Article by Adrianne Harris
What is a Career Journal?
Simply put, a career journal is like a travel journal, but instead of containing information and pictures of your holidays and adventures, a career journal summarises the path and places that your career has taken you. A career journal can be anything as simple as some blank sheets of paper or something more structured that includes thinking and reflection activities and exercises. It can be electronic, a scrapbook or even a combination of both. A career journal can contain pictures, colour, stories, anything that helps you visualise where you have come from and where you are going.
Picture: Use pictures to show what you loved doing when you were younger
When Should I Use a Career Journal?
Career journals can be used at various points in your career. However, you are likely to get more out of the process of career journalling when:
- First starting out on your career
- Undergoing a career transition
- After having been made redundant or undergoing organisational change
- After a career break and before rejoiniong the workforce
Scheduling regular times to review your journal and to add to is is also a valuable exercise to ensure you are on track in your career.
How do I use a Career Journal?
A career journal can be used to:
- Review where you have come from
- Dream about where you want to go and what your future looks like
- Identify what you’d love to do more of and what you’d like to do less of
- Consider your reality against your vision and how you navigate both worlds
Your journal can be as neat or as messy as you like, you can draw pictures, glue in photos, place dream job ads inside, write notes, use colour, or write in it. There is no right or wrong way when completing a journal, the idea is that it speaks to your heart using the language that inspires you.
A career journal (structured or unstructured ) allows you to see key trends or themes of things you like, or don’t like, and it can give you clues as to future job satisfaction. You might find that you doing things you don’t really love, just because of circumstances, and now might be the time to take active control of your career into the area you would prefer to work. You might find that a passion you had forgotten about or havent thought about it a while might emerge and the spark be rekindled.
Picture: tell yourself a story using colour and pictures
I’ve coloured it all in – what now!?
Creating a beautiful (or simple) career journal is only the start. The important thing is giving your self the time and space to reflect and match that with who you are now and where you want to go in the future.
Review the journal and ask yourself:
- Am I doing what I love and less of what I dislike?
- Are my childhood passions reflected in my adult life and work?
- Am I working in the most ideal environment for me?
If the answer to any of the questions above is NO then it’s time to do something about your career and the job you are in.
Get Your Own Career Journal!
You can purchase a career journal by visiting Broadly Speaking’s Career Shop.
