The first step in your career transition is to define your purpose. Purpose provides a deep sense of meaning and is your north star. If your career transition is anchored to your purpose, you’ll find deep fulfillment in what you do. A recent Gallup survey indicated that over 80% of people aren’t fully engaged at work because they don’t have a sense of purpose. Defining your purpose for a career transition involves finding a career that aligns with your values, strengths, and passions. There are three simple steps you can take, using some free online tools, to help you define your purpose. If you follow this simple approach, you’ll be well on your way to landing your dream job.
Your purpose is the junction of your passions, strengths, and values. I call this the sweet spot. The picture below is a simple graphic showing this intersection:
You can download and print this graphic out: Tools: Define Your Purpose. As you identify your top passions, strengths, and values, you can write these in on the graphic.
1. Identify Your Passions
The first step to define your purpose is to identify your passions. Many people confuse purpose with passion. Passions are built on emotions and interests, while purpose includes your values and convictions. Passions are things that you lose yourself in…activities you enjoy so much that you lose track of time. Passions may be activities you love or topics you are endlessly curious about.
If you’re unsure of what your passions are, you should try answering the following two questions: What tasks or activities at work or in your personal life cause you to lose track of time? A second question is: What are you endlessly curious about? Try to list 3-5 passions from these two questions. There are several online assessments that can help you identify your passions and work interests. My favorite is the ONet Interest Profiler. It’s a 60-question assessment that takes about 5 minutes to complete. This tool identifies your top career interests from six categories. It relates what you like to do to various career areas.
2. Identify Your Top Strengths – Your Superpowers
Your superpowers are your top strengths that come naturally to you. Everyone has at least one or two. Try to not just identify your talents, but what your real gifts are…what you do better than anyone else. Two questions that can help you identify your superpowers are: What do other people ask me for advice on? and What do people complement me on? It’s always good to get outside perspectives on your superpowers…what other people think your top talents are. You can ask or text close family and friends a simple question: What am I better at than anyone else?
There are also several excellent online assessments that can help you identify your natural strengths. The best free assessment I’ve found is the High5 Test which was developed by StrengthsFinder. Their assessment is 100 questions and takes about 15-20 minutes to complete. It ranks your strengths and provides some suggestions of career choices based on these strengths.
3. Identify Your Values and Convictions
You probably already have a good idea of your values and convictions, but it’s always good to reflect on what’s important to you. Ask yourself: What do I care about the most in the world? Make a list of as many things as you can think of. Your list should reflect what’s important and personal to you, not what others may expect from you. Review your list and pick your top three and rank them.
There are some free online tools that can help you identify your core values and principles. Gyfted provides a free online assessment of 10 universal personal beliefs using a well-respected theory of basic values known as Schwartz’s theory.
Finding Your Purposeful Career
Finding a meaningful career that aligns with your passions, superpowers, and values involves some research. I haven’t found a tool or website that does all of this for you, but I expect that AI job matching tools will advance and eventually get there. Two of the online tools I’ve mentioned earlier identify career areas based on your passions and strengths. Both the ONet Interest Profiler and the High5 Test provide you ideas for career areas to explore. You can then review these career areas to see what aligns to your values and convictions. Which of these careers would provide a deep sense of fulfillment?
Try to identify 3-5 careers that are aligned to your passions, strengths, and values. Your career options should meet the following four simple criteria: 1. You’ll enjoy the work; 2. It’s a good fit for you; 3. It provides reasonable compensation; 4. It fulfills a need. In the next job transition step, you’ll do research on each of these potential careers and down-select to one or two dream careers to pursue in your job search.
Living a life of purpose involves applying your passions and superpowers to a worthy cause. There are simple questions and free on-line tools that can help you define your purpose by identifying your passions, strengths, and values…and find careers aligned to them. If you invest a small amount of time to define your purpose – where your passions, strengths, and values are aligned – you’ll be well on your way to landing your dream job.