Career Clarity Framework: Life Map

This is part one in a two part series.

You know those observations that slap you in the face and leave you thinking why it’s taken you so long to realise?

Well, I had one of those last year when pondering why myself and so many people struggle to answer the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?. Or if they do and they fail to find fulfillment in that career.

What I’ve since realised is formal education focuses on the knowledge required for a job, without ever teaching us the self-knowledge that helps us define what that job may be.

If someone were to create a framework to give you tools to gain self-knowledge and how to decide on a job it may look something like this.

It redefines common job criteria by adding the lens of what brings you fulfillment.

Rather than judge a job based only on the role and benefits, it forces you to also consider the change you will create within that role. In my search for product management roles, rather than only being guided by day-to-day responsibilities and salary, I searched based on the problem the company solved and whether I was passionate about that change.

The framework is a four step process I created after two years scouring what else was out there. Through the process you will identify:

By the end, you know the change you want to create in the world, who you want to create it for, possible employers and your role.

Part 1 is to create a life map. Think of your life map like train tracks. By reviewing your past you begin to gain insights into the direction of your future.

Grab a piece of paper and draw a line across the page or download the free template I created. It will guide you through all three steps.

Start by identifying major life events. Use these to benchmark different times of your life.

Now move back to the start of the line and ask yourself.

Caroline McHugh on the Art of Being Yourself notes that the birth of consciousness occurs around the age of seven. From then on you become more self-conscious, and by default ‘less good’ at being yourself. It’s an occurrence that led the Jesuits to say, “Give me a boy until the age of seven, and I’ll show you the man,”.

By looking back at that time we can gain nuggets of gold of what we have a natural inclination for.

Next, begin to fill in the gaps of your time at high-school.

Since leaving school:

Take note of any trends in the types of activities and skills you gravitate towards. Ideally you end up with a life map looking something like this:

Consider each of the events as a dot. Steve Jobs states “you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future”.

By reflecting on Jobs' life you begin to see the random ways dots begin to combine in the future. A few examples:

None of these things could have been predicted looking forward, only upon reflection. Next blog we’ll examine your dots and reflect on how they begin to connect.

Part 2:

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