Life Design 101
IN THIS LESSON
Intentional career design is the difference between a career that happened to you and a career you actually chose.
In this lesson, you'll learn what intentional career design means and why it's different from traditional career planning.
Designing Defined
Designing your career (using a life design methodology) means taking deliberate ownership of your professional direction rather than letting circumstances, opportunities, or other people's expectations make the decision for you.
The Details
Most career planning is reactive, emphasizing what's available, what's practical, or what's expected. Intentional career design flips that sequence. It starts with you, your values, your vision, your definition of success, and works outward from there.
To summarize, it's a process, not a moment. Intentional career design doesn't happen in a single conversation or a single decision. It unfolds over time, through reflection, exploration, trials, and honest examination of what you want your professional life to look and feel like.
Intentional career design unfolds over time through multiple conversations and trials.
What It Takes
For mid-career professionals, intentional career design is particularly powerful because you have something most people don't at the beginning of their careers: perspective. You’re not starting from scratch. You have 15 or more years of real experience to draw from including roles you've held, decisions you've made, environments you've navigated.
That history is data (or information) you can use moving forward. And intentional career design uses that data as the foundation for helping you figure out your next move (instead of starting with a blank page). But the magic truly happens when you reflect on all of that self-knowledge and put it to work to help you design your own opportunity (entrepreneurship), embrace a new lifestyle, or find a career that is fulfilling and a good fit.
Recommended Reading
Every career decision you've made was generating data about who you are and what you need. Here's how you can use that information to your advantage to plan your next career move.