Manila, 8 April 2021 — What your next career step needs.

Story

“Nothing is more powerful than people who do something because they want to do it,” wrote Rutger Bregman, a historian and author of Humankind: A Hopeful History. 

It happened in 2006. For me, Easter carries a message of renewal in life, and my reflection this past week was on rising up in a new life with new possibilities. That reflection took me back 15 years ago.

What happened in 2006 is that I started writing. I don’t mean the technical and policy reports and papers that I have been writing since the early 1980s (yes, really). No, the year 2006 was when I began a new adventure, to start blogging. My first post Deciding to Write came out in June of that year, and I continued writing reflections on life experiences, art, poetry, music, and philosophical questions. Every post with a photo.

In December 2006, I took my reflections to a new level when I started daily posts in an 83-day countdown to my 50th birthday. Why? Because I wanted to give myself the opportunity of exploring the next step in my career with more awareness and renewed motivation. And I realized that writing about my journey was going to help me do that.

Challenge

As my writing gained momentum, I remember seeing my decision to start blogging in the context of the experiences that people go through in midlife. I didn’t want that to be a crisis for me, but rather an opportunity that I could create and take the initiative in. To take my place in the driver’s seat. “What motivates you” was a key question for me to unlock the door to the next phase of my life.

Today, many of the leaders I work with are no longer waiting until midlife to ask themselves this question. Realizing you’re on a quest can be an experience you create at your quarter-of-life or third-of-life. And, who knows how long life will be anyway? 

The practice of reflecting on your life, your experience, and your quest for purpose — to make sense of where you are going and where you have come from — is both a good habit and an effective leadership behavior. And the motivation question helps you to get clear about your reason to pursue your quest.

Question

How do you find out your motivation and your next career step? In my experience, by writing and listening to what was bubbling up from deep inside me (inside-out) as well as listening to many others, far and wide (outside-in). For me, the latter involved listening to trusted colleagues and friends and to the coaches and mentors I consulted on my journey. Learning inside-out came quite naturally to me, yet I needed external help with learning outside-in. My mentors for that included Herminia Ibarra, an executive leadership expert and author of Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader.

Before 2006, I had already worked out that my purpose in life was to bring out the best in others. That seemed to match with my interest in people and in bringing people together across divides (disciplines, organizations, countries, etc.). What I discovered from my reflective writing and interviewing people was that my next career step was to become a coach. And in April 2007, less than a year after starting on my blogging journey, I entered a program to learn how to coach. I did this in the evenings and weekends outside my day job, and it would take me one and a half year to finish, with countless hours of coaching practice and feedback from the coach who reviewed my assignments.

What about you? What will your next career step be? And what will you do to find out? I hope that my story has given you some ideas. Bregman, the historian, reminds us that humankind stands out for our capacity to collaborate. As a leadership coach, that resonates with my experience that you get the best results from working together with others and by reflecting frequently on your progress. If that appeals to you, reach out and book a free strategy session about discovering your next career step together.