Designing Your Life

I’m reading a book that’s so worthwhile and relevant for women returning to work that I have to share it with you.

Designing Your Life: How To Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans is about applying design thinking to life and career planning.

It’s really made me stop and think about how people choose careers and plan their lives. Their focus is on college students, but so much of what they’re preaching applies to women like us.

Here are a few of my favorite take-aways:

Pick 3 Paths:  Choosing your career should involve choosing 3 different paths –  one isn’t enough!

They advise that you map out 3 different career paths you could pursue. This way you’ll have options (but not too many options!).  Designers like to come up with lots of different solutions to problems, and coming up with 3 ideas for your next career move is a smart way to keep your options open.

Prototype your options: Once you have mapped out 3 different career options, Burnett and Evans advise prototyping your ideas.

Discover what it’s like to actually work in the field you’ve identified. How do you do this?

1. Find people to have career conversations or informational interviews with so you can learn more.
2. Take concrete, specific steps to put yourself in that job field – this may be volunteering at first or taking a course to plug a skill gap you have.
3. Whatever that next step is, take it so you can actively try out the career option. If you discover this isn’t the path for you, look at the other options you identified and try another one out.

If you find yourself short on time but still want to experience Designing Your Life, check out Bill Burnett’s TEDx talk on the book in which he presents highlights from the book.  Or sign up for a free trial of the audible app and get the audiobook on your phone so you can listen to it while you’re driving.

Have fun designing your next steps!