25th of August 2020

‍

Do you know the feeling when you’re sitting in a lecture (or behind Zoom, perhaps more applicable today) and you’re thinking to yourself: “What do I do after I’m done with University?”. For some this might already be very clear, for the other 80% it’s not. Kibo is designed to help you with this process, but as the app isn’t available to everyone yet, Kibo told me to give you a couple of tips how you could get the process started by yourself:

‍

‍

1. Who did you want to become when you were 7, 14 and 18 years old?

Our childhood is extremely influential when it comes to early character development. In a sense, the ideas and dreams we had when we were young laid the foundation for our personal development. Think back: “who did I want to be when I was 7, 14 and 18 years old.

When we are young, our idea of the future is still pure of any biases that might get introduced in our lives as we grow up. Think about what you liked to do when you were a kid: what games did you play? How did your interests change over the years? Map this out in front of you and see if you can make any connections to jobs that you might be interested in.

‍

2. Visualize your dream job

Often when you feel very lost, there is a high chance you are stuck in your own head and are overthinking it.  In this case, thinking more might not solve the problem. We all have a conscious (more logical) and subconscious (more intuitive) part of our brain. Most of the times, things we really desire are hidden in the subconscious / intuitive part of our brain. To activate your subconscious mind, you need to find a key to it. You will not find this key by only talking or analyzing, you will find it by tapping into your subconscious by means of visualization or other creative exercises.

This is how a visualization could work:

Sit quietly in a meditative position for at least 10 – 15 minutes. You can play relaxing / meditative music. Sit still and visualize your ideal job. Do not judge your thoughts, let them come. Once you are finished write everything down. Most probably you will not experience anything special (but you could be surprised) the first time. You might have to repeat this process a couple of times, but it’s proven to be very effective.

‍

3. Whose job/career do you admire and why?

Think about people that you know personally, but also other famous people whose jobs/career you admire. Name at least five. First, write down what their job function is. Then, write down what about their job function you like/admire. Is it about the impact that they have? Do you admire them because they possess a certain skill? Or is it something else?

If you answer these questions, look at them and see whether you can spot any connections to yourself. Perhaps you won’t discover which exact job you want to do by doing this exercise, but you might figure out the “why”, which is what drives our motivation and will to succeed.

‍

4. Arrange a coffee meeting with at least 5 people who you think have an awesome job.

The last point is about action. It is all nice to think and visualize your future, but you also need to take some action. After completing one or two visualization exercises, try to narrow down your list of jobs that you think you might like. Next thing you need to do is to schedule 5 meetings with the people who are doing those jobs. If you are lucky and happen to know people who match your description, great! If not, use it as an opportunity to reach out to people on LinkedIn, step out of your comfort zone, and simply ask for a meeting. You’ll be surprised by how many people like to share their experiences. The purpose of those meetings is two-fold. On one hand you want to check if the jobs they do are what you imagine them to be like, and on the other hand it can help you to create a strategy for getting to where they are.

Kibo was taught these exercises by our career coach Dorota Klop-Sowinska.

‍

‍