Today the next installment in “Outside Higher Ed” appears in Inside Higher Ed:
As the title promises, this piece shares seven steps for career discernment. These include:
- Talking with confidants.
- Making lists, and writing to learn.
- Pairing downside with upside risks.
- Finding my “strong yes.”
- Taking steps toward a new career.
- Seeking a reality check.
- Processing grief and other emotions.
For each, I describe how the strategy played a role in my decision to leave academia, a discernment process that stretched over multiple years.
Whether or not you’ve been following along as I’ve shared my decision to transition into public writing and entrepreneurship, I hope this piece offers useful discernment practices.
Through career discernment, I continue to learn the importance of slowing down, listening to embodied wisdom, and building emotional literacies. Decision-making involves more than well-reasoned answers, and it holds potential for healing when prioritizing commitments and alignment with our better/best selves.
I continue to wish for personal and collective healing and believe our working lives play a role in this process. How might our careers—and ongoing career discernment—contribute to grieving and growing? To greater acknowledgement of both/and? To the willingness to tread alternative paths?
—
This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For more posts like this one, you might try “Announcing ‘Outside Higher Ed’ in Inside Higher Ed,” “In the Midst of Big Changes,” or “Listening for/to the ‘Strong YES.’” Please also consider liking this blog on FB and following the blog via email. Thanks!
