It actually starts with us understanding what makes us happy - Dr Ingo Rauth

Looking for a tool that helps you find out what makes you happy?

When was the last time you checked in on your BEAVI©?
It is crucial that you review your BEAVI© once a year if not more often. 

It is an acronym I came up with for an assessment tool I use with my clients. Feel free to play around with the words and create your own acronym.
What’s the tool’s name? Discover your BEAVI©
The acronym and tool facilitate reflection on what makes you happy, what gives you meaning and what motivates you to act i.e., the thing that prompts you to get up and elevates your energy to start doing stuff.
BEAVI is an acronym for:
B - Beliefs
E - Experiences
A - Abilities/Skills
V - Values
I - Interests

​With my support and assistance clients proceed to unravel the value of these five factors through powerful inquisitive questioning and exercises that raise awareness, stimulate reflection, and provide in-depth insight into my clients’ BEAVI©.
A Discover your BEAVI© result underscores each client’s unique repertoire. The assessment tool is very simple and its power lies in its simplicity.
Clients are allowed to use technology to fill it up if they choose. However, I encourage clients to try it as is initially and only use technology as a last resort. This is because I believe that relying on technology may take away the opportunity to be introspective when reflecting on your BEAVI©.
Here is what the chart looks like. I urge you to print it and fill it up on your own.

Self-assessment plays an important role in helping you discover what is most important to you. Your task is to focus on what you can do and choose the category that you think is a best fit. As you explore your self-assessment chart, think about your everyday behaviour. The questions below are provided to help you create your chart. There is no right or wrong answer. You do not need to answer the questions, they are provided to help you fill the chart.                                                                                      

• What are the first words that come to mind when describing yourself? 
• What do you consider to be your two or three most outstanding accomplishments from the past three or four years? Why did you select these as most important? 
• Reflect on any experiences that you think are reflective of your personality, character, intellectual capacity or passions. Be prepared to talk about your choice.
• In what area(s) have you shown the most development and growth during the past three or four years?
• What do you consider to be your most outstanding personality trait? 
• What do you like to do during your free time?  

The contents of the BEAVI© chart provide a visual of who you are, what you have accomplished, and the experiences you enjoyed. In short, it is in effect, a self-assessment tool that visually facilitates reflection for career management.

​Try it out, find your BEAVI© and get started in understanding what make you happy.
I look forward to your feedback! Connect with me if you have any questions or concerns.

As for the future, your task is not to foresee it but to enable it.
A quote by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

My clients, new acquaintances as well as many of you, my dear readers of my blog, often ask how did I uncover my career path. Here is a snippet of my career journey along with some tips that I hope will help you find your career path.
I work as a private practitioner.

​When I decided to embark on a journey as a solo career management professional, I knew that before I put in the extra hours to ensure that my practice takes off, I needed to refine my reasons for starting a business as a solopreneur.

​An excerpt of my reasons to help you write your own includes the following:

• My clients are my bosses. 
• I was on a mission to prove to myself that I CAN launch my own practice. 
• I was and continue to be empowered by my passion to help others. 
• I want my clients to find purpose like I did. 
• I can envision my future (me helping many clients design their career journey) and all I need to do is to enable it. 
• My sense of accomplishment is unmeasurable every time I see the happiness on my clients’ face. 
• I can facilitate the launch of my practice guided by my clients’ needs.

​In short, my reasons give meaning to my work and keep me motivated.

How do you commence your career journey?

Simply put, you need a detailed action plan that starts with reasons similar to the ones stated above.

Wait! Do NOT rush into creating the plan yet. This is the final step in the launch of your career journey.

​You have to do some exploratory work to discover your reasons. This can be an engaging experience if you come with the right mindset. Think of it as a bout of intense reflection.

I was not sure what my likes, interests and values were. It can be hard to define them if you have never thought about it.

Like me, after your intense reflection and contrary to what many specialists suggest; start with the activities you dislike and the skills you are certain you do not want to be using in your future career rather than with your likes and interests. This is very helpful and I suggest you use this unconventional method if you are uncertain about what you need to do to move forward; dissect what you hate to find out what you like.

​Once you get to know YOU, you are ready to move forward to uncover your skills, abilities and strengths.

• What is it that you do best?
  
• What is an ability that your parents or friends tell you, “you are so good at this” or “you are so talented!”?
  
• What are some of your strengths?
  
• Would you describe yourself as creative, determined or resilient?
  

​Note your answers somewhere, on a piece of paper, your computer or your phone.

Next step is to combine everything you have learned about yourself and start exploring possible careers.

You are well acquainted with YOU, now it is time to figure what kind of work makes YOU happy.

One of my joys was seeing others succeed whether in school or later on in life. Call me silly, but I cry at graduations and other similar work celebrations. I think of all the focus, failures and hard work that led to these special moments that I am overwhelmed with mixed emotions.

Anyway, I realized that my work has to include seeing my clients succeed.

What invokes similar emotions for you? It could be a sales pitch, a competition or even crying at weddings.

​No emotional experience is too silly to explore! This is what it takes to enable your future career vision.

Once you have collected all this data, you are ready to design your career action plan.

Creating the action plan is for another blog post.

For now, how about you get to know what does YOU really like to do?

Do you remember the first time you failed?

How did it feel to be a failure?

What did you do about it?

Failure is your motivator to stand up and try again. 

Do not shy from looking back on moments of failure as the positive catalysts that will carry you to success. You can learn a lot about yourself from reflecting on failed attempts.

Think about what drove you to take that first step to come out of your comfort zone. Do not spend time reflecting on the fact you failed. It is not easy, so you have to be gentle.

​Allow yourself to go through what I like to call the four stages of OOPS!     

Imagine this...You participated in the swimming (or any activity of your choice) competition even though you did not think you were ready. You were the last swimmer to complete the race. Everyone had left the pool area by the time you got out of the pool.
Ouch! That hurt. You are crying inside. Leaving the pool area was not a happy experience to say the least.

Ow! Now you are in the second stage. You have to admit that this experience hurts. You still cannot believe this happened. It is embarrassing and sickening to think about.

Pfft! Time to move on. Take a deep breath. You are hesitant, but you start to think that perhaps it was a good idea to try it out. You got out of your comfort zone. Hey, at least now you know where you rank. But wow that felt bad...no wait, that was awful! This is the time to say, “whatever” and it does not matter. At least no one was at the pool snickering as you passed.

Sheesh! You have made it to the final stage. Declare to yourself and to others, when you are ready, that going through that experience was not a big deal. In fact, you are excited to try it again. Perhaps not so soon. You realize that you need to seriously practice for a month or two. You could also decide that while you enjoy swimming, you do not enjoy swimming competitions. Alternatively, you could say you realized how much you hated swimming and now you are excited to try something new.

Remember...You have experienced failure and you are stronger because of it.

You now know you can fail again, easily pick up the pieces and move on. You are stronger than before. It is time to fail yet again. It is time for another OOPS! Or what could very well be your next win!

What are you training for?

What are you hoping to fail (or perhaps deep down, not fail)?
​
What is the thing want to make happen?