Do You Know What You Are Looking For?
Curt Skene’s In2Win! Career Coaching Supplement.
Have you ever tried to find something when you don’t even know where you last saw it? It’s practically impossible to find it because you have no idea where to start looking. Finding success in your next career is no different.
Your success depends on your ability to focus your search and position yourself in the right place at the right time. Most executives don’t take the time to contemplate their future and end up having it decided for them by fate. Allowing outside forces to determine what you become without any direction will often generate lousy if not pathetic results.
In order to find your perfect opportunity you have to get specific and clear. Learn to sacrifice the generalities of being everything to everyone and become very focused in your search. Take the time to reflect on your career history, look at where you have been the most successful and why.
Create a list of the things you love to do, prioritize them and then ask yourself what type of role allows you the opportunity to do more of them? This exercise will engage a part of your brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS), which guides and filters the information you naturally pay attention to. Once your RAS is engaged you’ll find many more “perfect” opportunities coming your way.
Your attention shapes your energy and behaviour. Focus it on possibilities and useful action.
Why I Wrote This Page
Because vague targeting is invisible to everyone trying to help you. When you say you’re open to “anything,” no one can picture a specific role for you, so no one refers you to one.
This feels backwards to most people. It seems like narrowing your search should mean fewer opportunities, not more. The opposite is true. Precision is what lets other people self-select to help you. Someone who knows exactly what you’re looking for can instantly recognize when they’ve met the right connection for you. Someone who only knows you’re “looking for something” never will, no matter how much they want to help.
Specificity isn’t a limitation on your options. It’s what makes your options findable in the first place.
Action Steps
- Write a one-sentence description of your target role specific enough that someone could recognize a fit for you without asking a follow-up question.
- Test it on three people in your network. If any of them look unsure how to help after hearing it, sharpen it further.
- Revisit your target monthly. Specificity isn’t permanent, it should get sharper as you learn more about what’s actually landing.
In2Win! Afterthought
Curt’s current observations and updated guidance will be added here.
Suggested Reading Links
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