Author: Laura Pasquini

Much of the work I do as coach is to help clients align their interests and values with how they want to work, lead, and live their own life. I know the last 18+ months have brought new experiences, ideas, and questions of — what do I really want to do now?

In my past academic life, I directed my students to the MyNextMove website (a branch of the O*NET Online) if they wanted to understand occupational pathways and how their academic majors might impact their career direction(s). For those who were “not really sure,” I recommended the O*NET Interest Profiler to allow folks to learn more about their interests and help direct their own career exploration. I hoped these resources would anchor to some self-assessment and research for what is available. Many learners who were early and mid-career, found these tools helpful if they needed a starting point or felt completely unsure. Although, I’m still a fan of identifying interests and skills — I’m reminded how important it is to NOT narrow your options during the self-discovery phase. If we jump to filtering these interests based on occupational roles, organizations, or even industries — there seems to be limitations placed on the “what’s next?” and this removes any openness towards possibilities for “what if…?” instead.

After listening to a recent Hello Monday episode, I picked up Jonathan Field’s new book Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive and joined a virtual workshop to learn more about this what it means to be “Sparked.” As a career coach, I appreciate how this book wraps around these central questions:

• What could I do with my life?
• How do I want to grow and develop in my career?
• What work fills you with meaning and purpose?
• What do you want to do to feel alive and absorbed daily?

What you learn about each type from the assessment results — your primary, shadow, and anti-type — is organized to help move us towards work that let’s us be our best, true self. The five domains shared in this book identifies how you “come alive” or are “sparked” both personally and professionally with regards to your:

1. Purpose: Knowing you’re moving toward something you believe in.
2. Engagement: Excitement, energy, & enthusiasm for the pursuit of that something
3. Meaningfulness: The feeling that what you do and who you are matters.
4. Expressed Potential: The sensation of being fully you and not having to hide, bringing all of your potential to the experience, and leaving nothing untapped.
5. Flow: The blissful experience of getting lost in an activity, losing time, and becoming absorbed in the task.

As I ponder my own primary (Maven) and shadow (Maker) Sparketypes, I am thinking more about what is possible for how I use this resource with coaching clients or in my L&D work. For those who are connected to me and follow my work, you can see how and where these two Sparketypes align with my own practice and process:

• Maven: Slogan: I live to learn. Daily Mantra: “I want to learn more than I knew when I first woke up.”
• Maker: Slogan: I make ideas manifest. Daily Mantra: “I want to make something that did not exist before.”

The other piece of this book I am fascinated with that syncs with my coaching practice are examining and assessing the four categories of work:

1. Paid Work: part-time, full-time, contract, freelance, consulting, etc.
2. Leisure/Fun/Craft: hobbies, sports, activities, and joy in your “time off”
3. Roles You’ve Played: the “hats you wear” – caregiver, volunteer, leadership, etc.
4. Classes/Courses of Study: edu., workshops, retreats, webinars, training, etc.

Most people might not consider everything on this list to be “work.” But I love the idea of thinking about work that is paid, volunteer, and based around our interests. To unpack these categories further, I would encourage you to reflect on both your professional AND personal life to answer:

• What groups or communities are you connected to?
• What personal interests or hobbies help you grow?
• What projects are you most proud of?
• How did you contribute to a team, org, or interest group?
• What tasks put you in the “flow” when you work?
• How does “fun” enter into your daily life?
• What topics or subjects get your attention?
• What tools, technologies, or platforms do you find fun?
• What processes or experiences do you look fondly back on? (not the end project/product)

You should not be surprised this book has #sparked what I am thinking about for my next project. I think this resource could be fruitful for working 1:1 with clients, but now I wonder how I can scale some of my coaching practice to reach others. More people are reaching out to ask and reflect on working more meaningfully, so I am starting to design a group coaching program for anyone interested in career wayfinding, e.g. pivots, transitions, and transformations.

As a Maven/Maker — I want to bring you along with my in this “process” as I “manifest” these ideas out loud (e.g. blog, podcasts, IG, etc.). I’m currently thinking about a 4 week pilot program end of 2021 or beginning of 2022 to support career discovery and exploration. This coaching program would be targeted at folks mid- to late career who are looking to transition to something new outside their professional domain, industry or role. If you might be interested in this, let me know — and please help me answer some questions as I design this pilot program:

• How are you thinking about your LIFEwork?
• What are the career questions you want to dig into?
• What blockers or challenges are you facing in this transition?
• What would you want to walk away with from a group coaching program on this topic?

I will continue to ponder these questions and share what I develop + launch with y’all. Thanks for any inputs, comments, DMs, or messages in advance!

If you have not faced any challenge or change in your life over the past year, I’m not sure how you avoided it. The last 18 months has been nothing but that for me. It’s been a weird and evolving period of space and time where I’ve thought more about what I’ve been doing and how I’m contributing to society. Accelerated by the pandemic and social/climate events worldwide, there has been more perspective-taking on how to move forward. So, I don’t think I’m alone in taking stock of our life and experiences. In 2020, we had a forced slowed down and even pause on our lives, which has encouraged everyone (myself included) to reflect and think deeply about how I want to be in the world. If you’re at a fork in the road — this might be the blog post for you. Welcome — I am here as well. Let’s see if we can help you work it out…

Earlier this year, Manoush Zamorodi launched a helpful podcast series to help others at a crossroads in their life: The ZigZag Project. This project shared 6 episodes to encourage to think deeply about where they are and where they want to go. The project was designed to help listeners get unstuck and inspire them to move forward, with intention and purpose.

From checking in with a self-assessment (1. The Pulse) to thinking about your future self (2. The Vision), I thought this project offers a simple way to stop and think about what we are doing. From brainstorming our wild desires of what we want to do (3. The Ideas) that best align with our values (4. The Match) — we can then map out where we want to go (5. Path) and by identifying how /when we can accomplish our goals (6. The Timeline). The coach in me LOVED this series — as it offered a space to reflect on these very powerful questions:

• What is one word that describes your mindset right now?
• How important is owning your work?
• What do you want your work to look like five years from now?
• What weird ideas do you want to work on?
• What are you not willing to sacrifice as you zig or zag?
• What would you need to give up to pursue a new idea?
• What’s one thing you can do to research your path(s)?
• What’s one thing you could try before committing to a big change?

If you are considering a pivot or transition in your personal or professional life, I would highly recommend this audio project and the homework assignments. I am grateful for this series as it has helped me, and some of my clients think deeper about their work. If nothing else, it can offer you some dedicated think time to ponder what is important to you now, and where you might go in the future. Additionally, some of these questions might be great for your team or organization to think about. For example, I adapted Assignment #2 for a team to think more about their future life at work: Visioning Exercise: Future Campus

That being said, getting unstuck is not a simple 6-step process. Sometimes you might be in that “murky middle” of transition for a while. This will bring about doubts, fears, and uncertainty. I know this to be true, as I’m still in this middle phase myself figuring out my best fit at work is. You are not alone, my friend. According to Kanter’s Law, everything looks like a failure in the middle. Just when the change is happening, you might doubt your goal, feel uncomfortable, or run into trouble — but don’t despair! This is where your motivation for change will be challenged. Hang in there — change and getting unstuck is a process we need to face head-on. [As my Aaptiv coach says: What challenges you, changes you.”]

“Everyone loves inspiring beginnings and happy endings; it is just the middles that involve hard work.”

– Rosabeth Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor 

In moments of doubt or difficult times during this hard middle, you might want to pause to reflect and ask:

• Tune in to the environment: What’s changed since the beginning? Is the problem still relevant?
• Check the vision: What’s inspiring to you now? Is the idea still exciting?
• Examine progress: How will you measure progress? Can you find early indicators of success? 
• Search for synergies: What is working for you now? Can this action encourage other steps?

I’ve been thinking about work design for a while. And by “a while” I mean, since I was in high school. You might not be surprised to learn that my 17-year-old self went to the local Chapters store to buy and read Do What You Are : Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type. I wanted to know where and what I should be aiming for based on who I was. My curiosity around careers really involves the alignment of the person with their job and the organization who employs them. I know it goes way beyond personality now, so I’m starting to think more about how our interests, experiences, and skills help us lead at work in the right place. Some of that is finding work fit, but it might also be related to the design of the environment and the role description itself. Specifically to answer these questions: How do you work? And, what does that actually look like for the work you do?

This past year, I think more folks are thinking deeper about work. There might be a few ideas swirling in your own head (as they are in mine). How do I want to work? What impact does my work have on others? Am I in right career path? Is there more than one way I could work? What if I found a new way to work, and I like it? Before the pandemic hit and these questions floated around my mind, I joined a book club conversation for Burnett and Evans (2020) new book Designing Your Work Life. It’s very similar to their original book (Designing Your Life) and it involves the design thinking to solve a personal life “problem” through curiosity, brainstorming, testing, and iterating on this process. The version extended of this book digs into more of this root prototyping cycle related to our work lives. These principles are shared as great work design resources as both reflection questions (or a book club discussion) and worksheets to complete the exercises/activities. The key idea is to record your ideas to help create a career path forward:

“Designers don’t think their way forward. Designers build their way forward”

Designing Your Working Life(Burnett & Evans, 2020, p. xxv)

Now that we are seeing efforts to transition back to the workplace and I want these swirling questions to land, I thought it might be helpful to ask some targeted questions around work design for myself — and maybe even you and your team. Let’s ideate together to reinvent the workplace we want to be a part of — and let’s work on these redesign efforts together — this should not be a solo project. Most design teams are just that — a group of people to offer insights, test out ideas, and collaborate on the iterations of this process. By asking yourself and your team these questions you have the ability to offer agency and empower others. Coming from a year of unknowns, this might be a refreshing activity. So, whether you’re heading back into a physical office space OR you are considering how do better design how you work, consider these questions a way to envision all the spaces, practices, and interactions you want to see in your best design of your working life:

Explore and Learn: Be Curious About What’s Possible

Consider bringing exploration and play into what could be at work. Find ways to make space to see and learn about new opportunities by asking:

• How do you want to work?
• What did you learn this past year about how you work?
• What’s the most interesting part of your job and what your team does?
• What is your superpower? And how does this strength compliment/contribute to your team?
• How do you learn about what your teammates are working on?
• What skills, abilities, or talents do you want to work on?
• What ideas or topics are percolating for you right now?

Try Stuff: Move Beyond Theory to Application

You need to test things out. Make plans to make and do the things you are thinking about. Consider how you giving permission to try and fail at new ideas, practices, policies, and ways of working. To make the change, you may need a trial period to experiment with the “what if?” and possibilities. Ask yourself and your team these questions:

• What is one thing you are going to explore more about your own work habits?
• What habits do you want to ADD and SUBTRACT from your work life?
• How can you try out and test new ways of working?
• What ways can adjust or modify either your meeting structure or cadence?
• What would you like to change about you and/or your team’s communication style?
• If you’re going to say YES to a new way of working, what will you say NO to?
• What is one easy thing you can change about your work life right now?

Reframe Problem: Get Unstuck to Figure It Out

It’s time to step back and look at the problem from another perspective. Reframing will help you and your team to examine your biases, open up to new solutions, and make sure you’re focused on the actual root problem. In thinking about how to get unstuck, ask yourself and your team:

• What perspective do you usually take?
• How are you looking at your work life now?
• What other ways of work design might be more interesting for you and your team?
• What ways are you reviewing your calendar schedule? Monthly? Weekly? Daily?
• What time will you need to gain this perspective?
• What road blocks are in the way? And, what might be easy barriers to remove right now?

Just A Little Patience: Make Messy Mistakes in the Middle

As we make new plans and form new ideas + test these out — be aware that it gets messy in the middle of this cycle. There will be mistakes, a need to let go of things, and a greater awareness that it’s a journey and not a destination. Letting go of goals or desired results will help you to learn what good work design is — and you will want to ask you and your team these questions as you go to understand this process:

• What is germinating in your mind about your work life?
• What is not working right now?
• What have we learned from this experiment?
• What are the next steps you and your own team might take?
• What’s the worst thing that can happen if you tried something?
• What would happen if something didn’t work out as you redesign?
• What’s the best thing that might happen if you rethink your work design?

Ask For Help: Find Radical Collaborators for Support

You do not have to dive into this design work alone. Great things originate when more people coming together. Figure out who will be part of your collaborative process and what ways you will start to ask for help for your design journey. Get ready for some real feedback, and be prepared to ask the right questions to offer critical advice and strategies for the new work design efforts:

• How did you start your last team meeting?
• What resources are available to support effective collaboration?
• How could you build better connections on your team?
• What ideas do you have for making room for care and support at work?
• How could you integrate your team’s work with another at your organization or on your campus?
• How can you get the support and/or training to improve you and your team’s work?
• What members of your professional network and/or organization can you call for help?

Reference: Burnett, B., & Evans, D. (2020). Designing your work life: How to thrive and change and find happiness at work. New York, NY: Penguin Random House LLC.