Check Your Vision: How To Discover What You *Really* Want To Do Next

Ok, you’re burnt out, overworked, stressed and ready to make the leap from teaching into… what?

All the advice on career transitions stresses the same point: before you start scouring job postings and carpet-bombing your resume, you need to be clear on what kind of new career you want. Otherwise, you risk moving into a job you don’t actually like, and ending up right back where you started.

But what if you don’t know what else you want to do? Or, what if you do know, but are afraid your dream is impossible, too risky, or too silly? What if you have lots of ideas for your next career move—how do you pick which one to pursue?

If this sounds like you, you might need to clarify your vision.

A vision is a clear and specific picture of what one wants to do in life. A vision isn’t just about your career: it’s the full picture of what you want your life to be. Of course, careers are a damn big part of our lives. Creating a clear vision of your life and career gives you a roadmap of where you want to go, and the kind of life you want to live.

For me, I’ve known since I was a little kid that I wanted to be a writer. But I had this limiting narrative running in my head: you can’t make a living as a writer.

Because of this, I worked two jobs through college, isolating myself from the literary community, because I “needed a good resume.” I pursued grant-writing and technical writing, because I “wouldn’t be able to support myself with my creative work.” Even when my bills for the month were paid, I always put whatever job I had before my writing, because I had to save for an unknown future.

This limiting narrative is why I went into teaching in the first place, ten years ago. I was actually having a lot of success in my writing, garnering bigger clips, having editors reach out to me for work—even got cold-emailed by an agent wanting to represent me.

But it all seemed too precarious. Journalism and publishing are crumbling industries, but those aren’t the only writing jobs out there. I realize now that I didn’t have a big enough imagination, or enough trust and faith in myself. I was afraid to be big and have the life I really wanted.

I came across these vision questions a few months ago, when I was first beginning to realize that I might need to leave teaching. (For anonymity purposes, I’ll keep it vague, but if these questions resonate and you want to learn more, please reach out!) I chose to work on the middle set of questions and spent a week answering each one, journaling ten minutes a day, every day.

To say this exercise was illuminating would be a gross understatement: this shit rocked me, cracked me open, and revealed truths I’d only been vaguely aware of. I ended that month with a clear vision of what I wanted my life and career to look like.

I discovered that for me, the three biggest elements of my current career vision are:

• I want to write and edit in a way that is prosperous and stable

• I want flexible, part-time work that is remote or hybrid

• I want a work-life balance that allows me to show up for my family

Knowing this gave me a direction to move toward and an idea of the kind of work that might be fulfilling.

Of course, unearthing your vision doesn’t mean you get to just go ahead and live it. Many of us don’t have the luxury of choosing what we want to do; we need a paycheck now. I’ve seen folks on forums who’ve taken jobs at Walmart or Target after leaving teaching, just to have income coming in, and that shit is real.

But even if we can’t fully launch into our vision right now—even if we have to stay in the classroom a bit longer, or take a job that doesn’t align with our vision in order to pay the rent—it’s still worth having a vision.

We can move forward with an eye toward our vision and with more awareness of behaviors that block us off from it. We can read our vision aloud every morning, and commit to carving out a little time each day or week to do activities that support our growth toward it.

So, if you’re just beginning your transition out of teaching and starting to think about what you’d like to do next, I highly recommend spending some time with these questions. Choose the set you think best fits you and start writing! Let me know what you discover in the comments.