There’s layoffs all over the tech sector. There's news of small businesses increasing hiring. There's news of big companies firing. And everybody in the middle is just trying to figure out what is the next step for them. Let’s talk about your career Vision.
What is a Career Vision?
A vision for your career is about clarifying your definition of success at a specific point in the future. It’s about choosing a date and creating a future memory of what you want to be doing and impacting along the way to that future point, specifically around your professional life. It should be intentionally vague around what you’re doing or your title or salary, and also extremely specific about how it makes you feel, what nonnegotiables you’re unwilling to compromise on, and the roadmap to get there.
Take a step back, and remember that your Vision is personal and professional. It's necessarily holistic.
So even when you're thinking about your vision for your career, it's not in a vacuum, and it doesn't stand alone. The career you're building is also helping you create the life that you want, and that your life is not just solely focused on your career.
🤓 If you’re a manager wondering how to use Visioning instead of an IDP to motivate your team, read our guide on Employee Vision.
How is a Career Vision different from a traditional individual development plan or an IDP?
An IDP is something that an employee would normally get at work after a couple months of being in a role, which might help them break down some goals for the future in relation to their role at the company.
There are company goals and company objectives and company initiatives. Then there are team initiatives and team goals and all that filters down to you and what you need to do in your role. You need to be able to do those things to contribute to where the company is headed and move along your path.
Visioning is the process of asking yourself, is this role the vehicle to help me get where I ultimately want to go in my career and the life that I'm creating as a whole?
Goal setting is often about traditional problem solving and how to fix it. A Vision is different from goal setting and says, before we even think about the how, why am I even going on this journey? Why am I in this role?
Again, how is this role going to be a vehicle to get me where I ultimately want to go? Professionally and personally and financially?
How to create a Career Vision
Sit down, get a piece of paper and a pen.
Pick a date in the future, whether it’s a deadline or a year from now.
Start with a single sentence: “It's January. 26th, 2024. And I'm so proud of the career development that I've experienced this year.
From the very first sentence, we’re writing it in the present tense, like it's already happened.
You're essentially creating a memory of the future, which was coined by one of my amazing clients, Kevin Bailey, who is the phenomenal CEO of DreamFuel, and has a team of great mindset coaches for elite performers and elite people in business and their teams.
Drop yourself into that future state and really be there.
Hear it and see it and smell it, touch it, taste it, feel it.
We trick our brains into not being able to tell if it’s fake, or a true memory that we’re just catching up to.
When you create when you write that vision in the present tense, you're making that declaration that I am making my professional growth happen. My job isn't going to just happen to me. I'm not just gonna sit back and see what happens over the next year. I’m going to make it happen.
A Career Vision is evidence based
What would be the evidence a year from now or two years from now that I had gotten to where I wanted to go in my career growth? This activates a different part of our minds.
No: I want to become a SQL master so I will take a course.
Yes: It’s January 26, 2024 and I am a SQL master. I have built multiple databases using the program, two of which are published online. I’m grateful for the network of experts and mentors I’ve built throughout the year as I sought to further my skills. This new avenue for growth is much needed at my company, and also opens me up to other roles, which I’m newly open minded to.
Instead of hitting random OKRs and KPIS, you’re asking, How will I know?
Do this Career Visioning exercise
I were to come have lunch with you a year from now, how would I know that you'd really grown professionally without you saying “gee whiz Lois, I've sure have grown professionally over this past year” ? As you write your career Vision, answer these questions:
What would be different?
How would you hold yourself?
What would be on your calendar?
What would be your new morning routine?
How would it feel at the end of the day? At the beginning?
What kinds of projects would be lighting you up?
How would you show up differently as a team member and a leader?
Maybe you would say hey, Lois, I can't even meet for lunch because I'm going to be on a plane and I'm speaking at an event next month.
And.. that would be the evidence that you had gotten to where you wanted to go in that way.
How do I bring this up to my boss?
To be honest with you, it's probably going to have to be something that's self-led, because I think a lot of times, managers don't necessarily know how to start this conversation. I mean, True North is one of the only places where we actually teach Visioning.
Your manager will be able to present where you can go along the role path at that company. Here’s the next level, and the next, etc. But they aren’t going to be able to help you define success at that specific point in the future, whether it's a year or two years, because it’s going to take into account releasing old ways of thinking and opening up new ways for the current role you’re in.
What do I do if I’m working uphill?
Maybe you don’t have support in your current role, you don’t have access to mentors or courses or technology that might further your skills and get you closer to that Vision.
If you have a professional development budget, use it on a Visioning course. Frame it in your LD proposal that the more the company invests in your growth, the more you’ll invest in the company:
You know with intention and with clarity comes speed. To excel in this role and accelerate my ability to add value to this company, the number one thing that would be most beneficial for me is resources to help me gain clarity on what that looks like. Because then, I can work backwards from that Vision with you and we can create the Roadmap (OKRs) to get there together.
This is where the dots connect for them.
The OKRs will get hit, but you're going to now see and work with someone who's growing into the leader that they want to be because that's part of their Vision rather than just be the person who shows up every day and does a job.
With a holistic Vision you understand how work fits into your whole life. So you’re more intentional and deliberate about how you show up and lead overall.
Career Visioning increases retention and motivation
If a manager wants to retain their best people, they need to prove that they can support their Vision. This job is really going to have to be a vehicle to get you where you want to go, and your manager can be your partner in that, or your enemy.
I once worked with a team of executives in Birmingham Alabama who spent a week going to different Visioning workshops, separately, so they’d be more honest in their participation and not worry about their work peers.
When they came back from Visioning for their personal life and professional life, they were so much more invigorated about how that role could help them get there!
The company didn't have to do anything! They didn't have to jazz anyone up or make them excited about the mission. Employees did that on their own by clarifying their Vision.
And conversely, this career Visioning exercise allowed someone who was struggling to realize it was time for her to move on. That’s how powerful it is.
Put the career growth motivation in the hands of the employee
I worked at an amazing deli in Ann Arbor called Zingermans, which is where I learned that literally everything starts with a Vision. I had huge goals – I was launching a new corporate gifts department and I wanted to go on a road trip for 2 months to California to test new products and bring them back.
My boss said, great. What’s the Vision?
It was up to me to present the narrative for success to him. What would it look like in 2 months for this trip to be successful?
It wasn’t going to be as easy as saying, “I want the next level. I want the next role.”
Instead he put it back on me. “Great, I love that you're ambitious. But let’s be honest, without a Vision you won’t get there.”
For the one who’s stuck
Your Vision has to be a decision making filter and has to help you clarify what is getting you closer to and farther away from where you ultimately want to go. For the person who's feeling really stuck, ask yourself two questions:
Is this getting me closer to where I ultimately want to go or further away? Even if you haven’t clarified your Vision yet, I’m going to guess that you’ll have a gut reaction when you ask yourself that question. Listen to it.
How do I move toward what I do want? As humans, when we're in a position that we don't like, or doesn't feel right, we want to move away from it. But the Visionary mindset is about flipping the switch and defining what we do want instead, so we can move toward it.
It's really hard to find a new job (or relationship, or house, or…) when all you know is what you don't want. In this aversion mindset, we’re already looking for reasons why the next thing won’t work.
But if you were to say, Well, what do I want? Your answer might sound like, I want to lead a team I’m excited about, or, I want to use my skills in a way that’s not stifled or micromanaged. This opens you up to thousands more possibilities, including potentially within the company you’re already at that you didn’t see before.
Use Career Visioning in the workplace every day
Think of your Vision like an accordion: you can extend it out or push it in. It can be that long term vision, or it can be this micro vision for a really challenging conversation you have to have with somebody on your team or your boss.
A Vision is simply your definition of success at a specific point in the future.
That allows you to think, what's my vision for this project? What's my vision for this hard conversation? What's my vision for this next step of my career? What's my vision for growing my team?
It transforms everything and puts it into a different light.
And again, it was just this tool that you can always have and you can bring out any at any time.
Once you got it, you got it for life.