Dad Always Said Start With a Map. He Was Right.
One of the most valuable skills my Dad taught me when I was young was how to read a map. How to understand where you are, where you want to be, and the best path to get there. Even today in the world of Google Maps and Waze, I find myself going back to the map to find my way.
I want to tell you about my client Mandy, who, without a map, thought she was doing everything right.
After a layoff gave her the push she needed to finally make a change, she approached her job search the way every career expert tells you to. She reached out to her network. She conducted informational interviews. She leveraged relationships over applications. She put in the effort and then some.
But six months after landing a new role, that familiar feeling crept back in. Same industry. Same type of work. Different company. She had driven herself in a full circle and ended up right back where she started.
Without knowing where she was going, every conversation defaulted back to where she had already been. Her past kept pointing her forward because it was the only direction she knew.
She stayed for two more years out of fear of making another mistake. And when we finally met, the first thing we did wasn't update her resume or refine her LinkedIn.
We got her a map.
Getting Lost
Think about the last time you got in a car without knowing where you were going.
You probably drove somewhere familiar. Somewhere you knew. Not because it was the right destination, but because it was the only place you knew how to get to.
That's exactly what happens in most job searches.
Without a clear sense of what you genuinely need in your career at this time in your life, you default to what you already know. Your past experience. Your existing skills. The industry you came from. And you end up right back in the same area, wondering why nothing feels different.
Having a map changes that.
Not a career plan. Not a list of job titles you could apply for. A map that shows you where you're going and what stops you need to make along the way to get there.
Those stops have names. Values. Strengths. Personality. Environment. Lifestyle. Human Design. Each one a destination on the journey that adds something essential to your picture. Each one bringing you closer to the career that truly fits.
Road Trip Treasures
For Mandy, the journey revealed two things that changed everything.
The first was a core value she had never fully named before. Impact. But not just any impact. Individual impact. The kind that comes from working directly with people and watching their lives change because of it. Her previous roles had been focused on helping the company. Good work. Work that she was good at. But not the kind that lit her up from the inside.
The second was something she had always known but never prioritized. She thrived when she was client-facing. Face-to-face with the people she was helping. That direct human connection was where she came alive at work.
What She Did With It
Once Mandy had her map, she went back to the same strategy she had used before. Relationships over applications. Network first.
But this time she knew where she was going.
She built a targeted list of organizations that matched her criteria. Mission-driven. Values aligned. Client-facing roles at the center of the work. Then she started cultivating relationships inside those organizations, not with a generic pitch about her background but with a clear and specific message about what she brought and what she was looking for.
Her efforts paid off.
Mandy is now thriving in a client-facing role at a mission-driven organization. Not because she worked harder the second time. Because she worked with direction.
The same effort that sent her in circles before took her exactly where she needed to go once she had a map.
What This Means for You
If you've been searching and nothing is landing, I want you to consider something.
The problem might not be your resume. It might not be your network. It might not be your interview skills or your LinkedIn headline.
It might be that you're searching without a clear destination.
My friend, you don't need a better search strategy.
You need a map to help you get clear on where you want to go and how to get there.
Your Next Step
That map is exactly what we build together inside my Clarity Coaching Program.
Stop by stop. Value by value. Strength by strength. Until you have a clear, specific, honest picture of where you're going and what you need to get there.
If you're ready to stop driving in circles and start moving with direction, let's talk.