I talk to a lot of clients, potential clients, people at parties, folks at the dog park who are trying to figure out what they want to do with their careers, and they want to DO IT NOW.
They want to skip really important steps because they want to just figure it out right now.
People change careers for all types of reasons, but they all have the same driver: the need to pivot into something different than what you are doing now.
While a lot of people find that terrifying, I see it as the ultimate opportunity to do something that makes you truly happy. It's the chance to do something that fulfills you in a way your old career didn't.
So what's the rush? And more importantly, what are these impatient career changers skipping over?
The Step Everyone Wants to Skip (But Shouldn't)
I believe every single person should start with some of the BIG life questions like "Why do I work?", "What is meaningful to me?", you know, "How do I want to be in the world?"
While, as a coach, I know you should start here, so many people just do not want to take the time out to ask those questions. They want to skip ahead. They're impatient. I get it.
So what they do instead of outlining what they truly want to do, they hop straight into "Okay, I'm going to write out a list of all of the things that I can do." Then they write out that list of things they know how to do and then start looking at jobs that line up with the skill sets they have.
While on the outside it apparently makes sense, that's actually the wrong way to go about it.
Here's why: you end up right back where you started. You find another job that uses your existing skills but doesn't fulfill you. You've changed jobs, not careers. You're still miserable, just in a different conference room.
What You Actually Need: Creativity
What is the most important factor in a career change? You and the limits of your imagination.
I believe that it is absolutely necessary to tap into your creativity if you are even considering a career change.
"But I'm not creative," you're thinking. "I'm an accountant. I'm in operations. I work in finance."
Stop. We are, by nature, creative problem solvers. And to be sure, job happiness is a problem to be cracked, decoded, and solved. You don't have to be a creative, but you absolutely should incorporate creativity into your search for job fulfillment.
Here's what creativity actually gives you in a career change: it helps you see possibilities beyond what already exists. It helps you connect dots that aren't obvious. It helps you envision something that doesn't look like what you've already done.
Skills-based job searching keeps you in the box of what is. Creativity helps you imagine what could be.
The Power of Flow
The key to finding a new career that fulfills you is finding what puts you in flow. Flow is a psychological concept that outlines the idea that you should engage most in tasks where you lose yourself.
Now, I can go all zen on a sink full of dishes, but that's not flow. Flow is looking up from a report you're diving into and realizing that you've spent four hours digging into fashion-buying statistics and it felt like 20 minutes and you have a smile on your face. Flow is a zone. A feeling. A work-induced happy place.
The absolute best place to find flow? In creative endeavors. Have you ever noticed that when you're in the act of creating something, time just flies? It can be almost anything: writing, organizing shapes, painting, dance, collage, whatever brings you joy and puts you in a state of flow.
This is the clue your brain is giving you about what kind of work will fulfill you. When you're in flow, you're using your strengths in a way that energizes rather than drains you. You're challenged but not overwhelmed. You're engaged but not stressed.
Pay attention to when you experience flow. That's your career GPS.
How to Actually Use Creativity in Your Career Change
So, now what?
Step 1: Find your flow.
Step 2: Find a way to incorporate that endeavor into your new career.
It may not mean literally. But it may. Honestly, tapping into your creativity doesn't mean you need to sculpt heads out of clay until you've designed the face of your ideal boss. It just means that you need to tap into the part of you that isn't necessarily logical and linear.
If you find yourself in flow while cooking but you can't see yourself as a line cook in a restaurant 50 hours a week, then maybe it's about finding a position where you can solve problems creatively alongside an energetic team who are encouraged to improvise.
Personally, when I was in the throes of a career change from teacher to who knew what, I had to come up with creative ways of teaching that weren't in front of a classroom with a creaky blackboard behind me. That creativity helped me envision career coaching before I even knew career coaching was a thing.
If there are zero creative activities you have interest in—firstly, seriously?—there are a few other ways to incorporate creativity into your career change journey:
Building a mood board of how you want to feel in your new gig
Brainstorming ALL bazillion possibilities for new roles
Mind-mapping your ideal project on the job
Drawing, visually or written, a "perfect" day one year into the future
Creating a vision board of companies you admire
Writing a day-in-the-life narrative of your ideal role
Sketching out your dream organizational chart
Collaging images that represent your values and priorities
The point isn't the specific creative activity. The point is engaging the part of your brain that imagines, connects, and envisions rather than just analyzes and categorizes.
The Four Lists That Actually Work (When Done Right)
Okay, so I've convinced you that you can't skip the creative, flow-finding, imagination work. But you still need a practical framework for organizing your skills and interests. I'm going to show you how to do this in a way that makes sense for your career search and for when you're questioning what you should do next.
You're going to write some lists. Four lists, actually. You can do this.
List Number One: All the Skills You Have
Write out ALL the skills that you have. All of them. Everything that you can do. Especially all the stuff that's super second nature to you. You want to write that down. List every skill that you could have someone pay you to do.
Don't edit. Don't judge. Don't dismiss things as "not real skills." Can you organize chaos? That's a skill. Can you make people feel comfortable in awkward situations? That's a skill. Can you spot patterns in data? That's a skill.
List Number Two: All the Skills You Want to Use
Write out all the skills and stuff you want to do.
Now, these lists are going to look a little different, right? List one is going to be much longer than list two. Don't worry about size right now. Just list out all of the things that you can and want to do.
This is where that flow work comes in. What skills put you in flow? What do you lose yourself in? What energizes rather than drains you?
List Number Three: Skills You Can Do But Don't Want To
I think this one is just as important as list one, but a lot of people skip it. For this list, list out all of the skills, all of the things that you can do but that you do not want to do.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Let's say you take a job that uses your top 10 can-do, saleable skills, but you hate nine of them. Even if you're being paid double, you're going to be miserable.
This list is crucial. It's your "never again" list. Maybe you're great at cold calling, but it makes you want to cry. Maybe you're excellent at managing budgets, but you find it soul-crushing. Maybe you're skilled at event planning, but you hate the stress.
Get clear on what you don't want. It's just as important as knowing what you do want.
List Number Four: Skills You Want to Learn
I love this list.
This is the stuff that maybe you got a chance to do once six months ago, or it's just a skill that you've always been interested in learning, or a skill that you've been learning but haven't had much of a chance to actually use.
This is your growth edge. This is where your curiosity lives. This is what excites you even though you're not good at it yet.
What to Do With Your Four Lists
Okay great. Now you've got four lists. What do you do with them?
You're going to take your list of all the things you can do and your list of all the things you don't want to do and cross-reference them. Make sure to check that off against list two. What overlaps? What is the stuff that you can do and that you want to do and made it to both lists?
Essentially, what's in the middle of a Venn diagram. That list of skills right there is what you should be plugging into job search engines to see what comes back at you in terms of titles, in terms of companies, in terms of roles, in terms of fields.
That's going to be where your interests lie, so look at that short list in the middle of that cool Venn diagram.
But here's the creative part: don't just look for job titles that match those skills. Look for industries you've never considered. Look for companies doing interesting work. Look for roles that use those skills in unexpected ways.
Maybe your overlap skills are communication, organization, and strategic thinking. That could be marketing. It could also be nonprofit program management. Or operations at a tech startup. Or project management in healthcare. Or event production in entertainment.
The creativity comes in imagining all the different contexts where those skills could be valuable, not just the obvious ones.
Do not forget list four. While you're on this search for your next thing, you should start learning some of the things on that list.
Take an hour and learn that new piece of software. Learn that new management skill, whatever it is. Now, when looking at potential jobs, if you fulfill 80 percent of the requirements for a job description and you are interested in learning the other 20 percent, you are a perfect fit for that role.
Employers want people who are curious and willing to learn. Your list four shows you are both.
Bringing It All Together: Skills + Creativity = Career Clarity
So that's it. Four lists and a little bit of organization, filtered through creativity and flow.
This is the step that you cannot skip. So as frustrated and as raring to go as you might be, do not skip this step. This step is absolutely necessary for you to find work that's going to make you happy in the future.
I promise you, just take an hour to do this. It will save you a lot of trial and error. It'll save you a lot of headache.
Here's what the full process looks like:
Find your flow. Pay attention to when you lose track of time in a good way. What are you doing? What skills are you using? How does it feel?
Get creative. Use mood boards, brainstorming, mind mapping, or any other creative tool to envision what you want your career to feel like and look like.
Make your four lists. All skills you have, skills you want to use, skills you never want to use again, and skills you want to learn.
Find the overlap. Create your Venn diagram of what you can do, want to do, and don't hate doing.
Think creatively about application. Don't just search for obvious job titles. Think about industries, company types, and roles where those skills could be valuable in ways you haven't considered.
Start learning. Pick one thing from list four and start developing that skill now.
The skills-only approach keeps you trapped in what you've already done. The creativity-only approach is too abstract and doesn't give you actionable next steps. But skills plus creativity? That's where the magic happens.
That's where you find work that uses what you're good at, in ways you actually enjoy, in contexts you haven't imagined yet.
Your Career Change Is Waiting
Career change is scary. I get it. But it's also the ultimate creative problem to solve.
You get to design what comes next. You get to use everything you've learned while leaving behind what drains you. You get to build something that fulfills you in ways your current career doesn't.
But only if you do the work. Only if you tap into your creativity. Only if you give yourself permission to imagine something different instead of just looking for a slightly better version of what you already have.
So go grab your beverage of choice and a pen, pencil, or Google doc, whatever you like. Find your flow. Get creative. Make your four lists. Find your overlap. And then start imagining all the unexpected, interesting, fulfilling places those skills could take you.
Send me a copy of your Venn diagram. I would love, love, love to see it.
Your new career is out there. Not the one that just uses your skills. The one that also lights you up. The one that puts you in flow. The one you haven't imagined yet because you've been too busy being practical.
Go imagine it. Then go get it.
Yours in creativity is great for your career goodness,
EBS
