The road trip to a fulfilling career (2 of 3) : Plotting the course

Posted on March 13, 2022 by Shawn Yates, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

In the last article we started the analogy comparing attaining a fulfilling career to a vacation road trip. Having set the destination of our road trip, we are ready for step two – plotting the course to our destination.

For our vacation road trip this used to involve things like flipping through pages in an atlas and getting a TripTik from AAA. Of course now days you pretty much just type the address in your GPS and BOOM, you have a route. But there is more to it than that most of the time. Maybe we want to stop to see the worlds largest ball of twine on the way. If it’s a multi-day trip we need to plan where we will stop each day. There may be weather to take into account as well as avoiding rush hours around cities. We try to account for what we know and what we think might happen as we plan the journey to our destination.

Planning your career road trip is no less complicated, and in most cases its actually far less predictable than your typical vacation road trip. None the less, you need to plot the course you will follow to reach your career destination. In most cases, there is not one single right path. This means you need to think through which path is best for you based on everything that is a part of you.

To help my clients explore the paths, we start with actions based on exploring how others have reached the same or similar career destination. Clients will look for others who have done similar things and learn what they can about the path they took.

We will look at the logistics of their path with questions like:
• What is in their history?
• What roles did they hold?
• What companies did they work for or start?
• What training and education do they have?
• What events do they attend?
• Where to they network?

As we explore a few examples of the paths of others, we know we are creating a unique path, not finding one to copy. To enable that, as we examine the logistics of each path through the lens of the values and goals of the client. We explore questions such as:

• What about that path attracts/repels you?
• Which parts of that path would be hard/easy for you?
• Where on that path would you learn and grow?
• What part of that path do you want to integrate into your own path?

After 2-3 sessions focused on exploring paths and defining the client’s unique path, we usually have enough of an idea to stop planning and start moving! Don’t get me wrong though, there will have been plenty of learning, exploring and growth already. But now, its time to shift the energy to focus on forward momentum!

So now it’s time to pack the car until you can’t see out the rear-view mirror, pile in the wife and kids and pull out of the driveway. No matter how well you plan the vacation, it won’t be much fun if you don’t get started by hitting the road! You have to move forward to get to that awesome vacation no matter what the destination.

And so it goes with our career road trip – we have to start making forward movement and that’s what I will talk about in my next article! I hope you will join me there!