…when you don’t know exactly what you want to do next.

Many of us dread being asked the question - where do you want to be in 5 years?

We simply can’t tell you the role we want to be in, or where we want to be. We don’t know.

And that’s absolutely fine.

Except… it can be really hard when other people know their answer, and it feels that we should too.

So, we default to the response we feel we ‘should’ give, or leave it wide open - neither of which feel right.

But there is a different way to have a useful career conversation.

Recently I found myself creating a framework for the different types of people I coach, and the different types of ways we coach together.

There is now SO much variety, and I thought I’d found a brilliant way of organising it all.

It felt so interesting - look at these patterns! I could even make it into a 4-box matrix!

It made complete sense in my mind, until…

• I started to spot the (many) exceptions to the rule.

• I shared it out loud, trying to explain my thinking, and confused myself each time.

• I finally realised what a ridiculous thing I was doing (with thanks to Claire Pedrick MCC).

Why was I trying to fit everyone and all their experiences into one of 4 boxes???

Back in April a friend and I applied to take part in the BBC’s Race Across the World.

It was a spontaneous decision, prompted by a conversation on a very long walk, and a quick google search that showed the deadline was in a couple of days.

At first we dismissed it as a ridiculous idea! We agreed that:

• It was terrible timing - perhaps at some point in the future?

• It wasn’t possible, we couldn’t take 2 months off from our lives when we played so many roles for so many different people.

• It was completely pointless - there was no chance of being chosen.

And then we decided to take a few steps…

When I was little, I used to love to eat chocolate biscuits from the outside in.

I would nibble around the edges and work my way to the middle. It was fun to take it in sections and break it down into its component parts, rather than crunching through the whole thing.

It’s still my favourite approach for most things!

We spend a lot of our lives consuming our worlds. Information, learning, conversations, content - words, both online and in real life.

It can mean our thinking brains are on the go a lot - interpreting, digesting, processing. So when we want to relax, it can be hard to step out of that mode. We can turn to more words, on a screen or on a page.

I’m one of those people - I always have a book on the go - but sometimes I already have enough words in my head!

This is when I reach for a puzzle.