Here is a quick gut check: when did you last actually choose something about your career, rather than just accept whatever came next?
Not ‘when did you last get a promotion.’ Not ‘when did you last change jobs.’ But rather, when did you last sit down, on purpose, and decide what you wanted your career to do for you and then go and make it happen?
For a lot of people, the honest answer is: a long time ago. For some, maybe never.
Drift feels like nothing is happening. It’s actually a lot happening just not by you.
A client of mine came to coaching after fifteen years in corporate life, in a job he was good at, paid well for, yet quietly hated. Nothing dramatic had gone wrong. He hadn’t been overlooked or mistreated. He’d simply said yes enough times; to the next project, the next reorg, the next “obvious” step. So much so, that one day he looked up and realised the career in front of him wasn’t one he’d chosen. It was one that had happened to him.
That’s drift. And it’s sneaky, because it doesn’t feel like a decision at all. It feels like nothing is happening. In reality, a decision is being made every single day you don’t make one the decision to keep going as you are. Or to place you where you are most useful to the organisation not where is best for your career development.
Now my client didn’t need a five-year plan to get unstuck. He needed to notice that he’d stopped choosing, and start again. Eighteen months later, he’d left the corporate structure entirely and built something of his own. It helped that our coaching helped him to create his new career map but mainly because, through coaching, he finally asked himself the question he’d been avoiding for years: what do I actually want this to look like?
Taking back control doesn’t mean having it all figured out
This is the bit people get wrong. They think “taking control of my career” means arriving at some grand, fully-formed plan; the five-year vision, the perfect next job title, total certainty about the destination.
It doesn’t. Control isn’t about certainty. It’s about noticing the choice points that are already there and the ones drift has been quietly making for you. Once noticed we then working on making decisions and choices on purpose instead.
Three key coaching questions worth considering this week
- What’s 1 thing about your current role or direction that you’ve never actually chosen but allowed it to just happened?
- If you said yes to something at work purely out of habit or obligation this month, what was it and would you say yes again?
- What would this year look like if you made one decision on purpose, instead of letting it drift?
You don’t need the whole answer today. You just need to notice you’re allowed to ask the question.
If you’re ready to go further and to work out what you actually want and put it into words you can say with confidence, in a review, an interview, or a conversation with your manager then my free session Own Your Career Value walks you through exactly that. Two dates this September: Tuesday 15th at 6pm, and Thursday 24th at 12pm.
