Is Your Career on Track? Part 1 : Assessing your Vision, Strengths, and Opportunities

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while and I do apologize. I’ve spent quite a bit of time creating my new website: www.upcoached.com. Please let me know what you think! And yes, I will gratefully accept any recommendation you wish to give on the website as well. Thank you.

Now, let’s get back to your career:

Is your career where you want it to be right now?

There are times when the day to day busyness of your job prevents you from looking at the big picture of your career and where it’s headed. It’s important to take the time to provide perspective into your profession as a way of increasing overall career fulfillment. This perspective allows you to determine what steps you need to take to move your career in the direction you want it to be.

Three factors are critical in the assessment of your career: Self-awareness, relationships, and networking. These are three factors that heavily influence your career now and in the future.

Self-assessment is a great place to start. This is about taking the time to be introspective and thoughtful about where you are and where you want to be in the future. What do you love about the career you’ve chosen? Is it fulfilling? What kind of feedback have you received about your strengths and opportunity areas? What do you want to work on? Can you set some goals?

At the same time, relationships with others are also critical. There’s a relationship with your boss…a A truly important person in your career. There are also relationships in building a support team, such as mentors or sponsors. All of these factors are good to take a look at as well.

This article begins with self-assessment. Next week, we will cover the relationship assessment, followed by networking.

Take the time to answer the following questions thoughtfully and honestly. No one else needs to see these answers. The whole exercise is designed to make you really think about where your career is and what actions are available to you now and in the future.

Are you ready? Let’s go…

Are you doing what you love? Is your career fulfilling you? A fulfilling career is one where you truly enjoy the work that you do. Yes, there are ups and downs, but for the most part, you enjoy the work assigned. You feel fulfillment in your work. What specific aspects of your career do you enjoy the most? If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, take a look at what’s missing for you. This could be an indication of the need to change jobs or careers.

Do you have the right amount of work/life balance? I once had a job that required about 14 to 16 hours per day. It was unnecessarily demanding and for all of those hours, I ended up receiving very little in return, in the long run. It’s always important to strike a balance. How’s your balance? Is it where you want it to be? Do you have a life outside of work?

Are you looking for a promotion? Who knows this? At one point in my career, I thought everyone in leadership knew that I was looking for my next promotion. Never assume! As it turned out, a chance golf game where I was paired with my VP enabled me to discuss this with her. Her reaction was shocking. She didn’t know I was working toward the promotion before this chance meeting. Leaders are very busy people and don’t know what they don’t know. Never assume that they do.

How’s your self-marketing? Doing a great job is just the “ticket to the dance.” It’s not enough to do an outstanding job. You need a self-marketing strategy that works. How do you self-market? Is there a peer that does a great job of this (there usually is!)? What techniques can you “borrow” from that person?

If you’ve ever done a 360 assessment, what are some of your strength and challenge areas? Or have you received feedback on performance reviews? What are you doing to address these? Constructive feedback should always be viewed as important and addressed in some way. Do you need to do anything differently? Behaviors? Knowledge? All important to look at. Do you have a plan to work on these?

What do you need to learn more about? We all have some knowledge gaps. How do you work to close these gaps and expand your knowledge?

Answer these questions and pay close attention to the insights you have about the state of your career.
What are you seeing in your answers? What actions, if any, do you want to take?

ACTION CHALLENGE

Take the Career Track assessment and share your results with a trusted friend, advisor, or coach. Think about this as the beginning of constructing a Career Road Map. Determine what strategies and goals you can address from this assessment.

 

Lupe S. Wood, MS, PCC, is a certified Career/Executive Coach. She coaches individuals and leaders to career fulfillment, transition, and advancement. She also consults for results with businesses and solopreneurs. Her background includes 12 years in senior leadership for a Fortune 100 corporation and 7 years as a coach, with a Master’s degree in Organizational Effectiveness and Executive Coaching.

 

For more information, please visit my website at www.upcoached.com