Do you feel stuck in a career you never actually chose? You're not alone. Many people find themselves in jobs they never planned on doing. Their careers that happened by accident rather than by design. Maybe you followed a path that seemed practical at the time, or perhaps you took a job "just for now" that somehow became permanent. Whatever the reason, if your current career isn't fulfilling, here's the good news: this doesn't have to be permanent.
With intentional thinking, a solid plan, and the courage to be authentically yourself, you can design a career that's not just better, but truly extraordinary. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the exact steps to find work you love and do it in a way that only you can.
Why Designing Your Career Path Matters More Than Ever
Too many people view their careers as something that happens to them rather than something they actively create. They accept whatever opportunities come their way, adapt to roles that don't quite fit, and gradually lose sight of what they actually want.
But here's what most people don't realize: when you take control of your career and design it intentionally around who you are and what you value, everything changes. You're not just happier at work… you become better at everything you do. When you're working in alignment with your authentic self, you have more energy, creativity, and resilience. You show up as a better employee, partner, parent, friend, and human being.
The key is understanding that career design isn't just about finding any job, it's about finding your thing and doing it your way.
The Three Essential Phases of Career Design
Whether you're seeking growth in your current role or contemplating a complete career change, there are three critical phases to designing your career path: Foundation, Exploration, and Evaluation. Let's break down each phase and what it requires from you.
Phase 1: Foundation - Acknowledge Where You Stand
You cannot move forward unless you know (like, reeaallly know) where you are right now. This isn't about beating yourself up for past choices or dwelling on regrets. It's about gaining absolute clarity on your current situation so you can build a solid foundation for what comes next.
You may be tempted to skip this part of the process. Many people want to jump straight to searching for new jobs or making dramatic changes. But here's the truth: just saying "I'm fed up with my job, so I'd better start searching for something new" will land you back in the same predicament in short order.
You need to give yourself your full attention. I know that sounds like a no-brainer, but often we give ourselves the least amount of attention possible. You may have to take yourself out for coffee, schedule a meditation session, or block off time on your calendar and explicitly say to yourself: "I need your FULL brain on me for the next hour." Then actually take the time to address your situation honestly.
Ask yourself these foundational questions:
What about your career do you genuinely like? Even in an unsatisfying job, there are usually elements you enjoy. Maybe it's certain tasks, particular coworkers, the company's mission, your commute, or specific skills you get to use. Identify these positive aspects because they provide clues about what to seek in your next role.
2. What do you not like? Where are your pain points? Get specific here. Is it your micromanaging boss? Lack of advancement opportunities? Boring work? Poor work-life balance? A toxic culture? Long hours? Limited creativity? Write down everything that frustrates you, no matter how small it seems.
3. What problems are you looking to solve? This question helps you move from complaints to clarity. If your pain point is lack of growth opportunities, your problem to solve is finding a role with clear advancement paths. If your frustration is creative limitations, your problem is finding work that allows more autonomy and innovation.
Once you analyze and accept your current state of affairs, you can understand the positive possibilities that your circumstances offer. This foundation becomes your compass, helping you navigate toward opportunities that genuinely address your needs rather than simply running away from what you don't like.
Phase 2: Exploration - Discover What You Truly Want
Now comes the exciting part: exploring and discovering what you actually want from your career. In my opinion, this exploration should always start with two simple but powerful questions:
Question 1: What do I find fun?
Yes, fun. This might seem frivolous when you're talking about serious career decisions, but it's actually the most important question you can ask. Think about activities, tasks, or topics that genuinely engage and energize you. What could you do for hours without checking the clock? What makes you lose track of time?
Maybe you're thinking: "I find sitting in my underwear watching 1970s cop movies while eating corn dogs fun. But that's not a job!"
I challenge that notion. People make great livings writing about film, analyzing cultural trends, creating content about food, and crafting personal memoirs that involve all three. The activities that bring you joy contain valuable clues about careers that might fulfill you.
Question 2: Why do I find it fun?
This is where the real insight happens. Dig deeper into what specifically makes these activities enjoyable. Is it the independence? The creativity? The problem-solving? The human connection? The tangible results?
For example, maybe your day job at a highly regulated macrobiotic food lab (where every movement, including your lab coat and lunch options are controlled) is making you feel stifled. If that's the case, understanding why you crave freedom and variety opens up your career world significantly. Something in food science that isn't in a lab? That's maybe outdoors? With fun people? Working with kids? Suddenly the world is your career oyster.
The authenticity principle: Do your thing in your way
Here's a truth that will transform how you approach your career: to succeed at anything, especially your work, you have to lean into your "youness." You need to be the most you and do things in your own way.
There will always be someone who wants similar things in life as you, but nobody can or will do it exactly like you. Your unique perspective, your specific combination of skills and interests, your particular way of solving problems. These are your competitive advantages.
When you are authentically yourself and lean into what comes naturally, you're simply better at what you do. You're not fighting against your nature, your strengths, or your interests. Instead, you're channeling all your energy into who you actually are and producing amazing results.
And here's the bonus: when you work from this place of authenticity, you don't just become better at your job. Because you're operating with less friction and stress, you become a better spouse, employee, community member, parent, friend, and overall person.
If you try to hide who you are and soften your edges to fit someone else's mold, eventually there's nothing distinctive left to grab onto. Your edges: those uneven, unexpected pieces.. are exactly what make you you. They're what make you memorable, valuable, and irreplaceable.
Phase 3: Evaluation - Test Your Options and Make Decisions
You've sat with yourself, done the introspection, and generated some ideas about possible new directions. Awesome! But now it's time for homework. Think of it as fieldwork, researching and testing your new path in the real world.
As much as you may think you do, you don't actually know the true outcomes of your career decisions until you test them. You don't know how you'll really feel about your choices unless you evaluate and refine them.
Vague ideas and wishful thinking only get you so far, and that's all in your head. You have to get out into the real world and test your hypotheses.
How to evaluate your career options:
Talk to people actually doing the work: Conduct informational interviews with people in roles you're considering, even if they're at a different level than where you'd start. Ask them about their typical day, what surprised them about the work, what they love, and what challenges them.
Shadow professionals in your target field: Spend a day or even a few hours observing someone doing the work. There's no substitute for seeing the reality of a job versus your imagination of it.
Practice and experiment: Take on volunteer work, freelance projects, or side gigs in your area of interest. Complete online courses or certifications. Attend industry events and workshops. Get your hands dirty with the actual tasks involved.
Do the real nitty-gritty daily tasks: Don't just focus on the glamorous aspects of a potential career. Make sure you understand and can tolerate the routine, mundane parts as well. Every job has them.
This evaluation phase is another one where you cannot skip out on the work. I completely understand that people who finally make a new career decision tend to want to jump right in with both feet. But if you do that without proper evaluation, be prepared to potentially start all over again.
Here's the thing: this isn't a "one and done" proposition. You can choose and test as many options as you like. You will make some not-so-right choices along the way, and that's completely okay. Each "wrong" choice teaches you something valuable about what you do and don't want.
Why Your Career Is a Radical Act (And Why That Matters)
Now let's talk about something that might surprise you: taking control of your career and making money doing what you love isn't just personally fulfilling. It's a radical act.
When you make money doing what you actually want to do (not what societal or familial forces expect you to do), you become your most authentic self. You act in a truly holistic way that honors all of you. This isn't “woo-woo nonsense,” you know your body and mind feel different when you're doing something you enjoy versus something you dread.
When you feel good and all your energy is aligned behind your work, that's where success comes from. For your career, that's where money and growth originate. It's simple math: you enjoy it + you pump energy into it = you make more money and achieve greater success.
But here's where it gets really interesting: what do you get to do with that money?
You get to use it to support your values. You want to support organizations, foundations, political candidates, family members, your community, or causes you believe in? Go to town. The more money you make doing work you love, the more you can support what matters to you.
Why is this radical? Because our systems are not set up for everyone to succeed equally. Certain people face systemic barriers based on gender, race, sexuality, socioeconomic background, and other factors. Standing up and saying "I want to be in a place of workplace power and I want to make money doing it" is still seen as outside the expected norms for many people, whereas for others it's completely acceptable.
Here's my belief: you should make money doing what you want, and you should do what you want with that money. Finding and doing your thing means you will make more money. People making money doing something they genuinely enjoy is still, unfortunately, a radical act in our current system.
Many people come to career coaching thinking they just need to be "less unhappy." They've been told for so long that they should take what they can get in the corporate world and be thankful for it. But saying "I'm dissatisfied and I want to change" is itself stepping outside that norm. Declaring "I deserve to be happy, I deserve to feel like I'm making a difference, I deserve to spend money on things I find important without apologizing" - that is big.
Strong, smart, capable, forward-thinking, amazingly talented people are often held back by traditional systems and structures. Many times they're not even aware these systems are creating their blocks. They feel they have personal failings keeping them from success, when actually they've been societally blocked.
The solution? Redefine the rules. Create your own definitions. Build your own path and make your own money. Challenging these norms and systems isn't something to apologize for, it's something to own and celebrate!
Practical Steps to Start Designing Your Career Today
Ready to take action? Here's how to begin implementing everything we've discussed:
Step 1: Schedule your foundation work Block off dedicated time this week (you’ll need at least 90 minutes) to work through the foundational questions about what you like, don't like, and want to solve in your career. Treat this appointment with yourself as seriously as any business meeting.
Step 2: Start your exploration journal Begin a morning journaling practice where you ask yourself: "How can I lean into my authenticity today?" Track what activities energize you versus drain you. Notice when you feel most like yourself at work and when you feel like you're pretending.
Step 3: Create your personal goals list Write down long-term career goals that are deeply personal to you, not what others expect or what looks impressive, but what you genuinely want. Look at this list often and ask yourself how you, specifically and uniquely, can achieve these goals.
Step 4: Conduct three informational interviews Reach out to people in roles or industries you find interesting. Ask them about their path, their daily reality, and their advice. Most people are happy to share their experience for 20-30 minutes.
Step 5: Design one small experiment Don't wait until you have everything figured out. Take one small action this month toward exploring a new possibility: take a course, attend a networking event, start a side project, volunteer in a new capacity, or shadow someone for a day.
Step 6: Identify your distinctive edge Make a list of qualities, perspectives, or approaches that make you different from others in your field. These "edges" are your competitive advantages. How can you lean into them more rather than hiding them?
The Career Design Principles to Remember
As you move forward in designing your career, keep these core principles in mind:
Authenticity is your advantage: The sooner you begin working from your point of view, solving problems your way, and bringing your whole self to work, the sooner you'll hit career milestones and accomplishments—not only faster but bigger and better than you imagined.
Different is better than better: If everyone did everything the exact same way, life would be boring and you wouldn't be able to engage in truly meaningful work. Your unique approach is what makes you valuable.
Alignment creates energy: When you're doing work that aligns with your values, interests, and natural strengths, you have more energy for everything else in your life. When you're fighting against your nature, everything becomes harder.
Testing is essential: You can't think your way into the perfect career. You have to try things, experiment, and learn from both successes and failures.
Career design is ongoing: This isn't a one-time process. As you grow and change, your definition of fulfilling work will evolve. That's normal and healthy. Revisit your foundation, exploration, and evaluation regularly.
Your career is your own: No one else can define success for you. Not your parents, your partner, your colleagues, or society at large. Only you know what will truly fulfill you.
Moving Forward: Your Career, Your Way
Here's the bottom line: too many people settle for careers that happened to them rather than careers they designed. They accept jobs that don't fit, hide parts of themselves to conform, and wonder why they feel unfulfilled despite external success.
But you don't have to be one of those people.
You have the power to design a career that leverages your unique strengths, aligns with your values, and allows you to be fully yourself. Not only is this possible, it's the path to both fulfillment and success.
Yes, it requires work. You'll need to do the difficult introspection, the exploration that might lead to dead ends, and the evaluation that might reveal uncomfortable truths. You'll need to be honest with yourself, take risks, and potentially face criticism from people who don't understand your path.
But consider the alternative: spending your limited time on earth doing work that doesn't fulfill you, suppressing who you really are, and never discovering what you're truly capable of when you're operating as your most authentic self.
The three phases, Foundation, Exploration, and Evaluation, provide your roadmap. The principle of doing your thing in your way provides your compass. And the understanding that your career is a radical act of self-determination provides your motivation.
Your career is one of the primary ways you'll spend your energy, time, and talents over your lifetime. Doesn't it make sense to be intentional about designing it rather than letting it happen by default?
While someone out there might want a similar job as you, when you do it your way, bringing your unique perspective, skills, and approach, you'll get hired for being you. Employers don't just want warm bodies filling roles; they want people who bring distinctive value. That's you when you're operating authentically.
The world needs what you, specifically, have to offer. Not a watered-down, edge-smoothed version of you. Not you pretending to be someone else. You, at your most you, doing your thing in your way.
So start today. Begin with the foundation work. Explore what brings you joy and why. Evaluate options through real-world testing. Lean into your authenticity rather than hiding your edges. And remember: designing your dream career isn't selfish… it's how you become capable of your greatest contributions.
Now go forth and design your career. Do your thing. Be radically yourself. Make the money. Support what you value. The world is waiting for what only you can offer.
Yours in career design goodness,
EBS
