Navigating a career – for those who feel lost

Career is a long journey after graduation (some forty years long) – undoubtedly an important cornerstone of adulthood. I remember being a final-year student with a sense of urgency to secure a job before graduation, but also feeling overwhelmed – where to even start?

As we navigated our early careers over the past five years, I've observed two major profiles. Those who pursued their careers with perceived laser focus, where they become specialised quickly, and the others who took the time to job-hop around. and I belonged squarely on the latter camp. It was the best approach for me to commit to what I do now but also admittedly, I could have saved 1.5 years from exploring. Here's how I would navigate my career if I were to restart it today.

Define the role of a career – what is its priority in your life?

Knowing what I know now, I would begin by thinking about the priority of work in my life. What is it that I'd like to gain from a job?

A job can be many things – a means to gaining income, but it's also an avenue to socialise, or a way to derive a sense of purpose in life. Ultimately, career is to be balanced with other aspects of life. There's no right or wrong and you should be honest with yourself.

I didn't know much then, I only knew I wanted skills and growth. I wanted a job that gave me the most exposure to experience business operations – meeting and managing clients and staff and hone in on making strategic decisions.

Find your ikigai and zone of genius

With priority set, the next question would be where to start? There a several frameworks to refer to, and here are some of my favourites.

1. Ikigai in relation to work – finding your passion

Ikigai, is a bestseller book on the Japanese concept on finding your reason of being and living a purposeful life. The book introduced it from the perspective of longevity and finding something worth living for. When that is translated into work context, there's a version that I learned from Chris Do:

Ikigai is at the centre – the intersection of what you love to do, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for. Though it may be difficult to find something that fulfils all four categories, it's good to have this framework and think about the possibilities of what you'd like to do.

A job may not necessarily be all four categories. It's nice to have something you're passionate about but need not necesarrily be something you earn income from, and that could be hobbies that you reserve for relaxation and enjoy purely for interest. Right now, my job is a profession that keeps me curious and interested, and I'm contented with that.

2. Zone of Genius

Zone of genius was a concept I first heard from Elaine Welteroth on her Masterclass on designing your career, but there's also a different framework with the same name from Gay Hendricks, a psychologist, in his book, The Big Leap. For now, let's focus on Welteroth's definition: The zone of genius is the intersection of passions, talents, skills and value. What is something that only you can do like nobody else can, how can you spend more of your days operating from this zone of genius?

Passion: If you have no responsibilities, what is that thing you can do all night for free? That's your passion. If you don't know what's your passion, it is 100% okay. It takes time and encouragement to cultivate that knowing. The goal is to lean into what naturally drives you – makes you feel good and lights you up inside.

Skills: No matter where you've been or are, you have a set of specific and unique skills that you'll need in crafting the future you want. What are the skills you've learnt along the journey and how they come into play when thinking about the life you want to be living? Also note down skills you'd like to acquire along the way and prioritise them.

Talent: Ask your best friend, moms, dads, grandparents, of the things you're good at. Or think back to praises that you've earned – what were you doing and how? School report cards with teachers' comments are quite insightful too.

Values: What matters more to you than money. Ask yourself why? Those are your value. The opportunity you consider doesn't negate your value system - what you stand for and believe. Values also reinforces what opportunity to pursue and what to pass on.

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It's okay to keep exploring, things change.

In truth, the above is what I'd use to navigate my career forward as a thirtysomething too. A career is at least 4-5 decades long. There are no wrong turns, and I believe we can change course at any time, and unfortunately sometimes we are even forced to. I argue, these ups and downs we experience are what makes a career interesting, and perhaps fun.

It's crucial to remember that the purpose of work changes with your priorities at different life stages, and that's okay. It's perfectly okay to be in your 30s and have no clue what you'd like to do. The important thing is to allow yourself to pursue the right opportunities. Starting is the hardest step, but once you know the direction you're headed, it's easier to take on the next step – to try and steer your career towards it.

Till the next!

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Little lines of after thought:

• What is your ideal life like, and how is career integrated into it?

• What is a job's place in your life? A passion, mission, profession, vocation, or the quaternity of ikigai?

• Going beyond one role and grow into a multi-hypenated person (e.g., a doctor - a mother - an advocate for mental health), what would you add to your current role?