Whether you’re in a job or out of it, when you’re thinking about your next career move it can help to take a walk along the full length of your career in order to step more fully into the role that’s right for you now even as you start to explore what that next role might be.  In neurolinguistic programming (or NLP) this is called “walking your timeline”.

I have found it helps to do this physically so that the length of your walk or the different points along the way act as a metaphor for the different points in time that you are seeking to embody.  You can do this in your office or living room.  My favourite choice is to take a long walk and keep going for as long as I find helpful.  Just take yourself right back to the beginning of your career and try it on for size as if you were still that young man or woman embarking on your career.  Keep walking through your career and notice what is true for you along the way.  Here are some questions you might like to ask yourself:

• At the beginning of your career walk:  What am I doing now that points the way to my perfect future career?  What are the high points for me and what are they telling me about my natural gifts and inclinations?  What are the things I do so well and with such ease that I almost take them for granted?  What do I bring that others value in me?
• In the middle of your career walk (including where you are now in “real time”):  What did I learn in the early part of my career that is serving me now?  What challenges or hardships did I face and what did they bring that has served me in my career?  What did I take with me that is best left behind now?  What did I leave behind that I could have usefully carried forward?  What am I ready for now as a result of everything I have done so far?  What can I learn from my ups and downs that might ease my path as I go?
• As you walk through the next phase of your career:  What am I doing now that I am in this next phase of my career?  What am I bringing that is ensuring my success?  What am I doing that is making me thrive?  What is calling me as I move forward?  How am I feeling as I walk through this next phase of my career?  What am I seeing?  What am I hearing?
• Looking back on the whole of your career:  At this point you might like to find a comfy seat with a long perspective (metaphorically and/or literally), to look back and to reflect on some additional questions:  how do I view my career now that it is over?  What do I most celebrate and enjoy?  What do I know now that would most have helped me along the way?  What does this “me” now most want for the “me” I was in 2010?

These are just a few of the questions you might ask yourself as you walk – or entrust to your coach or walking companion.  Be sure to be in the present at every point on your timeline.  This exercise is not about being in 2010 and looking back or forward – it’s about stepping back into the present and forward into the present and trying it on for size.

Do let me know how you get on.