Increase your self awareness

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The great thing about Squiggly Careers (one of them at least!), is that we don’t have to follow someone else’s path. In traditional, linear careers, there was a lot less variety and ability to personalise our career. Our future was predictable and to some extent standardised. Stepping off the path to do something else often meant stepping backwards. That is no longer the case. In Squiggly Careers, we can move much more fluidly from company to company, job to job and industry to industry.

This creates a lot of choice and opportunity which can feel overwhelming, but you can set yourself up to design a career that works for you by having high levels of self-awareness. Knowing where you get your energy from, the implications of your personality and what you value, can help you make better choices about your future and craft your roles as you progress.

It’s a big part of what we help people do to at Amazing If, whether that’s in our work with companies, the advice we share on the podcast or our courses. We appreciate though, that not everyone can be in those places and that you might need some help right now! To get you started, here are three things we think can help:

1. FiveThirtyEight – this is a helpful personality test based on the ‘big 5’ traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, negative emotionality and openness to experience. Not only do you get some good insight into your propensity for each trait, you can also send a link around which means other people can compare themselves to you!
2. Introversion – Extroversion Scale – there are several tests that can help you identify where you get energy from. We’re fans of Adam Grant’s test, because we think he is great (!) and because he focuses on ambiversion, which is where most people actually fall. Knowing where you sit on the scale can help you think about how you want to work and with who, so that you create environments where you can be your best at work
3. Via Character Strengths – despite it featuring the word ‘strengths’, this test can give you some steer as to what your values might be. It’s quick to fill in and if you create an account (free for a basic version), it saves your results so you can see over time if your context changes your results. I found this to be true now i’m working for myself – Hope has come up much higher in my character strengths than it did when I was in a more corporate role in my squiggly career!

If you put the insights from these different tests together, it can help you to self-reflect and inform your future career choices.

Thanks for reading, Helen