Let’s explore the External World
Take out some paper now and place it sideways on the table in front of you. Draw two lines from top to bottom to divide it into 3 pieces — then write down these headings:
- Areas of Interest (the What)
- Transferable Skills I Enjoy (the How)
- Environments I would like to work in and people I’d like to work with (the Who and Where)
- Write on the far left side all the things that you might want to explore that you have found so far in your searches. Don’t censor yourself, write each area down. It might take you onto other pages as well.
- Go back to your Transferable Skills page and write down here the top 10 skills that you would like to explore in a job.
- On the far right, write down first the Holland Code letters and their words from the beginning. Then write all the types of environment that these words bring to mind.
*The challenge we’re asking here isn’t to limit the lists, it is to expand them. Take some time away, and then come back to these lists again and add a few more items.
- THEN pick 1 from the left, 1 from the middle, and 1 from the right. Is that a job? Could that be a direction? Could that be something to expand and research?
- Spend some time picking one from each column, and write the results down on a separate piece of paper. Do you know enough about any of these combinations to see if these are a direction yet?
- Pick your favorite 5, write a big star next to them, and move to the NEXT page.