How thinking about your possible selves can help your career change
When you’re changing career, it can sometimes feel that there's an overwhelming array of paths to investigate. As a result, it can be easy to become paralysed by the choice. Here's one exercise which can bring structure and clarity to the swirling mass of options: the possible selves exercise.
We can generally all picture possible future selves: realistic futures, feared futures, fantasy futures. By investigating and delving into the details of these, we can uncover information about the kinds of futures which are attractive to us. And once we start to set these down on paper, we generally can find that there are fewer possibilities than we had thought.
The basics of this exercise are to consider different versions of your life, 3-5 years into the future:
Step 1: Begin by imagining different versions of your life 3-5 years into the future. Brainstorm all the possibilities – if there is something that speaks to you, write it down. You could include, for example, maintenance of the status quo – how does that look if you extrapolate it? What might future selves that feel realistic be? How about some fantasy options, if money or time were no object? Put aside any judgement and note them all down.
Step 2: Pick one imagined future to develop further. Don’t worry too much about which one – you can always revisit the others later. The aim is to really visualise yourself in this life. Think about what you are doing, what your daily schedule looks like. Who are you working with? How do you feel every morning, and how do you feel when you talk about your job to others? What do your weekends and time off look like? Build as rich a picture as possible.
Step 3: Once you’ve built up a really good picture of this life, take a step back. Which aspects of this life resonate most with you? Are there aspects which don’t sit well? If you’ve visualised a future which doesn’t resonate, think about how you could flip those negative aspects into things that you do want to include in your future life.
Step 4: Repeat this process for other potential lives. You could think about extrapolating your current life, exploring other options you’ve been pondering, and fantasy futures where anything’s possible
Step 5 - Next steps: to take advantage of the thinking you’ve done, it can be helpful to consider next steps. How might you investigate aspects of these potential futures? You might find that you have some tangible options to investigate – potential career areas, for example. Alternatively, it might be to consider which occupations might feature some of the criteria that you. Is there any way you might be able to test out or experience any of these potential futures now?
There’s no right outcome from this exercise. You might come up with some tangible careers, or broader elements you’d like to be included in your future work. Part of the power of the exercise comes from engaging with our futures on an emotional level, rather than the rational level which is often our default. This allows us to pin down elements which are actually important to us, rather than those which we feel ought to be.