3 Steps To Find Your New Career Idea

“I don’t enjoy my work…but I have no idea what else I could do.”

This is one of the most common statements I hear from the people I’m coaching through career changes. I hope this blog will help you find that idea!

OK Go, a band who have created some of the most creative and satisfying music videos of all time, just made a fantastic TED talk! (link to the TED talk is below) Their talk is called “How to find a wonderful idea”, and the lessons are highly relevant to solving the life hurdle of ‘finding a wonderful career’.

So here’s a quick summary of their 3 key messages and how they relate to your search for better future.

1.     Don’t think of ideas… find them

Put yourself in and around a variety of stimulus and ideas and your brain will find connections and patterns that just click. 

When considering a career change enhancing your self-awareness is critical.

This can be achieved by taking up new hobbies, doing e-learning in subjects you think might be interesting or by volunteering to work in some new environments on the weekend.

Equally, you should seek some deeper psychological insights to find out who you are as a person by taking a personality questionnaire, discovering your values and strengths. (PathBoss e-learning will be helping you with this very soon!)

2.     Line up the moving parts 

When you have an initial idea people typically follow this pattern:

Idea – Plan – Revise idea – Revise plan – Execute

You evaluate the chances of success of your initial idea and then you revise how the idea looks, gradually lining up the moving parts until you are confident enough to execute.

The moving parts of a career change are things like: technical know-how, relevant skills, interests and habits. Without any of these in the right place it’s going to be a real challenge to be successful. Equally, it’s important to know that you will probably have to learn and develop some of these as you go … just be ready for the short-term pain that will come with that.

So break down what you need to know, think and do in order to be successful and oil those moving parts as you go.

3.     Find a ‘sand box’ and play

For a truly innovative idea (or product or service for the more entrepreneurial among you), planning and testing on its own might not work.  To find an opportunity or business idea unique and original as an OK Go video, find an area which isn’t currently saturated and play around for a while.

Go play around with new technology, new social media channels, new trends in the market or even just new marketplaces. Speak to people in the industry, network with key influencers or become a customer and experience the area first hand.

You might find that a couple of interesting trends combine to form your new billion-dollar idea (e.g. sharing photos + privacy concerns = Snapchat).

In summary

Making a career change is tough. But finding out what your next move could be should be a fun process! If this is important to you then commit some time to explore a new sandbox, oil some of your moving parts and discover more about what is going to make you happy and successful.  

Check out their awesome TED talk if you're interested or check out my own video on 'How to get Inspired' for another take on this.