Building the right career path for you requires internal reflection and external inspiration. In this resource, we'll cover our three favorite strategies that you can use when looking outward to get inspired.

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Start with your personal connections

Too often, we don't fully utilize the relationships that we already have. We always recommend looking for inspiration through your current connections: your friends, family and other acquaintances that you already know. There's tons to learn right from your inner circle.

Try this script:

"Hey! I know we've talked about your career a bit over the years, but I'm realizing that I'd love to know more about how you got to where you are. Would you be open to telling me more about your personal career journey? I'm trying to think through the right path for me and I think I'd learn a lot from hearing more details about the path you've built."

Go Big

Creativity thrives when we take off constraints, which is why we love to Go Big when looking for career inspiration. Look outward to other industries and professions to find people who you admire. Ask yourself questions like:

1. What traits does this person seem to possess that I admire? Which of those traits would I like to also possess?
2. What aspects of their profession do I respect and strive for? Flexibility? Autonomy? 
3. What adversity has this person overcome to get where they are? Have they done hard things that I might also encounter?
4. What unexpected similarities can I find in this person's career and my own?

Reflecting on these questions can help unlock our creative thinking when we're trying to find our own way in our careers.

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Give Back

Too many people think of building their career path as a personal endeavor, when in reality, you'll get a ton of value bt helping others build their own career paths. There’s two big things here that are particularly important:

1. When you give your time, you actually feel like you have more time to focus on things that matter to you.

2. When you give over time (not just one time) the perception of the help you provide goes up. In a poll by Gallup and Amazon, “42% of people said it was especially helpful when they had the opportunity to connect with the same person multiple times to talk about careers. This is likely because of the relationship and trust built with repeated interactions.”

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