When I think about how people make career choices, I often recall the scene from the classic movie, The Graduate. In it, a well-meaning family friend, Mr. McGuire, corners young Benjamin resulting in the following exchange:

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Just how do you mean that, sir?
Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
Ben: Yes I will.
Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.

Among the movie’s other themes, one review makes a great point about the implications for how “…aimless and unalive the disaffected young generation was…and would become as they approached middle-age and worked in sterile corporate settings.” It was, in fact, a chilling prospect; and in many cases, has become a daunting reality.

I’d love to say that we’re well beyond the time when people drift aimlessly into a career choice with the hope of a safe, secure, and financially rewarding future. Certainly, the world has become too uncertain to believe in such an outcome. Yet, I often see mid-career folks who want to make a career move into a field with more stability and more reward. And so they look externally to career forecasts. Frankly, it’s not the place to start.

As I see it, if you are at mid-career, the first place to look is to your career journey. For it’s in your personal career story where you’ll find the clues that will help you make a more informed evaluation of your best direction. So, doing some introspective work that uncovers the theme or themes that have directed your choices over time, you’ll be able to create a clearer statement of the differentiated value that is your brand, and you’ll know how your story validates it.

Once you have those insights, you can then fold them into a career vision. For that, I would strongly recommend the “I SEE Career Vision” exercise presented by Laurence Boldt, in his excellent, Zen and the Art of Making a Living. Basically, it’s this:

Integrity: What work will best fit with who I am?

Service: Whom do I want to serve?

Enjoyment: What will I most enjoy doing?

Excellence: To what will I devote myself?

There is in my advice, a bias that you ought to figure out what you were meant to do, and go do it! So, today, if there is one word for career choice, I’d say it’s “authentic.”

Are you listening? Think about it. Enough said.