#62: What if I don't have a long-term career goal?
Don't know what you want to be doing 10 years from now? That's awesome!
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If you’re new here, I’m Kax — welcome! How to Build What Feels Good is my weekly newsletter about becoming your favorite version of a Leader, building a purpose-driven career, and navigating all the human mess in this often cynical world of tech… while still having a happy and healthy life.
Do you have a long-term career goal?
Do you know what role you want to be in, 5 years from now? 10? 15?
I’m doing an experimental program with PMs to help them with their job search and at some point we started discussing long-term career goals.
One of the members asked me:
“What if I don’t know what my long-term career goal is?”
My response?
At least the short version: “no sweat!”
The 3 sides to the same coin:
One of my colleagues, A, has a super clear career roadmap.
She knew from the beginning of her career that she wanted to be a people manager. So her actions and her career conversations with her manager were driven by that.
When there was no opportunity for her to be a people manager in our organization, she considered moving to Engineering to become an EM. That’s how you know she’s serious about wanting to become a people manager.
So when a Product Lead role opened up she got the role because she had already positioned herself for it.
From Product Lead, she then became Head of Product, and now she’s a Sr. Product Director. At this rate, she’s on the fast track to CPO.
When we talk about it she always references back to her “plan”.
When I’m in the season of trying to organize my life, I talk to her. 😂
On the flip side, I have another friend, B, who’s super clear that she wants to be a Product Director at some point. Preferably in the next 2-3 years.
The laser focus on the goal though has given her more stress than inspiration.
She keeps on second guessing whether or not whatever she’s on working on now has high impact to position her for Director role later on.
Every feedback she receives feels like somebody chipping away at her dream.
Until she burned out. Her journey to becoming a Director has been more frustrating than it was enjoyable.
And now she’s questioning whether or not she wants it. But she’s sticking to that plan because that’s what she knows. And not having a plan felt worse.
And then there’s me. I didn’t really have an answer for what roles do I want in the short term, much less in the long term.
If you would have told my 30-year-old self that in the next 10 years I would become:
I probably would have laughed in your face for being ridiculous.
I would have told you back then that:
Me and people management are like oil and water. We don’t mix.
Entrepreneurship is hard and I’d rather not spend my days suffering.
A coach? As in sports?! Athletic??! What?!
And yet here we are just the same.
I never really had a roadmap for my career. And by roadmap I mean, what role should I take next? Simply because I didn't know…
At least not in title.
But I did know some things:
what I liked to do and didn’t
what I’m great at and what I could improve on
what problems I care about and what kind of human/leader I want to be
how I can help people and organizations succeed
and what kind of life I want to enable with the jobs I can have
And if I look back at my entire career, everything has worked out a lot better than what I could have imagined.
I got to experience roles that I thought weren’t for me and ended up enjoying them immensely. At some point, I got to create roles for myself in our organization.
And when I got laid off as collateral damage of an organizational transformation, I already had things to fall back on.
My approach to my career has been, serendipitous in titles. But intentional in desire.
And I don’t think I’ll change that approach anytime soon. Why? 👇
Because I believe: If we keep chasing job titles, we’re going to run out of options real quick.
The industry is evolving so fast.
Companies are laying off hundreds of people left and right every time the CEO sneezes out a new strategy.
The industry can’t even agree on whether or not there will be more demand for PM generalists or PM specialists.
Do I think the role is dead? Far from it. But I don’t know what it will be called 10 years from now either.
I’m seeing people looking to hire for new titles like “Product Makers” which feels so early 2000s to me. But I’m also seeing that it’s 2025 and we’re still arguing about Product Owner vs Product Manager.
So if we’re always optimizing for “Product” called roles, we’re going to be waiting for people to create opportunities for us. And having strong dependencies never sit well with me.
So what can we do instead?
Just because we don’t know what we want to do exactly 10 years from now, doesn’t mean we still can’t have a vision.
Get to know yourself. Sounds simple? Not really.
Most of the people I coach, when we start working together, don’t really know how to answer the questions below. And it took some time and a lot of reflection to get beyond surface-level answers.
What makes you awesome? ⭐
What are your values? What can you do? Do you know your strengths, skills, and talents? What impact have you had? What positive change or results have you brought to the organizations you've been part of?What are you good at? 💪
What comes easy for you? What do you do now that makes you happy or gives you energy? What work/tasks makes you annoyed or frustrated?What do you want to be known for? 🏆
What kind of problems do you want to solve? What do people ask you to help them with? What good feedback do people give you? What kind of leader do you want to be?Where do you want to grow? 🌱
What do you need to improve in? What are you curious about? How do you learn?What does a life well-lived look like? 🧓
If this year was a perfect year, what does that look like? What are you doing more of? How would you be feeling? Imagine you're 100 years old, what does a life well-lived look like? What would you be proud of? What would people be thanking you for? And who do you need to be to make all of that happen?
The list of questions is not exhaustive but you get the picture.
The beauty in this discovery is that:
Your options become only limited by your imagination
It allows for change. You will evolve. Which means your options can evolve too
You can start building a sustainable system, networking with people, and building a personal brand that allow you to be open to opportunities OR to create your own
And the jobs you can have along the way? They’ll just be that. Jobs. Enablers for you to enjoy today, exercise your strengths, be an outlet for your interests, and support you as you live out your purpose
To conclude
If you already have it clear what your long-term career goal is? That’s awesome! Let’s build a strategy to get you there. And let’s make room for iterations too just in case :)
If you’re not quite sure but you have some ideas? That’s fantastic! Let’s experiment. So you can gain confidence over time or you might change your mind completely. Who knows? But sounds exciting, right?
If you have absolutely no idea what you want to be X years from now? That’s absolutely fine! There are no rules in life saying you have to. Maybe it’s just that you don’t dream of labor 😂 Let’s surface some information though, that can help you have a strategy and experiment along the way.
None of those situations is better than the others. They’re all paths to get you to a future that has yet to be written.
And at the end of the day, what matters the most, is that we all end up writing a good story for ourselves.
📣 I have three 1:1 coaching slots open!
Are you an accidental Product Leader and you need help navigating your new leadership role, setting up your team for success, and making sure you have time for the rest of your life?
Are you a Senior PM not sure if you want to make a jump from IC to Leadership or just feeling very very very unsure about your performance and where you want to take your career?
Are you an experienced PM wanting to be perceived as more senior and be top of mind for cool opportunities that always seem to pass you by?
I’d love to support you! Combining coaching and consulting, we’ll address real scenarios, and get practical and tactical by evaluating opportunities, so you can define actions to help you confidently make an impact.
We’ll also mix it with a holistic approach to make sure you have the right internal system to take on your challenges with confidence, energy, and strength.
If this is the kind of support that you’re looking for, I’d love to chat!
If you got to this part of this newsletter, thanks for staying with me until the end. And thank you for sharing with me topics that you’d like for me to share my thoughts, feelings, and violent reactions on.
❤️
Kax
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