TURN YOUR CAREER THINKING ON ITS HEAD!
The conversation around life after school usually revolves around the pathway towards an exciting career, but quite often there are serious missteps to this approach. Even a carefully considered career pathway doesn’t necessarily address some of the most important questions around choice, or take into consideration an individual student’s three-dimensional quirks, needs and life desires.
There must be a more fruitful approach
At this stage of life many of your students have little idea of the career they want. How many of us did? Some might have a vague inkling, the lucky are more certain, but many cobble together a plan that is haphazard or half-hearted at best. It’s a shame when so much of their later schooling revolves around choosing the subjects that will launch them into their future.
Ok, you know that a career is important …
But you also know that if a career doesn’t allow you to express yourself, if it keeps you stuck inside all day when you just want fresh air and sunshine, if it forces you to mix with people when really you’re a loner, if it keeps you in the country when you’re a city slicker at heart. If it doesn’t reflect your interests, your passions or your values – it will keep you from a lifestyle that makes you happy.
So turn the career conversation on its head!
Your students might not know what they want to do career wise, but you can almost guarantee they understand what is important to them, their priorities, values and the way they want to live. If focussing on the lifestyle they wish to lead is the starting point of the career conversation, exploring career options that will nurture or support that lifestyle should become more obvious.
It’s not always that simple, but given the right tools and understandings, your students do have the ability to articulate the kind of lifestyle they wish to lead, visualise it and begin to plan. (Many people put more effort into planning their retirement lifestyle – that’s a long time to wait without enjoying the NOW!)
We want to put lifestyle at the forefront of the career conversation
Our new workbook, My Ideal Working Life turns the career thinking on its head. The quizzes and activities encourage students to visualise and explore a lifestyle they aspire to, and the career options that fit. They are a fun format that can be used as a springboard for discussion, to explore new ideas and challenge the way students think about their work/life priorities.
We have also carefully crafted twelve blind questionnaires that represent twelve different lifestyles. Taking the time with each questionnaire helps students to dig deeper, teasing out further information and guiding them towards more realistic and insightful choices and opening their minds to other possibilities.
Life is too short to waste!
If we are not thwarted by circumstance, we work towards a lifestyle that feeds our soul and allows us to live our life purpose – whatever that may be. A career may take a major or a supporting role in this. You can help your students to move into their future with focus, flexibility and a better insight to what it is they really want, and we can help you to do this.
