising what twists and turns our careers can take as we move from one opportunity to the next. For some of us it can be part of a grand plan, but that is not the case for most of us. Looking at your career journey to date will help you identify what the motivations behind your moves have been and how that worked out in terms of the roles you took. I created the career map using the framework from my one-time mentor and now dearly-departed friend, Mario Van Boeschoten, who did biographical work with me to help understand what old habits and drivers might be affecting my life. It was enormously useful at the time, so I adapted it to work in a business setting for my coaching clients, with great success.
Why is career mapping so powerful?
Have you ever done a long hike or even a mountain climb? I must admit I’m not a regular hiker, but I have done it from time to time. There’s a point you often reach at the halfway or two-thirds mark where you don’t feel you can go any further. You are filled with weariness. Your bones ache, your shoes hurt, there are blisters on blisters and each step feels like a lead weight is attached to your limbs. At some point you take a break, and as often as not, you have a view of how far you have come and what still needs to be climbed.
When you can look back at the journey so far, its twists and turns, you can appreciate how much you have achieved. As you take it all in, you realise not only how far you have come, but how much easier it will be from there. Not because you have some new-found superpower, but because you know and understand that the resilience which has brought you so far will take you the rest of the way. Career mapping releases a similar energy and a sense of purpose. We are no longer putting one weary foot in front of another with no end in sight, but seeing it as part of an arc of a much bigger journey – one that will end in success and a sense of being in the right place.
How to conduct the career mapping exercise
This is very much a paper exercise. Of course you can do it on a computer, but you may miss the important insights and perceptions that come to us when we are actually writing and thinking using paper and pen. A large piece of paper is best for this – if you have flip chart paper, great. If not, just stick together six or eight sheets of A4 (US Letter) to make a large landscape area.
Draw a horizontal line half way along the paper. Above the line, you will record all your positive experiences and below the line you will record the less than positive experiences. Starting with your earliest job, plot out what it was, what tasks it involved and why you have plotted it as either negative or positive. You can make the highs and lows relative. Some might be higher or lower on your chart based on how it felt compared to others. Mark the timeline with the year/s for each one. When you have finished, sit back to take it in for a while and then leave it for a day or two. A gap is important for the next stage.
When you return to your map, use a sheet of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle to split the page into left and right. Mark the two columns as negative and positive. Returning to your map, look at your different roles and then circle all the words you have used to describe each work experience. Transfer these into the negative and positive columns. Sit with your words and look at what themes emerge. Are there some tasks and duties that you particularly like or dislike? Do you see any powerful motivators about what is important to you in your career? Are there any surprises?
Ask yourself: How well does my current role fulfill my ambitions and motivate me? Write down your answer. Using pen and paper for this exercise will glean more insights than working from a computer as you are using the more creative part of your brain which will reveal more of your hidden drivers and insights.
This is an excerpt from The Female Edge. which you can buy from Amazon