Get WEIRD to Plan Your Career: Want to Change (Part 1 of 5)

Career planning is like embarking on a great adventure. Whether you have a map and a destination in mind, or you’re exploring uncharted territory with only your heart and the stars to guide you, it can feel daunting to get started. What would you tell a friend feeling overwhelmed upon contemplating their career plans? Would you quote Lao Tzu and say, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” ask what the easiest forward-moving task is and cheer them on as they check it off their list? Would you listen to them vent about their challenges and invite them to sit with their feelings without judgment? Or would you offer to tackle the challenge together and revisit your own career plans at the same time?

This five-part series is a chance for you to be your own best friend and gently move in the direction of the next step in your career. If you’d like to invite an actual friend along for the ride, that can also offer accountability and emotional support. It’s great to have someone there to both acknowledge the struggles and celebrate the heck out of your wins.

The framework we’ll be following is called the WEIRD Process, in which each letter stands for one step toward approaching a big, scary, but rewarding life change. We’ll be applying this process to career planning in this series, but the WEIRD Process can be applied to other types of changes as well.

Do you really want to change?

The first stage of the framework, and the focus of this part of the series, is called Want to Change. It’s important to ask yourself if you really do want your desired change as much as you might think or say you do. If it’s a change you’ve been hoping or trying to make for some time and a number of factors about it are within your control, but for some reason it just hasn’t happened yet, you may have some unconscious blockers that are preventing you from making that change.

On the other hand, there may also be factors that are out of your control that have been preventing you from reaching your goals, such as systemic issues. In a job search, for example, these could include, among other things: 

1. jobseeking in a difficult job market
2. having one or more marginalized identities in industries that are predominantly “pale and male,”
3. needing flexible and/or remote work due to care needs for yourself and/or family when return-to-office mandates run rampant

It’s important to acknowledge that these factors are not your fault. They are unfair. If you have feelings about them, let yourself feel them all the way through. Take time to grieve, rage, or feel complete apathy. If you’re not sure how you’re feeling, practicing identifying your emotions with a feelings wheel can help. Know also that while these challenges might mean you’re playing on hard mode, you can still beat the game. You don’t need to give up, you can just change your strategy.

Professor and activist Angela Davis said, “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” If you are passionate about mitigating certain barriers within career planning or pivoting for yourself or others, getting involved with a group who is working to make an impact in these areas could be very rewarding. If you choose to do this, it will be important to manage your energy effectively to avoid burnout (more on that in Part 2!).

How to identify hidden blockers

Understanding the factors within your control and any blockers hiding behind them can help you discover whether or not you truly want the change you’re striving for. You can do this with a Five Whys exercise.

The Five Whys exercise was created by Toyota founder Sakichi Toyoda to probe for the root of a problem to prevent it from happening again. I had the opportunity to practice a similar version of this exercise as part of Women Talk Design’s Present Yourself public speaking course to discern my most powerful “why” behind wanting to speak and it helped me add clarity and focus to my message as a speaker.

In your case, as a career planner and builder, you’ll use the Five Whys to ask yourself why you haven’t reached your goal or any particular milestone along the way that you’ve found challenging. Note that this exercise may also be helpful toward identifying the barriers that are outside of your control as well.

If you’ve chosen to go through this series with a friend (which I recommend, but it’s not required), you can take turns asking each other a series of whys or other WH-questions. Each question can challenge the previous answer and gently press for further information. If you feel stuck, you can back up a level and go down a different path. You may also wish to diagram your five whys in a notebook or digitally in a flowchart to best keep track of the different paths your whys may take you.

If you discover a particularly surprising or insightful answer to one of the questions, feel free to pause and journal about it. You can express your thoughts however they flow most easily for you, whether that’s writing by hand, typing, doodling, or recording a voice note.

If you don’t have a particular goal at all or aren’t sure where you’d like your career to take you next, that’s another question you can explore with the Five Whys. To allow for the most authentic responses, I recommend completing this exercise when you feel at your best and are able to engage in any form of self-care before beginning the questions toward being able to connect to yourself without judgment. If you are completing the exercise with a friend or partner, I recommend choosing someone you trust who you can be honest with about any potential struggles that may surface in response to the questions.

In the next part, we’ll explore how to Educate on Solutions, and understand the power of energy, community, and rest.

Speaking of community, here’s a fun fact! It was through an event co-hosted by Women Talk Design and Tech Ladies that I first became connected with Tech Ladies’ Career Coach and Community Manager, Kelly Jamison, and have since been fortunate enough to partner with Tech Ladies on multiple events and blog posts, including this one on how to find your career throughline if you have a non-linear career history. If that sounds like you, feel free to check it out! 

That’s all for now. “Cee” you in part 2!

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About Cee Reel

Cee Reel is a design generalist and authenticity coach who helps both brands and leaders tell their stories in a genuine and playful way. In a business world where authenticity and genuine human connection are rare elements, Cee helps creatives, multipotentialites and anyone who feels too weird for the traditional workplace learn to recognize and value themselves as pure gold. Subscribe to Cee’s newsletter to learn more about how to connect with your authenticity.

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