What do you value about your work – now and in the future?
One of my favourite things to watch is a good biographical documentary of a pianist (think ’32 short films about Glenn Gould’ and ‘Richter, the enigma’ on Sviatoslav Richter). I enjoy the insight into their personal story and following their routes to creative flourishing. These stories are inspiring – not least because the real life characters within are confronted with challenges of all sorts and variety.
Despite the individual challenges they face, the Richters and Goulds are so driven by their talent and love of their art that their direction is self-apparent. One would not expect that they necessarily ever sat down to explicitly consider if their work gives them enough of what they value.
Many postdocs I meet have pursued their academic career with similar focus on ideas in fields of research where they have talent and are successful. For some, the singularity of the research goal coincides with their personal work values and continues to do so through postdoc and onward inexorably in academia. For many others, their values may change over time as personal and professional situations develop and priorities shift. In any case, as much as you might have a good instinctive sense of what your values are, it is helpful to name them and to go through a process of interrogating yourself to check in with your current values and to help steer your own course.
How naming your values is helpful in career decisions:
Your values are one element in career choice which belong alongside your interests, skills, and strengths – and these can help to give some structure to the landscape of your career. Spending a bit of time thinking through the beliefs and principles in which your aspirations are grounded can help to validate the path you are on. This can give you a framework to check that your next steps are in line with what is important to you. Risk? Routine? Status? Autonomy? Altruism? Naming your set of values will not give you the answer to the job you want, but it will enable you to be strategic and scrutinise whether your direction is meaningful for you.
Values may change over time:
At one stage in my own career I valued change and variety –this has been supplanted by a value of stability. Similarly, it is unlikely that your beliefs and ideals have remained completely static over time and it is worth being deliberate about taking some time to consider whether they have changed and what that change can mean for what you find satisfying in your professional life.
Tools to use:
There are a number of ways to go about reflecting on and identifying your values including online resources such as this values-based motivator of success http://www.careers.cam.ac.uk/careerplanning/knowyourself.asp. The values assessment on Imagine PhD (a career exploration tool for AHSS PhDs and postdocs though the values tool itself is not discipline dependent) https://www.imaginephd.com/assessment also has a good mechanism for identifying values and with suggestions of questions to ask yourself about choices based on your identified values. Or book a confidential appointment with one of our postdoc careers advisers for individualised help with exploring your values and how this can enlighten your career planning.
Diane Caldwell-Hird, Postdoc Careers Adviser