And why it's important to be aware of your values, when it comes to making decisions in your career. We're going to look at a couple of, activities, that will help you to be more aware of your values. So we have to identify them, and to articulate them. And those two activities, are looking back and looking forwards. Because one of the difficulties when it comes to making career decisions, is, you tend to be focused on the things that are important to you at that moment in time.
But when you're making long term career decisions that have a long term impact on your future, you need to make sure that you're taking into account all the things that could be important to you.
So we're going to look at two activities. One activity is looking at past. It's called a lifeline exercise. One activity is, is looking at the future. And it's based around a, an approach to thinking about your career called test and learn. So first of all, looking at the past. One of things we're going to get you to do. Is an activity called lifeline. And what it does is it gets you to plot. Your life.
So you get a horizontal axis, which is time. And you can do it in chunks. It's up to you how you do it and how far back you go. But you might want to go back in a couple of years, four years, six years, eight years, ten years. It's entirely up to you. And on the vertical axis is your emotional experience. So above the line are positive emotions. Curiosity, times when you felt really intrigued by the world and interested in what was going on. Hope, times when you felt that there was things to look forward to and that you were enthusiastic about. Gratitude, times when you felt grateful and happy with what was being given to you. Joy and enthusiasm and excitement. Or it could be things like pride and, and sense, sense of achievement or even generosity, in terms of you were feeling like you were giving to the world.
So again, everywhere thinking about how you plot those. Obviously, on the, below the line on the vertical axis are some more negative emotions like worry, anger, dread, fear, apprehension, anxiety. Is that frustration or even envy and maybe selfishness on those occasions, when did you feel those things? And so we need to do is plot a line, in relation to time about when you experienced that emotion, so at certain times you might have experienced quite a lot of hope as you were looking forward to the future.
And then you got into a new job, and, actually, that led to frustration because it wasn't quite what you thought it was. But actually, after a while, through you're own kind of personal effort you turned the situation around. And so you felt a sense pride growing in that you were able to, to change what was going on around you. And that led to a sense of enthusiasm for, for pushing forward, and a sense of accomplishment in terms of doing that.
But then maybe something else happened and you know, you saw somebody else who was doing better than you and you felt a sense of envy. And you felt, hang on a minute, I maybe, I thought was doing good but I'm not doing as well as I thought. But then that turned around and maybe you got an idea that well, okay, if they can do it, so can I and so you got a sense of hope from that and you started to work on that. And so on.
And so most of our lives are a series of ups and downs that we go through as, as our needs are met or unmet, as or values are satisfied or not satisfied.
And so that's one of the clues, what our emotional state is a clue to the values that we have. And by listening to and being aware of those emotional states and how they change. We can get an idea of what are the things that are important to us. And that's one of the key elements of self awareness. Be able to identify those emotional states and then reflect and we'll work out what they mean. So that's one of the first steps.
Okay, so assuming that you've plotted this emotional rollercoaster. The next thing to do is to look for patterns. To, so for each of the peaks and troughs in your lifeline, to remind yourself what was going on at the time. What was happening to you, and what were you doing? And to think about, what that might mean in terms of what was important to you at the time.
Which will prompt you to think about what was important. But the key thing here is to look for patterns, are there things that repeat themselves regularly throughout your life. Themes that seem to be important continually. Are there some things that seem to be important at some point and not at others? And also other things that are important both in the positive and negative emotions. Because positive emotions maybe our clue as to when that need is being satisfied and negative emotions when it's not being satisfied.
And so to look for those patterns inconsistencies but also the changes as well over time. And that's another set of questions to ask yourself, is, how have things changed, have somethings grown in importance, have other things diminished in importance over time as, as I've experienced things. So that's one exercise to try and what we'd like to do is have a go at that and reflect on those experiences and to think about things that happened to you.
And maybe share some of the things you've learnt about your experience in terms of what is important to you. And then as you see other people's experiences what we'd like you to do is we'd like to encourage you to turn those into questions. But you can start doing that now. And so for example if you identify that one of the things that has been important to you over your life you've always experienced positive emotions when you've been in situations where you are helping people to understand things. Then that can help you to formulate really clear questions.
So, whenever you're investigating a new career option, you could think, hang on a minute. A question I need to ask, in order to evaluate whether this career is right for me is, how often will I get an opportunity to feel like, I'm actually helping people to understand things? Or, or, how often does it come around? How deep is that experience? You know, so to what extent do I get to do that? And so it helps you to then, once you've identified those things that are important as patterns in your life, to turn those into questions. So that when you're researching different options in your career, you've got really good questions to ask. So that exercise is looking back, seeing patterns in your past. And, and projecting those forward into the present moment to work out what's important for you now.
As you identify some of those values you can then start to prioritize them. Now it may be that in doing that exercise you found it easy to identify the emotions, but maybe found it harder to identify the patterns to work out what was causing those emotions. And it may just be, that you don't have the vocabulary to describe, the values that are important to you.
Now this is based on a theory of working identities by a academic Herminia Ibarra. It was called how to stay stuck in the wrong career. Where she basically looked at the, the advice that is often given in relation to choosing careers and planning your careers which is work out what your values are and then pick a path and plan towards it. You know, thinking about your values now may not help you to make decisions for the future.
But also the job market is changing all the time so you can't be aware now of all the options you might have in a few years time. And so it's important to develop the skills of being able to adapt and think about your values as you go along and maybe even change your values to adapt to new environments that you want to move into and this is especially true if maybe you are changing careers. And so she proposed an alternative way of thinking about careers called Test and Learn. And Test and Learn contains three elements. The first element is crafting experiments. One of the ways in which you discover new values, is to have new experiences. And that's one of the things we often find with clients, especially at the beginning of their careers. Quite often, when we ask them what's important to you, they go. I'm not sure.
And so one of the things you might want to try and do is to try and have new experiences, and such, that, that first element of crafting experiments is to try out new things so that you learn new things about yourself. So crafting experiments. It don't have to be big things like, you know, just moving to a new country or completely changing your career. But just be changing small things about your life. Trying new things like a different route to work. Or trying to approach jobs in different ways rather than the ways you've already done them. Or maybe just try, taking your activities. Like going to an evening class to learn a subject that you've never thought about before. So that you can put yourself in new situations and find out how you respond to them. Recently there was a talk given by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the, the, the diplomatic service.
When I first started, I was really interested in Southeast Asia. And I was really looking forward to the opportunities of really, you know, using my knowledge and my awareness of Southeast Asia to work within that area. And they put me on Eastern Europe desk. And to begin with, I was really disappointed. I thought, well, hang on a minute. This isn't what I'm interested in. But I had to do because it was the job. But then she said, well actually what I found was, as I started to work on it, I realized there was an interest I, I didn't know I had. But it was only because I was forced to do it that I discovered that interest. And so, that may be the case with some of the things that are important to you. You may not know that they're important yet, because you've never been exposed to them.
And so one of the things you need to try is trying new things. Element two of the test and learn theory is shifting connections. And this is about meeting new people. Quite often, if you look at the people that you interact with on a daily basis or, or you know, on a regular basis, it tends to be within the same small group of people. And so generally speaking they know you, you know them and there's no chance for surprises in discovering new things about yourself from other people's perspectives.
So you real, don't really get to learn anything new about yourself, because you're not being able to see yourself from other perspectives. It's only the perspective that you're used to. And sometimes when you start to meet new people with different backgrounds, they see things in you that maybe haven't been seen before. Maybe you haven't even seen them in yourself. And so this shift in connects element is about consciously seeking out new communities, new people, different relationships. That'll help you to be able to see yourself in a different way. And so it might be. As I said, something that you combine with crafting experiments. Like going to a night class or an evening class or taking a different course.
And it's not so much about the subject matter that you're learning. It's about the new people that you're coming into contact with. It might be taking up new social activities. So that you can come into contact with different people and learn new things. Have different conversations. And these people will see you in a different way. They don't come with the past baggage of they know what you're like. And so its a chance for sometimes to experiment with being a different person.
The final element of this is making sense. It's no good just doing all these things if you don't learn something from them. And so in the same way that we use the lifeline exercise to reflect back on your past experiences and to think well what can I learn from those. What are the patterns. What are the things that I can pick up on and the values that I can identify? You need to then do the same for these new experiences that you're having. To look back and say, well, what does it actually mean? Did I enjoy this? Could I imagine myself enjoying it more in the future? Could I imagine myself taking on different roles and maybe my values being different? And so, that's one of the things that's, that's part of this, is to build that reflection into new activities. And this isn't goo, this isn't just for when you're considering a career change.
This is useful throughout your career, even when you're in a job in an organization and you know you're going to stay there. These are good things to do. And we'll come to this in the, in the, one of the future weeks when we actually look at what it takes to be successful within your career. And also, when we look at networking and the values of networking is, is it helps you to develop and to be aware of new opportunities. It helps you to grow and develop in your professional development and so it's a useful thing to, to get in the habit of doing. Not just the doing new things but the reflecting on them so that you can actually learn more quickly. And so what we'd like you to do, as an exercise, is to go away, and jus, and pick something new that you're going to do.
So it might be, trying a new experience. Could be something small, could be something big, but try something new and think about what you've learned from it. Or maybe pick out new people to go and talk to. You may want to find some people that you maybe wouldn't normally associate with. And go and talk to them. And find out about them. And see what you learn from how you behave towards those people. And then think about what you might have learned from it.
But when you're making long term career decisions that have a long term impact on your future, you need to make sure that you're taking into account all the things that could be important to you.
So you get a horizontal axis, which is time. And you can do it in chunks. It's up to you how you do it and how far back you go. But you might want to go back in a couple of years, four years, six years, eight years, ten years. It's entirely up to you. And on the vertical axis is your emotional experience. So above the line are positive emotions. Curiosity, times when you felt really intrigued by the world and interested in what was going on. Hope, times when you felt that there was things to look forward to and that you were enthusiastic about. Gratitude, times when you felt grateful and happy with what was being given to you. Joy and enthusiasm and excitement. Or it could be things like pride and, and sense, sense of achievement or even generosity, in terms of you were feeling like you were giving to the world.
And then you got into a new job, and, actually, that led to frustration because it wasn't quite what you thought it was. But actually, after a while, through you're own kind of personal effort you turned the situation around. And so you felt a sense pride growing in that you were able to, to change what was going on around you. And that led to a sense of enthusiasm for, for pushing forward, and a sense of accomplishment in terms of doing that.
And so most of our lives are a series of ups and downs that we go through as, as our needs are met or unmet, as or values are satisfied or not satisfied.
And so that's one of the clues, what our emotional state is a clue to the values that we have. And by listening to and being aware of those emotional states and how they change. We can get an idea of what are the things that are important to us. And that's one of the key elements of self awareness. Be able to identify those emotional states and then reflect and we'll work out what they mean. So that's one of the first steps.
Which will prompt you to think about what was important. But the key thing here is to look for patterns, are there things that repeat themselves regularly throughout your life. Themes that seem to be important continually. Are there some things that seem to be important at some point and not at others? And also other things that are important both in the positive and negative emotions. Because positive emotions maybe our clue as to when that need is being satisfied and negative emotions when it's not being satisfied.
And maybe share some of the things you've learnt about your experience in terms of what is important to you. And then as you see other people's experiences what we'd like you to do is we'd like to encourage you to turn those into questions. But you can start doing that now. And so for example if you identify that one of the things that has been important to you over your life you've always experienced positive emotions when you've been in situations where you are helping people to understand things. Then that can help you to formulate really clear questions.
As you identify some of those values you can then start to prioritize them. Now it may be that in doing that exercise you found it easy to identify the emotions, but maybe found it harder to identify the patterns to work out what was causing those emotions. And it may just be, that you don't have the vocabulary to describe, the values that are important to you.
But also the job market is changing all the time so you can't be aware now of all the options you might have in a few years time. And so it's important to develop the skills of being able to adapt and think about your values as you go along and maybe even change your values to adapt to new environments that you want to move into and this is especially true if maybe you are changing careers. And so she proposed an alternative way of thinking about careers called Test and Learn. And Test and Learn contains three elements. The first element is crafting experiments. One of the ways in which you discover new values, is to have new experiences. And that's one of the things we often find with clients, especially at the beginning of their careers. Quite often, when we ask them what's important to you, they go. I'm not sure.
When I first started, I was really interested in Southeast Asia. And I was really looking forward to the opportunities of really, you know, using my knowledge and my awareness of Southeast Asia to work within that area. And they put me on Eastern Europe desk. And to begin with, I was really disappointed. I thought, well, hang on a minute. This isn't what I'm interested in. But I had to do because it was the job. But then she said, well actually what I found was, as I started to work on it, I realized there was an interest I, I didn't know I had. But it was only because I was forced to do it that I discovered that interest. And so, that may be the case with some of the things that are important to you. You may not know that they're important yet, because you've never been exposed to them.
So you real, don't really get to learn anything new about yourself, because you're not being able to see yourself from other perspectives. It's only the perspective that you're used to. And sometimes when you start to meet new people with different backgrounds, they see things in you that maybe haven't been seen before. Maybe you haven't even seen them in yourself. And so this shift in connects element is about consciously seeking out new communities, new people, different relationships. That'll help you to be able to see yourself in a different way. And so it might be. As I said, something that you combine with crafting experiments. Like going to a night class or an evening class or taking a different course.
The final element of this is making sense. It's no good just doing all these things if you don't learn something from them. And so in the same way that we use the lifeline exercise to reflect back on your past experiences and to think well what can I learn from those. What are the patterns. What are the things that I can pick up on and the values that I can identify? You need to then do the same for these new experiences that you're having. To look back and say, well, what does it actually mean? Did I enjoy this? Could I imagine myself enjoying it more in the future? Could I imagine myself taking on different roles and maybe my values being different? And so, that's one of the things that's, that's part of this, is to build that reflection into new activities. And this isn't goo, this isn't just for when you're considering a career change.
So it might be, trying a new experience. Could be something small, could be something big, but try something new and think about what you've learned from it. Or maybe pick out new people to go and talk to. You may want to find some people that you maybe wouldn't normally associate with. And go and talk to them. And find out about them. And see what you learn from how you behave towards those people. And then think about what you might have learned from it.
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