Twenty Set

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If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when people ask me for my 10-year plan; and as I navigated through graduating from school, starting my first real job, then quitting it after the one-year mark, it seemed like everyone but me had a 10-year plan.  My husband, who started volunteering his summers at a local hospital in 8th grade because he knew he wanted to be a doctor.  My best friend and roommate, who had planned her life to the age of thirty before she started college.  My dad, who stayed in the same military career for 26 years before retiring, then hiring back on to the same job as a civilian.  Everyone knew what they wanted, something I didn’t have.

Six months ago, here’s what I did have: I had a degree in Computer Science. I had admission to one of the top graduate business schools in the country. I had 16 months of experience at a Fortune 300. And I had a job offer at one of the hottest software companies in downtown Chicago.

But I was incredibly unhappy with my career. My boomer parents thought I should be happy because I was making more money than some of their peers. My husband thought I should be happy because my degree was like a season pass to Six Flags when it came to the job market.  My friends thought I should be happy because I got my job offer six months before graduating, with little effort, because there are no women in my field.

So I tried to be happy and make sense of the things I had. Every day I tried to put the pieces of my career puzzle together; and quite frankly, every day made me feel more hopeless.

I did what most people do when they are lost: search far and wide for a map or marker to help them navigate. But since no one else thought I was lost, I had to look in strange places. One day I came across a post from Ryan Healy that had a link to a personality assessment on JT O’Donnell’s website.  Naturally, I was interested in my interaction style, so I took it… and lo and behold, at the end of the page was a link to JT O’Donnell’s workbook, Find Your Career Path.  My credit card was out in seconds.

Find Your Career Path is about getting a career and work environment that is compatable with your strengths.  The workbook is divided into four sections using the G.L.O.W. Method:

• Part I: Gaining Perspective - a series of unique personality assessments to give you a better perspective of your strengths
• Part II: Luminating Your Goal - a guide to determining a best fit career and workplace environment
• Part III: Owning Your Actions - information on creating your resume, developing a career story, and taking the steps necessary to get your dream job
• Part IV: Working It Daily - a worksheet that will help you stay committed to reaching your goals

This workbook is great for two reasons.  The first is that JT provides a step-by-step guide to changing careers.  Going through this process is similar to what JT offers in her personal consulting sessions, so it’s an inexpensive alternative to hiring a career coach.  It’s great for people who are self-starters and want to get started understanding their work personality without shelling out a ton of dough right away.

The second reason, and the reason I like the book so much, is because JT illustrates her entire method with real-life stories from her clients.  And her clients were very lost, much like me.  For me, half the battle was admitting to myself and others that I was unhappy and accepting I didn’t have to follow anyone else’s definition of success in my own career.  If you like reading about my story, you will probably like reading the stories in the book because they are easy to relate to.

What this workbook won’t give you is an overnight change to your dream job.  In some instances, it will just help you understand how to do your job better.  For example, part of my job is project management, which I thought I would be great at because I’m a Global Learner and can see things on a big-picture level.  But I’m also an Architect and I don’t respond to the pressure of meeting deadlines.  In knowing this, however, I’ve figured out that I was assuming the people under me didn’t like pressure either, which is why nothing ever got done.  Some people need pressure to motivate them to perform, and the book has helped me become a better manager.

I also know the book will help me going forward in my search for a dream job.  I want to start a business at some point, and sometimes I wonder why I haven’t just done it yet.  And I get irritated because my entrepreneur friends are constantly reminding me how so many people say they are going to be entrepreneurs and then don’t have the guts to quit their day jobs.  But the real reason is because I’m a Reflective Learner, and I like to let ideas sit in my head for awhile and mature before pursuing them.  Which is what I’ve been doing for the last three months with my big idea, which I will pursue at some point, because I’m also a Commander and stop at nothing to reach my goals.

The greatest benefit of completing the Finding Your Career Path workbook is understanding who you are and how you fit into your workplace, and, if necessary, changing your workplace environment to something better suited to your strengths.  If this sounds like something you’re interested in, I have great news…

JT has agreed to sponsor a contest I’m running at Twenty Set this week.  There are two sets of prizes:

• 1 private Professional Strengths Assessment Session - You will complete all the tools in the book and then have the results interpreted in a 90 minute phone session with JT O’Donnell herself.  To win, leave a comment here saying why you want to win, or if you are shy, you can also send me an email.  I’ll choose one person for the prize.
• 3 Find Your Career Path workbooks - You can take all the assessments described here on your own to find career satisfaction.  To win, leave a comment on any of the posts at Twenty Set dated from now until Friday, including this one.  Winners will be randomly selected, and each comment counts as one entry (though read my comment policy first, because violations don’t count as entries).

JT also has one of the personality assessments online and offers the workbook at 20% off to anyone who takes it.  Highly recommended if you’d like to learn more about the process.  She also offers free career advice specifically for Millennials if you are interested.

As this is the first contest at Twenty Set, I’m interested to see how things turn out.  Big thanks again to JT for sponsoring the contest and for changing how I view my career and life.

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Categories: Careerist, Entrepreneur, Goal-Setter, Learner, Personality Tests
Tags: Books, Career Coaching, Careers, Features, Happiness, Personality Tests

Monica O'Brien is the founder of Twenty Set, a website about personal and professional growth and development for the Millennial generation. She has been a blogger since 1998 when blogging was still in its “Dear Diary” form and in May 2007 began blogging for personal branding and profit.
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