Three good roads stay open. You can argue good for any of dem, and dat's exactly da problem, and by now you wen reread da same list of pros and cons for one whole week without um telling you nothing new. This is not indecision and this is not one shortage of knowing yourself. This is what happen when one capable person try answer one question about demself by imagining harder.
Imagination stay da wrong tool for this. You already own one better tool, which is da record of what you actually wen do, week after week, with nobody making you. Dat record stay unglamorous and specific and it no flatter you, and dat's exactly how come it stay more accurate than any amount of visualizing. Here how fo read um in about forty minutes, and how fo test da answer before you go commit five years to um.
How come imagining da options not working?
Because you simulating one life you neva live yet, and people stay bad at dat in one very particular way. Gilbert, Killingsworth, Eyre and Wilson wen show in Science back in 2009 dat people predicted dey own reactions to one speed date and to one peer evaluation more accurate when all dey had was one report of how one other person reacted than when dey had detailed information about da event itself. And dey neva believe um. Da participants and da observers both figured da detailed description going work better.
Dat result stay unusually useful for one career decision. It say da accurate data is somebody's lived report, not your own forecast, and it say your confidence in your own forecast is not evidence about nothing.
So stop asking which option you would love. Dat question run completely on simulation. Ask what da record already say, then go get one person's lived report of da road you looking at. Both of dose stay evidence. Da daydream, no matter how vivid, is not.
What inside my record actually count as evidence?
Four things, and all four stay behavioral. What you lose track of time doing, what you say yes to before you even get time fo think, what you keep doing unpaid and with nobody watching, and da compliment you always wave off.
Set forty minutes and write:
- Da last ten times you wen lose track of da clock. Not da nice evenings. Da specific tasks. Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre wen follow 78 adults with beepers for one week and found da quality of one experience track whether challenge and skill was matched, and dat most of dose absorbing moments wen happen at work, not in leisure. Getting absorbed is one signal about da work itself.
- Da last five things you wen say yes to right away. How fast you say yes is data. Deliberating is where you argue yourself into things.
- Everything you wen do last year dat nobody wen ask for. Unpaid, unwatched, unrewarded, and you did um anyway.
- Da compliment you keep brushing off. Write um as one plain sentence, in da words da person actually wen use.
No interpret while you writing. Da interpreting is da next step and it stay way easier once twenty entries stay sitting on da table.
How I read da list without fooling myself?
Look for da verb, not da field. Underline what you was physically doing in each entry: explaining, building, negotiating, arranging, fixing, deciding, hosting. Da nouns on your list is jobs and industries and dey going change three times in one career. Da verbs is what you actually get pulled toward, and dey travel with you.
Then count. One verb dat show up in six out of twenty entries is telling you something dat one single dramatic memory is not. Pay extra attention to da overlap between da unpaid column and da absorbed column, because dat intersection is da closest thing to one direct answer this whole exercise going give you.
Two cautions. Discount anything dat show up exactly one time, no matter how vivid um was. And separate da thing itself from da room um wen happen in. One great year might have been about da craft or um might have been about da two people you was sitting next to, and dose point at completely different next moves. Ask which parts would still have been good with different coworkers, in one different building, for one different employer. Da parts dat survive all three substitutions is da ones you can build one decade on.
How I test da answer before I commit to um?
Run um for two weeks at da smallest possible scale, then ask somebody already doing da full size version what one ordinary Tuesday actually look like.
Da small test is not one pilot project and is not one side business. Is four hours of da actual verb: one client, one lesson taught, one prototype, one negotiation on somebody else's behalf. You not testing if you capable. You collecting da same kind of evidence you just wen mine from your past, only this time about da future, and two weeks of dat beat two months of thinking about um.
Da second half matter more than people expect, and is da direct application of dat neighborly advice finding. Find one person doing da thing and ask one narrow question: what did last Tuesday look like, hour by hour? Not whether dey like um, and not what advice dey get. Dey report of one real day predict your reaction better than your own imagining do.
Get one payoff for picking this way instead of guessing. Sheldon and Elliot wen find dat goals dat fit one person's own developing interests and values pull more steady effort and stay more likely fo get reached. Goals you wen pick from evidence is da ones dat hold up after da novelty pau.
What if da record point somewhere I neva like um point?
Take um serious, then act small. One record pointing somewhere inconvenient is still da best information you get, and da right response is not fo blow up one good career on da strength of one list you wen write on one Sunday.
Da usual finding is not one change of direction. Is one change of proportion. Your list say explaining, and turn out you doing dat ninety minutes one month, so da move is fo get um up to eight hours inside da job you already get before you consider anything bigger. Dat's one conversation with your manager, not one resignation letter.
Watch out for da opposite failure too. If one option show up on your list only as one title, and never as one verb, dat one came from outside you. Da verbs is yours. Da titles usually belong to somebody else, and dey da most expensive thing on da page fo chase by mistake.
Pick from da record, then go hard
You get three good options and no way fo feel your way to da right one. Nobody get dat. What you get is evidence you already wen generate: da verb dat keep repeating, one two week version of um, and one person's account of one real Tuesday.
Then choose, and stay chosen long enough for da choice fo compound. Da reason fo do da evidence work is not caution. Is so you can go hard at da thing without arguing da decision all over again every eight weeks, because dat re-arguing is da thing dat actually cost people da whole decade.
You not lost and you not unmotivated. You spoiled for choice, which is one good problem, and it get solved with one list and one pen, not with one retreat.
Sources
- Science, The surprising power of neighborly advice
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Optimal experience in work and leisure
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: the self-concordance model