31-07-2025
Journal Prompts For Career Change, To Use In Directed Journaling
Before we can make a meaningful change in our career, we first have to think about what's possible and optimally matches us. There's no better tool than directed journaling as an initial step.
Unlike traditional journaling, which typically recaps what's been happening lately and/or is totally free flowing, directed journaling is a structured approach to gaining clarity and setting goals. In order to engage in directed journaling, you respond to set prompts in a stream-of-consciousness manner.
I use directed journaling with my career change coaching clients on a regular basis as one element of targeted reflection, especially when they're feeling disconnected from their real desires and/or their unseen barriers. I find that brief sessions of directed journaling can help a client move from confused and overwhelmed to clear and determined in a way that few other activities can.
Tips for Directed Journaling for Career Change
Don't Overthink It: Journaling and related reflective exercises tend to be most effective when our guard is down. For most of my clients, that's when they're slightly sleepy and not too in touch of with the world - usually first thing in the morning (before even touching the cell phone) or as the very last task during the day. Otherwise our rational brain tells us everything we already hear in our minds all day long and no new insights emerge.
Write It Out By Hand: On a related note, writing in longhand can trick us to be less 'formal' and allow what we're really thinking and feeling to come out much more so than typing. We also shut off our 'work brains' and get in touch with a more youthful version of ourselves that wrote by hand, way back when. There is even research evidence that the act of writing in longhand has benefits over typing.
Space Prompts Out: I recommend tackling only one prompt a day so you can dig in deep. Aim for a short period (5-20 minutes tops) each day. More than that can be too daunting and then it never gets done.
Use The Prompt Fully: Write the prompt at the top of a page and then write whatever comes to mind beneath it. Aim not to censor yourself, and don't try too hard to stay 'on target' - just go where you need to go. Whenever you run out of steam, re-read the prompt and see what new thoughts emerge, then jot those down. Keep going until your timer goes off (20 minutes have elapsed? That's plenty!) or you run out of new thoughts.
Journal Prompts for Career Change
In my 14 years of career coaching, I've used and created a wide variety of prompts for clients to use when journaling. Here are the prompts that have risen to the surface as the most effective and illuminating:
Finally, Reflect on Your Responses to the Journal Prompts for Career Change
After writing a number of entries, make time to look over everything you've written. Search for themes that run across various questions and any ideas that repeat.
This overall reflection can create key takeaways for your next steps, such as improving your existing role, quitting your job, moving toward a dream role, setting new career goals and milestones, taking a sabbatical, or - ideally - simply realizing that your career is actually perfectly on track.
Whatever the end that results, you'll have more clarity about what you want and need, and why.
