Blueprint for your Dream Career
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life – Confucius.”
This eBook uses the knowledge gained over the past 25 years to build a blueprint for your dream career. It will guide you through several models designed to uncover your real drivers, understand your values, and identify your dream job.
I have used these models in building my career, from NVQ in hairdressing to Board members in FTSE250, as well as with numerous senior leaders around the world to unlock their dream roles and make them a reality.
What are you running from? Why having a plan is important.
PUSH Factors
PULL Factors
Visioning
NEWS
Energy Drivers Energy Zappers
Your Personal Blueprint
What are you running from – why having a plan is important?
Do you ever think about your future and wonder what it will be? Are you frustrated in your current role and looking to build a different career? We have all had those moments when we think we are destined to do something different, that this can’t be all there is, and that surely there is more.
And there is; the world is your oyster, and if you are clear on your goals and willing to put in the hard work, you will achieve them.
Just like you, I have felt those things over the years. I started as a hairdressing apprentice. Being a hairdresser was my destiny, and I loved every minute. I set up my salon at 19, at 24, I became severely allergic to perm lotion and had to sell my business. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I took a job like so many of us and thought I could figure out the plan later.
It appeared to work for a while as I was promoted quickly through the bank, and I thought all was good until I made the biggest career mistake. I have relocated for this new role and convinced myself it was exactly what I sought. When I started, I knew immediately that I had made a mistake, that I was repeating mistakes. I realised that rather than thinking about what job I wanted, I had allowed my frustration with the situation to colour my judgment. I wasn’t running towards the career of my dreams; I was running away from my reality. It was a hard lesson to learn, and I was fortunate as a previous company came back with another job, and I spent the next 18 months commuting back to where I relocated.
I know from personal experience that, without realising it, we can focus on what we don’t want instead of on what we do, which ultimately leads to disappointment and bad career choices.
The critical thing is having a plan; as Lewis Carroll said, “if you don’t have a plan, any road will take you there.”
I realised that I needed to have a plan if I wanted to have control over my career, so I started to research how I could build the right strategy. As part of my research, I identified models that helped me understand my key drivers and what I was looking for in my dream career.
This ebook shares these models with you to enable you to map out the blueprint of your dream career as I know they work.
I used these models to propel my career from hairdressing apprentice to C-Suite in an FTSE250, and I now sit on several boards and work as an executive coach helping senior leaders to achieve their dreams.
It also helps guild you through ensuring you have not only a clear goal but a robust plan to get you there. After all, if you don’t have a clear plan, how will you know when you have achieved it? I remember discussing a personal development plan with a colleague many years ago. He had written that his short-term goal was to be a powerful project manager. When I questioned him a little more on what that would look like and felt like he was surprised to discover he had already achieved it many months earlier, he was sought out by others to be involved in their projects and provide expert guidance. He just hadn’t written the goal in a way that let him know it had been achieved and was now time to focus on the next target.
This ebook gives you the tools and resources to help you define your goals and to know when you have achieved them.
Making sure that you have the right plan
is essential if you want to achieve your goal. Having clarity on precisely what you want to achieve and what makes you happy is imperative for you to find the right career.
It also provides you with simple tools and techniques which will enable you to work through what you’re looking for and, almost as importantly what you’re not looking for.
We all have different dreams, skills and talents; we aim to help you understand yours and write a blueprint specific to you that will underpin your personal goals, deliver a solid plan and put you back in control of your career.
At the end of the ebook, support is available in the form of either additional reading, resources or coaching, which can be provided either through a webinar or via one-to-one individual support
PUSH Factors
The first step is to identify what is driving you to leave your current role. – These are your PUSH Factors
| What do you want to change? | |
| Why is that important to you? | |
| Why is that important now? | |
| Is there anything else that you would want? | |
| How urgent is it to you? | |
| How sure are you ? |
PULL Factors
Next consider what is important in your next career move? – These are your PULL Factors
| What do you want to change? | |
| Why is that important to you? | |
| Why is that important now? | |
| How sure are you? | |
| How urgent is it to you? | |
| How sure are you ? |
Now that you understand what you want to move away from and what you want to move towards, we can consider the other drivers. Visioning is an excellent tool for this, as it helps you think about where you will be at various stages in the coming years.
For visioning, I recommend you think about all aspects of your life; work does not exist in isolation.
So, consider what I want to be doing, what I want for my family, and my relationship, even down to what car I want to drive and what holiday I want to take. The more clarity you can get on your vision, the easier it is to turn it into reality.
Visioning
To be successful, you need to ensure that you are running to a new role and not running from what you currently have.
| A critical test of “running to” is articulating how you think the new role will meet your career aspirations. If you cannot articulate them, you are either not ready to commit to a new position or the role you are considering is not the right one. | |
| Looking back,I will be happy if…. | |
| 6 monthsfrom starting | |
| 12 months from starting | |
| 36 months from starting | |
| 60 months from starting | |
NEWS
Once you have a job role, you are considering another useful model to identify your core values and ensure your career aspirations align called NEWS. In this model, you will ask yourself several questions to ascertain what is important to you against your Needs, Ethics, Wants and Skills.
In the coming pages give yourself a NEWS (Needs, Ethics, Wants and Skills) Score between 0 and 4, be honest with yourself:
- – On anything means that, regardless of other scores, you will not take this job because of the “0.”
- – Minimum Accepted – can only be for one item (rest must be 3+)
- – Acceptable
- – Expected
- – Above expected 5 – Outstanding
If anything scores a 0, the role is not right. Also, if you have more than one area at a one or if several things are three or below: beware the job is starting to look a poor fit overall even if some elements are excellent.
Needs
| Description. | Score. | |
| Location | ||
| Commute | ||
| Travel | ||
| Working Hours | ||
| Work Place Flexibility | ||
| Base Salary | ||
| Core Benefits | ||
| Responsible Manager/Officer Roles | ||
| Other |
Ethics
| Description. | Brand perception of the firm | |
| Sector | ||
| Corporate culture | ||
| Specific firms | ||
| Corporateculture | ||
| Reporting line | ||
| Matrix working | ||
| Other |
Wants
| Description | Score | |
| Role team resources | ||
| Role title | ||
| Role scope | ||
| Role teamresources | ||
| Role budget and tools | ||
| Role geographies and regulatory regimes | ||
| Role growth and development options |
Skills
| Description | Score. | |
| Have | ||
| Have-ish | ||
| Want to learn | ||
| Have not and do not want to learn | ||
| Have learned but do not want to use as much/at all in future |
Energy Drivers
Firstly, ensure you are in the right state of mind to ensure the best chance of success. Make sure you have time and are relaxed, then write down all the things you love to do or that give you energy (mainly from a work context but can include leisure)—these are your Energy Drivers.
Energy Zappers
Now write down all the things you hate doing or that drain your energy. These are your Energy Zappers.
Once you have finished, go back to the energy drivers and work through the ones you couldn’t live without being part of you daily.
Again, with the energy zappers, which ones couldn’t you bear to be part of your everyday?
It gives you your extremes, and what’s left are things you could live with if you had to /weren’t able to do every day without it harming how you feel.
Add this to the work you have completed on PULL and PUSH Factors and visioning, and you have a Blueprint for your career plan.
It will help when reviewing potential roles as you can make sure the role not only meets what you are running to, it also has the things you can’t live without and not the ones you can’t live with.
Now you can build a clear plan for the career of your dreams and the steps you need to take to achieve it.
As Oprah Winfrey said, “There is no greater adventure than living the life of your dreams.”
Your Career Blueprint
Now that you have worked through these models, you are ready to start to build your plan. You clearly know what you are looking for and, equally importantly, what you are not looking for.
Your next step is to start looking for the right roles that will achieve your newfound clarity and use the outputs of these models to check their fit with your plan.
Once you have a role that fits, work through the description and ask yourself which of these skills you have. Which do I know I excel at? Which can I do but know I lack consistency? Which do I have no idea if I can or can’t do as I have never tried before? Be brutally honest, and ask a trusted colleague or mentor if possible.
From this, you can work through how you turn the volume up on the ones that are your strengths. How do you gain consistency on the ones you need to develop? And finally, how do you get exposure to the ones you have never tried?
The outputs of this become your development plan.
Please share it with the people you want to help you achieve your dreams.
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