What’s your career vision? Here’s how I uncovered mine.
I had an incredible opportunity to live on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State for 12 years. Port Ludlow is about 2 hours Northwest of Seattle near Canada, entailing a car and ferry to reach the final destination. My husband and I built our dream home in a rural county with a small population of 27,000. It was so small that I was called for jury duty twice within two years, and both my husband and I were selected to be on the same jury. I didn’t even think that was legal!
It was where I learned about nature. Specifically, I was fascinated by a pair of resident eagles who perched on our high bank tree overlooking the Puget Sound for literally hours. Talk about dedication. While working from my home office, I watched them fly, fish, hunt, and raise eaglets. Truly magical.
All birds of prey have an excellent long-distance vision, but eagles stand out. They can see clearly about eight times as far as humans can, allowing them to spot and focus in on a rabbit or other animal at a distance of about two miles. Natures meal plan. Bald eagles mate for life and typically live up to 30 years in the wild.
What they remind me of is the importance of focus and relationships for survival.
Let’s Talk About You
Since you gained 1-hour commuting time within the past 4 months, approximately 80 hours, it looks like your schedule opened up for that whiteboard session with yourself!
Your career vision is related to your brand, crafting a mental image of the future. What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s putting the proverbial stake in the ground, allowing you to have a tangible goal. To plan, it stands to reason you need a destination.
Consider your vision to be the North Star for mapping out your success strategy. Based on my clients, I’ve observed that most careers are not linear, which is perfectly OK. Course correction happens whether you want it or not. Like Covid, it threw us a curveball.
Corporate Vision
But, Monique, creating a career vision, sounds challenging! Let’s make it easy. For inspiration, I suggest you check out what companies have developed.
According to the Business Directory a corporate vision provides “an aspirational description of what an organization would like to achieve or accomplish in the mid-term or long-term future. It is intended to serve as a clear guide for choosing current and future courses of action.” Below is a broad section of corporate visions to consider.
- Life Is Good: To spread the power of optimism.
- Google: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
- Microsoft: Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
- Walmart: Be THE destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop.
My favorite is the first one, great sentiment plus cuts to the chase.
Personal Vision
When you play with this concept, you should consider your inspiration, simplicity, and actions. My mentor and I brainstormed the following for creating your statement:
- What makes me happy?
- If you could swap places with a person, who and why?
- What’s best for my family?
- What are my values, including non-negotiables?
- What inspires me?
- How will I know I made it?
- What’s the legacy I want to leave behind?
- What’s my career aspiration?
- What does financial security look like?
I can swap stories with you on these. Simply set up a 15-minute virtual coffee in the morning or a rosé session in the afternoon.
Live Career has a list of sample statements to kick start your thought process.
I decided to play along and came up with two visions. The first for my life and the second for my career:
- Life: If it doesn’t bring you joy, bail
- Career: Hanging out with Pat supersedes career consulting
I became my client today when it came to deciding about a consulting offer. Two months ago, a company that supports other companies for employee layoffs reached out to me about contracting. First off, companies are hiring. Secondly, they reached out to me based upon my LinkedIn profile. Third, I was on the fence. As my client, this was a great experience to share with others regarding the process, frustration, applying best practices, networking, negotiating, and, ultimately, decision-making. Today, I received word on the final offer. I thought about my vision statements above and decided to decline. Surprisingly, it was a weight off my shoulders; I didn’t even know existed. Yes, even in a pandemic, people are turning down offers if they don’t address their needs. News alert, a blog is coming about “The Job Offer” later this month.
One of the best lessons I’ve learned is making my marriage and friendships a priority over career. If you make $1M per year, but no one wants to hang out with you, epic fail. Unfortunately, I have seen it so often with friends and current clients.
What’s your career vision? I would love to hear your thoughts.
