Career Roadmap - Futile or Useful?
Futile Attempt
Read any self-help book and you'll know how important it is to map out your career goals. So, of course, I tried it last weekend. I opened Visio and quickly realized that a flowchart was futile.
Tentative
My word of the week is "tentative". Everything in life is tentative until it's happened. There is no plan that does not have the option of change. Economists call this the "sunk-cost fallacy". If you've already committed to something financially, there are other factors that should be considered before going forward with the plan. It's a fallacy to think that there only one path forward because a certain action has already been sunk.
So you've bought concert tickets? You've already spent the money, it's a sunk cost. Before heading out to the concert, the decision to go should be made on present-day factors. What are you not doing to attend the concert? What other "costs" will you incur by going? What "benefits" will occur by going?
Everything in life is tentative.
Embrace the impermanence of life.
Goal-driven Lists
I did, however, extract some meaning from my weekend (and then the next three weeks) of introspection. I asked myself 5 pointed 'What' questions during this exercise.
What do I enjoy about my current position?
What are my long-term priorities?
What are NOT my long-term priorities?
What are my short-term priorities?
What do my idols have that motivate me?
Here's what I ended up with, tentatively:
What?
What do you consider when mapping out your goals? What questions help you? Are there better ways to reframe these questions to get a different perspective?
Hopefully this was a little bit of inspo for you to begin thinking about your own career roadmap. And remember, allow yourself to let your roadmap be tentative.
Reading: Stats - Was just reading that of the Fortune 500 companies, there were 32 female CEOs last year. This year? 24 female CEOs. That's a 25% DECREASE!!!! Nooooo we're going the WRONG DIRECTION. One of those CEOs was mine, unfortunately, but I do understand why she stepped down after guiding us through a monumental acquisition.
Watching: Queen of Katwe on netflix. I don't often watch shows or movies but I have this one on in the background and I'm loving the colors and landscapes of Uganda.
Listening: Ed Sheeran, Be Like You. He's got a donation drive going on that will select one winner to go see him in New York. Use my link to get some entries (and I will too!) when you donate to the global water charity Drop4Drop. Â
https://drop4drop.rallyup.com/edsheeran/7I2K8X
Working: I've been interacting with client account managers and technologists in my company to pull together their information on coastal resiliency. What master planning does a city have to do to prepare for flooding, hurricanes, seawater rise? My company has done many of these studies, and subsequent design/construction programs, to safeguard cities.