The Career Confidence Podcast
The Career Confidence Podcast
74. Make Confident Career Decisions with these Steps
Feeling stuck at a career crossroads? You're not alone. Whether you're overwhelmed by too many options or unsure of your next move, decision-making can be tough.
In this episode, I share the decision-making process I use with my clients to help them find clarity and make the best choices for their careers.
Key points from this episode:
- Not making a decision is a decision that keeps you stuck.
- Delaying decisions delays your career progress.
- Take control and make informed choices to move forward.
- Assess your options and find the common thread between your interests.
Tune in for practical tips to navigate your career path with confidence!
Connect with the host:
Website: https://marijaduka.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marija-duka/
Instagram: @marija.duka
Email: hello@marijaduka.com
Welcome to the Career Confidence Podcast, the podcast for driven lawyers wanting to step out of the traditional path and build fulfilling and purposeful careers. I'm your host, maria Dukar, legal counsel and career coach, helping you navigate your career with intention and confidence. In this podcast, we don't shy away from having real conversations about topics that matter to us. Driven AF go-getters From manifesting your dream career, negotiating the salary you deserve, creating your personal brand, knowing when it's time to pivot. We cover these topics and so much more. You ready, let's dive into today's episode. Hey, hey, welcome to another episode of the Career Confidence Podcast. Now, if you're currently in a season of your life where you are at a crossroads in terms of making that next decision for your career, then you are in the right place, my friend, because this episode is for you.
Speaker 1:When someone is at a crossroads in their career, it is often met with an indecisiveness, right Like you either have too many options in front of you and you're struggling to make a decision which way to go, or you might have limited options or not know what that next opportunity looks like, which then stifles you to also make a decision on what that next path should look like for you. So I hosted a workshop earlier this year all around mapping out your next career move, and a lot of the questions that the attendees asked actually revolved a lot around decision-making and what is the best way to make a decision and what is the best way to make a decision. So I'm going to go through the process that I use when I'm coaching my clients in terms of helping them to make the best decision for themselves, in hopes that this will also help you if you are in a season where you are struggling to make a decision. Now first, I want to start off this episode by saying that not making a decision is a decision, right? So if you are struggling to make the decision and you get overwhelmed to the point where you just give up and not make the decision at all, this leads you to delaying the next part of your career. It delays that progress that you want to make and it keeps you feeling stuck. The reason why not making a decision is a decision is because you're essentially saying, okay, this is all too hard, I don't know what is the right decision for me and therefore I'm just going to hand over my decision-making power and not do anything about it at all. You're pretty much saying that I am accepting staying in this position that I'm in Now. This sounds harsh, but it's true and I want you to hear it so that sometimes, like when you hear something like this, it might jolt you in a positive way to then go okay, I really do need to now take the steps to make a decision.
Speaker 1:The reason why so many people struggle with making decisions is because it comes from a place of fear as to not knowing what's on the other side of that decision. We focus so much on whether this is the right decision, the best decision, or what if it leads to the worst case scenario. We focus too much on it being this big, scary thing and focusing on the fear side of it that we forget that. Oh, hang on a second. What if this decision leads to these incredible other opportunities that I could not have even thought for for myself? So I'll walk you through a couple of the attendees of this workshop that I ran earlier this year's questions and the way that I'll walk you through how I answered them to support you in terms of.
Speaker 1:So one of the attendees he has a successful career in law, but he also does his own thing, so he has his own business and has opportunities coming to him in that way. He's someone that is multi-passionate, has so many ideas, gets really excited by all of these opportunities. So for him, he was struggling to make the decision in terms of what to focus on right now. And so what I said to him? I said, firstly, take off the pressure from making the decision. And you're probably going to think, okay, maria, now you're not making any sense because you're just telling us how important it is to make a decision. Now you're not making any sense because you're just telling us how important it is to make a decision and now you're saying take the pressure off. Well, just hear me out. So, firstly, take that pressure off from making the decision.
Speaker 1:What I want you to do is take a step back. If you're someone that is like this attendee, that's multi-passionate, has so many ideas, when you take a step back and brain dump all of your ideas and different pathways that you're considering, so literally open up a Google doc. Or if you're someone that likes writing in a journal or notebook, open up a notebook and write down all the different ideas you're thinking about. Write down all the different ideas you're thinking about, and then I want you to explore where each of these options will lead you to. So, literally, take yourself out of your current situation and zoom into each of these options, pathways, ideas. Put yourself in the shoes of okay, if I was to pursue this, where will this take me? What opportunities would arise from this? And do this for each idea project, business idea, whatever it is. Do it one at a time. So focus on one and then move on to the next one. So map it all out, get all on paper and then walk yourself through what it would look like if you were to pursue that option. Then I want you to have a think about okay, now that I've assessed all of these different options for myself, what is the common thread between all of these different ideas I have, all of these different options I have. Is there a common thread that is attracting me to these different ideas? Because that could be the deciding factor for you. It could be that, okay, it is actually this one thing that brings all of these ideas together. So, really, what I need to be focusing in on is expanding in this one area. So, for example, if all of these options involved you expanding in your speaking opportunities, then you can hone in and focus on that one area.
Speaker 1:Another way to assess and decide which option is best for you is which one is calling you out the most. Is it that you're choosing this particular path because it's the logical next path, it's safe, it's comfortable and, yeah, you're relatively happy to move forward in that area. Or is it really exciting you and calling you to that next level version of yourself? Have a think about, when you assess each of your options, which one actually feels most exciting for you. And it might not be the safe option, right, but it could be the one that's the path less traveled, that opens up different opportunities for you that you don't even know what that may look like. Yet Another question that an attendee of that workshop asked me, which is again along the lines of making a decision, is how do I know what the best role for me is?
Speaker 1:So, to give you context this attendee, she was finishing up in her current role and she was assessing what she wanted to do next. So this is quite a big question, obviously, and there's no one right answer or a simple way to answer this, but I walked her through a decision-making process to help her when it came to choosing between a few roles, how to make the best decision for herself, so that she then felt confident that she has made the right decision for herself. I said to her instead of you looking at these roles and saying, well, how can I fit myself into these roles and really focusing on you meeting the selection criteria of these roles, take a bit of a zoom out approach first and think about well, what do I actually want out of my next role? So don't even consider the key selection criteria of these roles just yet. Firstly think about what do I actually want out of my next role. What type of environment do I want to be in? What area do I want to develop in? You know, what skills do I want to develop? What are my key contributing factors? What are my strengths that I want to bring to the next role? What type of culture do I want to be like?
Speaker 1:Consider your how you want your next role to look like from a holistic point of view, and then think about what your non-negotiables are. So what are things that are really important to you for your next role that you will not compromise on? Is that having strong leadership around you, you know, career development opportunities, whatever that may be. And then, once you know what you're looking out for in terms of your next role and what your non-negotiables are, you can then look at those roles from the lens of are these roles actually meeting my career needs? Are they actually going to support me in how I want to develop in the next chapter of my career?
Speaker 1:By doing this, you will then be much more clearer around making the best decision for yourself, around what is the best role for you, because now you're clear on what you actually want and whether these roles fit into your goals. And then you can go into an interview setting, for example, knowing exactly what questions to ask to ensure that you are then going to make the right decision on whether the roles are a right fit for you. And also, by doing this exercise, you also know what value you bring. So then you can talk about how your skills and strengths and all of that can actually shape the role. And that's where career design really comes into it, because you become now intentional from just applying for a role to then being able to talk about how you can add value to shape this role as well.
Speaker 1:So I hope that this episode has provided you with an easy process to follow to make your next career decision. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of the Career Confidence Podcast and I will chat to you very soon. Bye, thanks for tuning into the Career Confidence Podcast. Like what you learned today, why not share this episode with your work, bestie, and leave us a five-star review on? Wherever you listen to your podcast on? We'd absolutely love to get into more ears and help more women just like you build fulfilling and thriving careers. Until next time.
