9 Questions to Better Manage Your Career From The Inside Out

Even when you genuinely love what they do, you will occasionally have days when you dislike your job and have growing doubts about your career path. This can be an unnerving feeling.

When you dislike your job, it is disheartening, and it becomes easier to abdicate your personal and professional responsibilities. Guard against that or you will derail yourself. You want to ensure the person managing your career is you. Therefore, make it a regular practice to reflect on your current state. Review your attitude and assess what has changed.

1. When you look in the mirror, describe whom you see.
2. What do you think you sounded like to people who may have overheard your conversations today?
3. Is your job fun? Why or Why not?
4. What’s changed from the first day you started your job? (Was it your job that changed, or you?)
5. What if neither you nor your job changed?  Would you be happy to keep doing what you’re doing now for the next five years? (If no, you must learn to recognize, respond and thrive with change.)
6. Do you have a sense of purpose in what you do? Why or Why not? (If you do have a sense of purpose, what is it? Are you living on purpose?)
7. List three things that currently make you happy.
8. Figure out how to spend more time with the things and people that lift your spirits.
9. What or where is your ‘happy place’?

When you deliberately ask and answer these nine questions every quarter or so, you will have a greater sense of control and a ready-made action plan for career improvement.

By: Karl Bimshas