Squiggly Shortcut: How to Feel More in Control of Your Career (Even in Uncertain Times)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Squiggly Careers – Squiggly Shortcut: How to Feel More in Control of Your Career (Even in Uncertain Times)

Main Theme & Purpose:
This episode, hosted solo by Helen Tupper, focuses on how to create a sense of control and clarity in your career, even when times feel ambiguous or unpredictable. Helen acknowledges that in modern squiggly (non-linear) careers, total clarity is unrealistic but offers practical tools for building realistic, actionable clarity to help listeners feel more confident and proactive about their career development.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Clarity Caveat” (01:23)

• Helen’s Perspective: In squiggly careers, total clarity about the future is unattainable. Trying to plan every career move in advance is unrealistic, especially in uncertain times.
• Why Clarity Feels Important: Many people crave clarity for a sense of stability amid ambiguity, but it should be about controlling progress, not predicting every outcome.
• Memorable Quote:

  “We can't plan, predict, or control everything that is going to happen to us in work or outside of work… going into your career development with the expectation that you're going to be able to plan every move… is a little bit unrealistic.”
  (Helen, 01:24)

2. Three Practical Ways to Foster Career Clarity

A. Identify Your Progression Priorities (02:21)

• Actionable Tip: Review several job descriptions for roles that spark curiosity, not just ones you think you’re qualified for. Use LinkedIn as a source.
• Method: Look for words, statements, or sentences that resonate, regardless of whether you could apply for the job now. Highlight and compare across several roles to notice recurring themes.
• Purpose: These repeating elements suggest genuine interests and can become anchors for your progression priorities, providing direction even if you don’t know exactly what’s next.
• Memorable Quote:

  “Those are the things that you are particularly interested in. Those I think are guides for your career growth…”
  (Helen, 04:20)

B. Create a Vision Board (05:02)

• Why Use It: Vision boards help you integrate work goals with personal aspirations, ensuring your career clarity is set within the broader context of your life.
• How To: Collect images from magazines, Pinterest, or anywhere online that represent what you want for your future—not just work, but lifestyle, happiness, and values.
• Insight: Vision boards prompt reflection about whether your career goals are aligned with what actually makes you happy, looking at both work and life.
• Memorable Quote:

  “You have to set your work in the context of your life. And there are likely to be other things that make you happy, other things that will create clarity for you and your career and your future.”
  (Helen, 06:14)

C. Have Curious Career Conversations (07:05)

• Practical Advice: Reach out and talk to people who have experience or roles you’re interested in. These conversations are less about copying paths and more about collecting learning, insights, and inspirations.
• What to Ask: Ask about their learning moments, communities they participate in, and experiences that shaped their careers.
• Benefit: These collected insights can inform your own development plans and spark new possibilities.
• Memorable Quote:

  “Talking to people who have done what you want to do is very helpful for your development because they can tell you about how they've learned or who they spend time with or communities they are part of.”
  (Helen, 07:13)

3. The Importance of Flexible Clarity (08:18)

• Summary: These three methods—progression priorities, vision boards, and career conversations—provide a sense of control and clarity while keeping future options open.
• Takeaway: Clarity in a squiggly career is less about rigid plans and more about having informed, flexible direction.
• Memorable Quote:

  “It still means you're flexible for your future, but it also means that you're taking control and creating clarity for your growth.”
  (Helen, 08:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We can't plan, predict, or control everything… going into your career development with the expectation that you're going to be able to plan every move… is a little bit unrealistic.”
  (Helen, 01:24)
• “Those are the things that you are particularly interested in. Those I think are guides for your career growth…”
  (Helen, 04:20)
• “You have to set your work in the context of your life. And there are likely to be other things that make you happy…”
  (Helen, 06:14)
• “Talking to people who have done what you want to do is very helpful for your development…”
  (Helen, 07:13)
• “It still means you're flexible for your future, but it also means that you're taking control and creating clarity for your growth.”
  (Helen, 08:38)

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Important Timestamps

• Clarity Caveat (Expectation-setting): 01:24
• Progression Priorities (Job descriptions): 02:21
• Vision Boards (Context and Life): 05:02
• Curious Career Conversations: 07:05
• Bringing It All Together (Flexible Clarity): 08:18

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Episode Links & Extras

• Further Listening: In-depth episode on career clarity: Episode 274
• Contact: Feedback welcome at [e-mail]

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Tone & Style

Helen’s approach is direct, encouraging, and pragmatic, blending actionable tips with reassurance about the unpredictability of the modern career path. The advice is delivered with warmth and practical optimism, emphasizing self-reflection and ongoing growth over rigid planning.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers Podcast, and before you listen to today's episode, I just wanted to let you know about some news that Sarah and I are very excited about, and that is that our new book, Learn Like a Lobster, is ready to pre order now. We really care about everybody learning and growing at work, but we know it is not easy to do, and so we're borrowing some brilliance from lobsters to help you to do it. The book takes three inspiring and surprising abilities of lobsters in terms of how they grow and applies it to how.

[B]

We can learn at work.

[A]

So if you want some inspiration and you need some practical insights to support your learning, growth and development, this is the book for you. And if you pre order now and send your Pre order to helloearnlikealobster.com you can join the Lobster Library, where we have a community of lobster learners ready for you to learn with some live sessions. And this will all happen before the book arrives. So pre order the book now, send it to [e-mail] and get started with.

[B]

Your learning straight away.

[A]

Now let's get onto today's episode.

[B]

Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast, and you're listening to another one of our Squiggly shortcuts. And today the topic that I'm going to talk about is creating career clarity, which is quite hard to say and sometimes feels quite hard to do.

There's probably a bit of a clarity caveat before I get started, which is that I think in a Squiggly career, it is very hard to have complete clarity. We can't plan, predict, or control everything that is going to happen to us in work or outside of work. So going into your career development with the expectation that you're going to be able to plan every move you're going to make and see this completely clear path, I think is a little bit unrealistic. However, I recognize, and I hear a lot of people who want that when it feels uncertain and ambiguous, we kind of look for clarity as a sort of source of stability. So what I want to share with you is three ways that I think you can create clarity that's realistic for a Squiggly career. So clarity that can give you a sense of direction, clarity that can give you a sense of feeling in control of your progress rather than perhaps in control of everything that is happening to you. So three things that I think can help you to do this. The first thing I want to talk about is Making sure that you know what your progression priorities are. So in a squiggly career, one of the things that can create clarity is when we have a sense of what we want to do, the direction that our development is going in. And if we don't have that, we can feel a little bit lost and unsure and like we haven't got direction. I think the easiest way for you to do this is to go and look at some job descriptions. I tend to get mine from LinkedIn. I just find it the easiest place to go to and find four or five roles that are sort of interesting to you. I think it's important. They're not exactly the job that you're doing right now. So pick some sort of curious career possibilities that you think, oh, it sounds like an interesting role. Don't worry about whether you can do it or not or where it is. We're not applying for them. We're just going to look into the job descriptions as a source of data. So as you scan through the job descriptions, what you are looking for is the words or the statements or the sentences that really resonate with you. And I would just pull them out. I tend to just highlight them when doing it and repeat that process for four to five different job descriptions and then spot the similarities because you will start to see certain words and statements that show up more than once. And those are the things that you are particularly interested in. Those I think are sort of guides for your career growth. And I find I don't know exactly what my career is going to look like in the next five years. And I'm quite happy about that because I think it keeps me open. But what I do know when I do that process is that I end up with some priorities for my progression. Some areas that are interesting for me, that regardless of where I work or what I work on, I want to be part of my work. And that's a source of clarity that's quite useful for you. The second thing that I think is really useful is to create a vision board. Now, I know vision boards aren't for everybody, I get it. But if you want to get some clarity, they can be really useful. Let me tell you why. So when you have a vision board, what you do is you'll collect images. You can get them forever you want. I tend to get mine for magazines, actually, you know, starting the year is a really good time to do this. But you can get them from Pinterest or, or you can just screenshot stuff that you see. But you are collecting images the image is important, and then you are putting those images together and looking at what they say to you. So what sense do you get from the images? And I think the reason this can create clarity is it tends not to just be about work. We tend to collect images about the work and life we want to have. And I think that sets your career in context. So if I just talk to you about what I want for my career, I could come out with lots of statements, but whether that would actually make me happy, I don't know. Because you have to set your work in the context of your life. And there are likely to be other things that make you happy, other things that will create clarity for you and your career and your future. And I think vision boards are one of the most comprehensive ways that we can. We can do that. The third thing that I would say is curious career conversations. If you want to create clarity, talking to people who have done what you want to do is very helpful for your development because they can tell you about how they've learned or who they spend time with, or communities that they are part of, or experiences that they've had. And you can collect all of those insights and you can use it to inform your own development plan. And I think if you're doing those three things, making sure that you know what your progression priorities are, making sure that you have a vision board so that you're clarity isn't just about work. It's work in the context of your life. And you're having curious career conversations where you're collecting insights and recommendations and actions from people who've done what you want to do that will be really, really useful for your career. And it still means you're flexible for your future, but it also means that you're taking control and creating clarity for your growth. So I hope that that has been a useful shortcut for you if you want to dive into this topic a bit more deeply. We did a whole episode on it. It's episode 274 on career clarity. We will link that in the show notes for you. And if you've got any feedback on this episode, please get in touch. It's helenmazingif.com.