You’ve explored a bit about your environments, people, and skills. What about how you make decisions?
Looking back at your three maps and your transferable skills, write down your thoughts in class on these prompts.
Prompt #1
How did you make decisions in the past when it was time to make a choice?
Did you create a broad group of alternatives and fully evaluate them?
Did you pick the first two options that came along? Or that seemed “good enough”?
Prompt #2
Who decided? Did you, the school, or the organization decide?
Prompt #3
How did the decision opportunity come about? Was it planned in advance? Did you grab something that looked interesting when it showed up in your daily life? How did you spot the alternative?
Prompt #4
Take a look and take a few minutes to look at each decision that you have made that you have shared in your Maps. Take some notes on what you see.
How are we supposed to make decisions?
There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer. However, you might have some patterns that you might want to rethink or break—or try something different in your Design of Your Choices.
Are you making your own design of how choices come into your life? Or are you accepting the choices that the “system” seems to be giving you?
Do we read the directions? Who writes the directions? Do we get an oral history from others about how jobs and careers work? Who do we learn decision-making from, and where did they learn it?
It all depends on who you ask. . . and how different systems are rewarded for supporting you.
Prompt #5
- How were your high school counselors measured?
- How is a university or high school Career Center itself measured?
Prompt #6
- How will YOU measure your success in making these decisions?
Prompt #7
How do you think that LinkedIn makes money? Or Indeed.com? Or Glassdoor? Or Vault? Write down your thoughts.