#250 Are You Making Career Planning Harder Than It Needs to Be? Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  00:00

They’re going to discover some stuff, and then they’re going to begin to design based upon the informed choices that they’re making about their possible path. They’re going to start designing what education or training that might look like, what experience might be helpful, which opportunities they want to continue to test and validate, and then I talk about this all the time-not what’s the final step, but like what’s the next step in my design that makes sense, so that we’ve got intentional direction, but we’re not closed fist holding onto it like it’s final. The design is not a permanent blueprint; it’s an intentional direction with the best information that you have today. Every year, November is National Career Development Month. So, if you’re listening to this in real time, it’s going live in a week. Next week, it starts, and as a career coach, we’ll talk about the term that I use for myself. I love that there’s an entire month dedicated to this. What I believe is a super important topic for all ages, but in particularly the young people that we’re trying to support. So as I go into this month, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about words we use for career planning, future planning, career coaching, career development. For a parent of a 15-year-old who doesn’t know what they want to do, like this can seem like a really big task or an assignment, just like school, like work. And so, if it were up to me, and it’s completely not, I would really want to rename November Career Discovery Month, because when we’re talking about a young person who’s just beginning this journey, that’s where I want them to start. So we’re going to dig in together, regardless of whether you have a high school student, a college student, a recent graduate of either who’s not in school currently, 20 something, or even into the early 30s, we’re going to talk about career discovery, design, and development. Because here’s what I found: sometimes the choices of the words that we’re making when we’re talking about this topic is simply making the process feel far more overwhelming, and I think if we get curious about how we’re talking about this, it will lower the stakes so that the young people that we’re trying to inspire and we’re trying to help and support don’t go into it feeling like it’s something big, it’s another assignment, or it’s a final lifelong commitment. See, career coaching can sound something like you need when you’re ready to choose that career, maybe in your 20s, 30s. Career counseling takes on a whole different flavor. Career planning, discovery, development, design. Let’s dig in together and talk about how we can lower the overwhelm without tabling the action and the intention, which is what you really want, right? So, welcome back to College and Career Clarity, where we talk about things that will support young people and their parents and those working with them to have traction, to have actions rooted in aiming them towards that ultimately the finish line out of our homes, where they get to launch with confidence. Okay, so let’s start with. Actually, I think what my favorite word of these is career discovery. It’s what I would name November, and I want you to stick with me here, because even if you have somebody that’s older, this is not about an age. It’s not about 1522, 32. It’s more about a stage of what they need. It’s not about what are you going to be when you grow up. Although that’s the question we start asking them all the way back in preschool. Sometimes, it’s about getting curious around what do I need to learn next. See, discovery is about learning what’s possible. It’s about it feels lighter, right? So when you discover something about yourself at this stage, again, regardless of the age or where they are in their educational journey, it could be about discovering something about yourself. You know, we always start with improving self awareness. That is the foundation, and oftentimes we use assessments to do that. But hear me when I say that assessment is a starting point of self discovery. It is, and maybe some of the career discovery, depending on the tool that you use, but it is not the finish line.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  04:48

And so, when it’s treated as the solution instead of the starting line, if you’ve heard me say this before, that’s where we see things also go sideways, right? So, without going more into that, this discovery process. Starting with discovering new things about ourselves, it also is about creating career awareness, not just self awareness. And what we’ve found is when we’re in this discovery phase, that happens via exploration, which is often like the research phase, and then validation, which is about testing under real-world circumstances to see what aligns, and this digs into like interest and motivations and strengths and style and aptitude. But when we lower the language and we call this discovery, what I find is those that aren’t feeling an urgency to land a job or get the interview or even the internship, it makes them feel like this could be fun. It’s lighter. It’s doable. It’s not even a commitment, right? It’s about discovery. So, I think adopting language around discovery, right? Future discovery, future we say future planning around here. It’s a word I like is going to lighten the load. And instead of your young person, if you’re trying to talk about those things, opting out, whether they say I’m not going to talk about it or they just quietly like walk away, I think you’re going to find that they’re more engaged when you use that kind of language. So these are sort of stages, but I want you to also think about these as an ecosystem. Is now we start to talk about design, right? So through the discovery process, they’ve discovered some things that are like, “Ooh, I want to test these, and they’re in the testing phase, and then once they’ve learned a whole bunch, then they start to ask, “Design, I’ve got something to work with, and now what am I going to do with what I’ve learned? Again, about myself, about careers. I was thinking about these words, and I was thinking about November, of course, and it made me think of in 2019 when we did a kitchen renovation. And can I just say, thank God we did that pre-COVID because so much cheaper back then. We literally we live in a house that’s like 40 years old, so we tore it down to the studs in the kitchen and in the laundry room. Everything’s gone, right? And so I had some ideas about what I wanted. I researched. I learned. I talked to other people. We made a design. We made some decisions, and then we learned a little bit more. And we even started putting some things together. And we had to go back and make new discoveries, alter our designs. That first blueprint was not the final blueprint, and I also learned through that process. And then we later did a master bath, which we just completed, or primary bath, whatever you want to call it. I didn’t have to know every detail before I got started, and along the way, I continued to discover things that helped me organically change the path that we were headed down for our kitchen, for our bathroom, right? And its career design is really similar. I mean, this would be a great way if you’ve ever had a project like that for your own home, inside or outside, to have a an analogy that could actually support the conversations that you’re having at home because they’ve seen this in action, right? So they’re going to discover some stuff, and then they’re going to begin to design based upon the informed choices that they’re making about their possible path. They’re going to start designing what education or training that might look like what experience might be helpful, which opportunities they want to continue to test and validate, and then I talk about this all the time. Not what’s the final step, but like what’s the next step in my design that makes sense, so that we’ve got intentional direction, but we’re not closed fist holding on to it like it’s final. The design is not a permanent blueprint; it’s an intentional direction with the best information that you have today. And let me tell you, I too have made some changes along the way. See, design can happen more than once. A college student may discover new things, and they might alter their blueprint, alter their path. A 28-year-old might do the same.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  09:28

By the way, I’m working with more and more of not just you know. When I started this work, I started with college-bound teenagers, and what we’ve seen over time, and I think this is due to the world, to the workforce, to hiring, to AI-a lot of different reasons. The work that we’re doing continues to trickle up. Our oldest people that we that we’re supporting now are 32 years of age with our launch career clarity process. Right now, here’s what I want you to think about. For my own career journey, and and parents use your own use your journeys as well. But for my own, there are some constants I call them through lines in the work that we do that have always been there. Working with his age group is one of those through lines, right? But if I went back and counted, I’ve had eight micro pivots during my career journey, during my professional career journey of 30 plus years, right? And those pivots each time took me back to a little bit of discovery, and then design. I mean, we would not be having a podcast today if I didn’t learn a few things about how we work in a modern world, right? And so when I say that, that is development, that next stage. But remember, these aren’t linear. It’s an ecosystem that we travel through. So in my own journey, I went. Ah, the world’s changing, the world of work, technology, etc. I got to go back and discover some new things, so I can then design where I want to go, and that’s going to require lifelong development. And when we use the word development with kids when they’re younger, it seems older, urgent, permanent. I want to lower the stakes on this. is never final. It’s going to be lifelong, and that development stage is really asking, what do I need to keep building? See, every stage of life we have, and I say this even with my executive coaching. There are going to be new chapters that we will choose, and sometimes there’s something placed upon us that’s going to require us to go within ourselves and develop something for that next chapter. Okay, that first job is not going to be the finish line. You know, we talked about back on the october 20 episode what a career ready profile looks like, and we’ve always got to be building towards something, but holding that process loosely without demanding having all of the answers up front because that’s when young people can dig in and start doing this work. Development’s going to be lifelong. Now, this is what I want you to think about. Yes, we talk about ages in here, but instead of oh, I have a high school student and we’re exploring possibilities, it’s really about what stage are we at, and how can I lower the stakes without pretending like real deadlines don’t exist. So if you do have a high school student, yeah, they’re probably up against some real deadlines. If they’re going to college, college application deadlines in the fall of the senior year. I mean, this is dropping on October 27, and the reality is, college applications, a lot of them are due november 1. That’s a very real deadline, right? So we have to work with some of those that are about our ages and stages. But being older does not automatically mean that our young people are leaving discovery behind, and they should be. Don’t shut on yourself. They should be up in the development or or even the design stage, okay, that’s what I want you to think about. Age does not mean somebody should be farther along in this journey. It’s about being in discovery is okay. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t mean that there’s judgment on that, or they aren’t making progress. So you can be 30, you can be 25 in a discovery phase, even after you’ve been in a design phase, and that doesn’t mean that progress isn’t happening. So, as adults, whether it’s the kid in your home or the kid that you’re trying to get out of your home onto their own two feet, that’s real, right? It’s a wonky stage of parenting for sure. Whether you work with them at a school, whether you’re a counselor or a coach, let’s shift some of our vocabulary without changing our expectations of them.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  14:12

If you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, “Okay, I want to help my young people get started, but I’m not sure how to help them take that first step, I’ve made a commitment for the remainder of this year, this calendar year, to offer more live events. I keep talking about with hiring how we need more humanness. I think we need to spend more time together, not just studying and listening online, but being live together. So, if you want to be among the first to know when I’m offering a live training, a Q and A, a topic that we’re just going to hang out on Zoom and talk about, so that your family can get more traction, be sure you’re on my email list. I’m not going to sit here and go like, “Oh, this date, go do this, that, that, that. The easiest way is just get on our newsletter list. So it’s flourish. Co.com forward slash newsletter. I’m also going to put that in the the show notes. So remember, my friends, career discovery isn’t a decision; it’s the beginning of a lifelong development of process that should be an ecosystem, not a linear journey. Okay, I will see you next week, the first week of National Career Development Month, and we’re almost winding down 2026. And I’ve got some big announcements to make in November. See you soon.