What do you want from your life and your career? Women, more so than men, tend to have a less clear idea of their career goals. This may be due to the gender stereotyping that we all, men and women, suffer from right from the moment we are born – more on that another time! I speak from personal experience as I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I graduated, I fell into my career in HR and found something I enjoyed and was good at (although the imposter inside me would say I was just lucky – if that sounds familiar read my blog on the topic of Imposter Syndrome). Then after many years in a successful career I made a more conscious decision to change focus.
For many people, men and women, we’ve not spent too much time thinking about what we want from our personal lives either – maybe things like children, a flashy car, a successful career, earning plenty of money and some people have the bucket list (the things they want to do before they die). But how many of us have really reflected on what we want from our lives as a whole? As the year draws towards it’s close this is a good time to reflect on what’s gone before and to look forward.
I’m currently running a programme to develop more women leaders in business and we’ve started it by looking at our legacy and purpose – deep searching questions like what do we want to be known for? How do we want to be remembered? This sounds pretty big and scary doesn’t it! One thing I included to get the delegates thinking was a poem by Linda Ellis, The Dash. Read it for yourself or watch her reading it.
It certainly makes me stop and think. We often struggle to identify who we really are and what we really want. We get on the treadmill of life and often don’t stop to think too hard about ourselves and what we really want. We’re busy, opportunities come along and we take them. Sometimes it’s all we can do to get through each day balancing our busy lives and the competing demands on our time, never mind having some deep meaningful conversation about who we are…. does that sound familiar?
As women we also get caught up in focusing on others more than ourselves, we often don’t leave enough time for us and for self reflection. So how about spending a couple of hours focusing on yourself and begin to design our own destiny!
Take some time to reflect on who you are? What do you want from your life? What’s important to you? What do you value? These questions should help you think about your plans for 2018 – what are the things I want to put on my bucket list? What’s the next step in my career? How do a find a better balance in my life? Start with small steps towards shaping your life the way you want it to be.