professional achievement
1. How important is your career to you?
2. The above is hard to answer in isolation, right? So think about how important your career is compared to other aspects of your life. Make a pie chart, a numbered list, a graph—whatever works—and see how it rates compared to family, hobbies, or other interests. Now you can see how important your career is in relation to the other things in your life.
3. When you think about your work, what is it you enjoy most about it? The work itself, your status, the sense of power you have, the getting out of the house, the gossiping with coworkers, the money? Take a stab at ranking this list.
4. How much of the way you work is about satisfying your ego? How much of it is about a sense of competition? Do you feel driven to do it the same as, or better than, everyone else?
5. Are you prepared to give up money to get more time? And can you afford it? If you think creatively, then you’ll often see you might be able to make do with a bit less.
family/life
1. Do you spend enough time with your children/aged parent/community group/sport? What is enough time? For you—not anyone else?
2. What brings you the most joy, fulfillment, excitement in your life? Make that list.
3. Would having more time to devote to family or yourself make a difference in your life? Be realistic. Don’t fantasize about long, lazy days at home with your kids playing happily outside as you roll homemade pasta. Think about what you’d actually do with another few hours each day or week. Would you be able to pick the kids up from school? Coach a soccer team? Take your father to the park? How meaningful would that extra time be? How do you feel when you imagine it?
stress
1. What regularly brings the most stress into your life? Where does work rate? Get specific. What situations at work or at home are the most tense? (Again, lay it out with lists or charts or graphs. Sometimes actually putting it on paper clarifies the thought process. We like pros and cons lists; try those out too.)
2. If you have significant stress at or over work, is it about time? What might help? Working fewer hours? Having a more flexible schedule? Or would it require a new boss or a new career? Really be a sleuth here and uncover what you like least.
3. Picture the next move up on the ladder, or the promotion you’ve been eyeing. Do you get a total rush? Is the adrenaline tinged with anxiety? Do you even have a sense of dread about how you might manage it?
nirvana
1. Pretend for a moment that you are totally in charge of dictating the structure of your daily life. If you could create the ideal situation, the perfect mix of work and personal life, what would it be?
2. Now get specific. How many hours a week would you like to work? Fifteen? Thirty-five? Fifty-five? And what would the schedule look like? Be creative.
3. Next, imagine yourself in another situation. You’ve said no to the promotion, or you’ve asked to work less. What do you feel? Anxious? A failure? Lazy? Strip away all of the negativity. Do you also feel a secret sense of relief?
Once you’ve wrestled with these questions as honestly and clearly as you can, you should have made a pretty good start at unearthing your core preferences. You may, in fact, see the pattern. Success, for most of us, is not necessarily earning top dollar or amassing top status; it’s a complex, nuanced web of personal and professional goals. Finally coming to terms with that can feel like the moment when Dorothy lands in Oz—shades of gray dissolve to reveal a vibrant world of possibility. We can define our own success. And that—let us tell you—is real power.
You may well find that the answers to these questions change at different stages of your life, but the point of the exercise doesn’t. These gut-check questions will provide you with a definition of what you want and, just as importantly, will keep you on the right track. Every time you make a professional decision, run through the survey. See how the job or career change you are contemplating stacks up against your answers. Does it fit them? If not it probably isn’t the right move for you. It may be, later on, but not now. And go back to these questions whenever you feel anxious about keeping your life sane. You will find they act as a reassuring guide.
Of course simply knowing what we really want doesn’t get us to the finish line. Many women may understand they are not working according to their own true goals, but they still don’t take action—because that would mean pushing through a thicket of ego, financial, and even feminist barricades. But keep reading. You’ll see that most of these walls will topple with just a tap.