Growing up without an intentional career plan – what is the cost?

Growing up, nobody ever talked to me about having a career or life plan. The first time I stumbled across the concept was in a share house in my mid-20s. One of my housemates had a very detailed handwritten plan spanning three wardrobe doors setting out their plans for their career and life. Well before the days of Post-Its and other clever online design thinking tools, this was simply handdrawn lines on A4 sheets of paper held together by sticky tape.

Already well ensconced in the Julia Roberts Pretty Woman “fly by the seat of my pants” approach to all aspects of my life, I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could and never asked the question I now wish I had – ”Why”?

The “fly by the seat of my pants” approach stayed with me until I was into my 40s, and probably a bit beyond if I’m honest. If you were to map my career path and life, it would look a bit like a Mr Squiggle drawing of my childhood that makes no sense at all until you turn it up the right way and everything seems clear (or at least clearer).

All decisions were made on the hop, depending on how I felt on any particular day, without any real consideration as to how it might impact me in a week, a month, a year, or even 10 or 50 years. There seemed to be so much time in front of me – why not choose the adventure every time?

To be honest, life has worked out pretty well for me so far – I have a great family and friends, live in a wonderful part of the world after spending time overseas and have my own business working with clients who give me a sense of purpose every day.

However, now that there is definitely more life behind me than in front of me, I have spent time over the last five years thinking about how having more intent around at least some of my career might have benefited me.

• Understand the career track I had chosen. When I applied to study law, I didn’t really know what that career pathway looked like other than my own experience working as a receptionist in a 2-person general law firm focused on pretty much any work that came in the door. I picked law because a bad romance had taught me that I always wanted to be able to support myself and lawyers seemed to earn a good salary so that seemed like a good decision. Besides, who didn’t want to be Ally McBeal in the 90s?

  Looking back, I wish I had asked more questions about what the life of a lawyer would look like from 1996 to 2005, particularly from other women who were already on the path. Although it provided me with unique opportunities and a great foundation for the work I now do, I didn’t understand the importance of progressing through the hierarchy and my pattern of opting out to take on other roles diminished my influence and my salary.

• Skill gaps. I have always loved learning, whether through reading, podcasts, in person or online courses, but I didn’t always consider how the investment (both time and financial) would provide me with a return. Avoiding the “this sounds interesting” and taking a more strategic and analytical approach, focused on how the learnings would assist in promotions and cover skill gaps, as well as providing me with both personal and business connections might have led me to make different decisions.

  An advocate for lifetime learning, I am all for ongoing development but wish I had better considered how it fitted into my overall career and the plan that I didn’t have. While I have jumped between things and across learning opportunities, I have seen other people be very focused and strategic on how they built their skills, expertise and connections in terms of positioning themselves as experts and thought leaders on particular topics. When considering learning opportunities now, these are assessed in terms of the return on investment they will deliver and how they will help me to achieve the next stage of my career

• Family plans. Children weren’t something I ever really planned for – after all, I had left teaching because I didn’t really like children so having my own didn’t seem like a remote possibility. Until I one day had 3 children under 3 and a full-time job that was burning me out! As the now proud parent of three teenage children, I cannot imagine what our lives would be without them but they have played havoc with any notion of a plan or self-interest over the last 20 years. To be honest, it was only after I had my children that I realised my career path was impacted in a way that it never would be for my brothers or husband.

  Looking back, I wish I had planned to have a family even when I didn’t know if I would take that path. It would have helped me in the decisions made both pre- and post-children. These are decisions that have had a significant impact on my career progression, my financial position and how I would have worked in a way where I could have been more available to my children and other people in my life without always being busy, tired and on call. And I would have realised sooner that the time my children needed or wanted me in their lives goes past much faster than I ever imagined. To be honest I missed a lot I didn’t have to so I could live the mantra “Work like you don’t have children and parent like you don’t have work”.

There are so many other ways that a plan for my career and life would have helped me and working with Allison and Liz, these ideas have helped form the foundation of our online program “My Intentional Career”.

If you can, share your own thoughts on your intentional career and the changes you would make if you could go back and wave a magic wand.

What decisions did you make well and what were those that you wished you had given more thought, time and input? What is coming up for you next in terms of milestones and how are you approaching this? Could you use some support so you don’t feel stuck in your own head?

To find out more, spend some time on our website, use our resources, sign up for our newsletter or join our free monthly workshop packed with helpful tips and the latest news and views, and be the first to know when the doors open to our next “My Intentional Career” course in the first quarter of 2025.

You might also want to check out our free “My Intentional Career” Blueprint to work out what could be different for you in 2025?

See you soon,
Bron

PS One of my favourite “You don’t know what life means until you look back” speeches is the 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech by Steve Jobs. If you haven’t watched it, make yourself a coffee, grab a snack and take 15 minutes out to watch it here – I’d love to hear what you think.