By Lisa Martin

Using the kaleidoscope effect to build your career is about taking charge, being the master of your destiny, and traveling on your highest, most rewarding path. So how do you accomplish these things? It’s simple. First, ask yourself the following three questions: Am I waking up every morning with a clear vision of both my career destination and how I’m going to get there? Am I or is someone else controlling my career decisions? Am I moving forward or am I mired in uncertainty and not making any career choices?

Applying the kaleidoscope effect to your career-building efforts allows you to build a sustainable career through design, instead of letting it unfold by default. In order to create a design with a kaleidoscope, you must make an effort to turn and focus the lens, because a clear pattern will not appear on its own. Designing your career also requires effort and focus. For example, you have to make decisions with a clear vision in mind of where you want to go and what steps you must take in order to get there.

A Three-Step Process to Design Your Career The following three-part exercise will teach you to design and build a sustainable career, as opposed to having one that unfolds by default, which happens when events occur at random rather than by design. If your career is unfolding by default, it’s entirely possible that you don’t fully understand how you got where you are or where you are going. When you are clear about your career destination, however, opportunities and people will come into your path to expedite your journey. To begin, find a piece of paper and something to write with or open up an Excel spreadsheet on your computer. Entitle your page, “My Career Kaleidoscope.” Next, divide the page into three vertical columns and label them from left to right: Values, Purpose, and Vision.

1. Discovering Your Values The first column deals with your values, which constitute your moral compass. Values are integral to you as a person, which means whether you are openly expressing your values or are just silently in alignment with them, you are at your most peaceful and most purposeful. This situation allows you to be very clear in terms of making decisions. And when you are clear about your values, the decision-making process becomes very simple, because you are totally aware of what is important to you and can make your choices based on that.

This part of the exercise will teach you to understand and clarify your values. First, take 30 seconds to look over the following words, then choose four to which you feel the strongest alignment: passion, fulfillment, adventure, beauty, connection, contribution, creativity, discovery, feelings, leadership, mastery, pleasure, sensitivity, spirituality, teaching, winning, and freedom. After you have chosen four, write or type them into your Values column.

When you look back at the words you have chosen, nine times out of ten your gut reaction will be that your choices were right. That’s because your values are always there, even if you don’t think about them. They may even be hidden from you on a daily basis, but they do exist. And what you’re doing in this exercise is recognizing or discovering them. The key is to connect with your values and learn to use them to create your decision-making filter.

Creating this filter will allow you to be in alignment with your values when you are faced with “yes” or “no” decisions in your career. At such times, you must be in close connection with your values, so you can say “yes” to those things which are in alignment with them and “no” to those things which are not. Your decision-making filter will also be of great assistance as you work to build your career based on the values that are most important to you.

2. Finding Purpose in Your Career Move on to the column labeled “Purpose.” This section will reveal the reasons that you work at your particular position, in addition to the fact that you want to earn a salary. And, as you will see, finding your purpose is integral to learning to focus your career kaleidoscope. You now know how important it is to be clear on your career values, but equally as important is why you chose and continue to work at your career. When your career is in alignment with your purpose, you wake up excited about going to work, excited about being with the people at your workplace, and thrilled about what you do there.

What motivates you? Is it improving lives, delivering happiness (that one is Zappos), or exceeding expectations? Another purpose might be sharing expertise with others. For some, such as teachers, their career purpose is inspiring people to learn. Now jot down your purpose in the second column.

3. Creating a Vision for the Future of Your Career Look at the third column, “Vision,” which is one of those words that can mean different things to different people. But in this exercise, it defines what you see as future possibilities for your career. There are two parts to career vision. First, there’s putting it into words; the second is putting into pictures.

a) Words are your direction To accomplish this, you must ask yourself questions such as: Where does my career destination lie? Where do I want to be one year out, five years out, 10 years out, 15 years out? Perhaps you are in a position where one year out is as far as you want to imagine. But if you want to go really large, which having a vision is all about, then leap five years or 10 years out and see where you want to be.

In your “Vision” column, jot down or type some notes about your career aspirations. Here are some examples: “In five years I would like to be a vice-president,” “In ten years, I would like to be earning [amount],” “In fifteen years, I would like to be on the company’s board of directors,” etc. Next, capture your vision on paper or on screen in the words that come to you. Maybe you aspire to moving up in your career, or maybe you aspire to moving laterally. Perhaps you are interested in off-ramping for a while, then on-ramping, depending on the age and stage of your career and your family. But whatever your aspirations, ask yourself this time-honored question: “If I don’t know where I’m going, then how will I get there?”

b) Pictures are your career collage Remember that your goal in using the career kaleidoscope to build your sustainable career is to create and hold a crystallized image in your mind of where you want to be eventually in your career. You will be better at accomplishing this after you have completed your “Career Collage,” which is a visual collection revealing what you want for your career future.

This process is similar to sorting through and choosing photos from your past to put into an album, except that you are mentally creating visions of what and where you want your career to go in the future.

These visuals might include locations where you want to work, the kinds of people with whom you want to work or the type of work you would like to be doing. When you combine your written aspirations with the “mental photos” you envision for the future of your career, you create a visual journal to which you can refer at any time in order to inspire yourself and remind you of where you are going.

Mastering the Kaleidoscope Effect So now you know: (a) your values, which constitute a moral compass that will support you in making quicker and more informed decisions that are in alignment with who you truly are; (b) your purpose, which is what excites you and motivates you to go to work every day; and (c) your vision, which is the result of creating a journal that combines your words with the “mental photos” you have of the career destination to which you aspire. As a result, you are well on your way to mastering your career kaleidoscope.

© Copyright 2010. Lisa Martin. All rights reserved.