Looking Back at Your Career To Plan Your Next Step

I’m doing an audit: I’m taking four days to track what I eat. I want to figure out how to eat more protein in my diet. I’m excited about working with my coach to figure out how to get more protein in my food in a way that works for me.  But the first day of this audit was rough. I felt ashamed of the food I regularly eat, even though it’s not bad. I thought about how I should change my diet now even though my coach told me to record my food as it actually is rather than how I wish it should be. I wished I had started this process sooner, and if I’m really honest, questioned why I wasn’t eating perfectly already.

Does this sound familiar? In December and January when we’re bombarded with “New Year/New You!” messages and TikTok Glow Ups, it’s hard not to start taking stock or making resolutions, goals, and plans for the future. I’m doing nutrition coaching and this food audit because I mentioned it to my fitness coach on the spur of the moment on January 2. But, while most of us excel at beating ourselves up for not doing something or not doing something well in the past, we get bogged down pretty quickly when we have to start thinking about the future.

So, if you’ve been reading along and wondering what the fluffy (my daughter’s favorite way to use the F-bomb without actually using the F-bomb) my food tracking has to do with your career, it’s this: planning for the future involves looking at the past. And making an active choice to change. And change is hard, and a big energy suck at a time when most of us feel like we have no energy to spare. Whether it’s changing your diet, creating a new budget, saving money, or landing a new job, stopping to plan is uncomfortable and takes time that we need to carve out from other areas of our lives. And as a mom of a tween and a teen with a full-time job and a career coaching business, I feel this.

But, if you’re thinking of finding a new job this year or changing careers entirely, planning is essential. And the first part of planning is doing an audit of where you’ve been. Thinking through what worked in the past or what hasn’t worked and what you need going forward, will help you focus on companies that have cultures that align with your values, identify the types of problems you want to solve or work on, and be able to communicate this in informational interviews, job interviews, your LinkedIn Profile, and to your mom at Thanksgiving. Even if you know exactly what you want your next job to be this work is valuable.

If you hate planning or you find yourself getting bogged down in shame or other hard emotions, start your audit small. Take 30 minutes to do the following exercises:

1. Reflect on the last 12 months in your most recent or current job. Write down answers to the following questions:

 a. What did I do that makes me very proud when I think of it now?

 b. What did I do consistently that I enjoyed and makes me feel happy now when I think    about it?

 c. What were 3 things that I did as part of my daily work that I found tedious or that I    didn’t really want to do?

2. Look at your answers to A and B. Write down the words/ideas/actions that are present in both A and B.

3. Create a list that has the words from 1 and 2 on it. These are the things that are very important for you to do in future work.

Now that you have a list, you can start finding jobs and companies that align. Use LinkedIn and Google to start finding companies that might have your values in their Mission Statements or About pages. If you’re exploring a career change, use ChatGPT to generate job titles that use the skills you came up with on your list.

If you want to go more in-depth, check out my blog post on how to create a Career Throughline that helps you think about the whole of your career.