What if the career you are looking for isn't just about climbing ladders, but about coming home to yourself? Welcome to the Seen Heard Value podcast with me, Aimee Bateman. These episodes are for anyone ready to move beyond surface level career advice and dive into the deeper work of authentic success.
This is where career strategy meets self-discovery. So let's go.
Hi, welcome back. In our last episode, you did something really powerful, so you visualized your perfect career day. You saw where you were working, you saw who you were hanging out with, what you were doing, how it felt, that visualization, that that is where you are heading. A vision without a plan is just a daydream, and you may well have been dreaming about this vision for years.
So today we're building upon that, okay, we're going to build your roadmap. We are creating what I call a career design matrix. So this is the tool that closes that gap between where you are now and where you want to be. So by the end of this episode, you're going to have a simple framework to turn that vision into action.
So a career design matrix. Think of it like this. So you've got your destination, your perfect career day, what you visioned, and it might be something can so far away from where you are right now. Like me, if you remember in the last episode, I told you that after I did my visualization exercise and I opened my eyes, my face was soaking wet from tears.
And the women that I work with on my female for the program, because we always do this, uh, exercise together. Quite early in the program, they, they sometimes tell me that when they open their eyes they feel sad and not because what they visioned wasn't incredible because it's their perfect day. Right. But because.
It's quite far away from where they are now, and they're not sure how to, how to get there. They can feel really overwhelming. So imagine this career design matrix is the map to get there. So it breaks down your journey into four clear sections, four areas that you need to focus on to make the visualization your reality.
Transformation doesn't happen by accident, and that's the first thing that I want to make sure that we're really clear on. We don't want to fall into the trap of just wishing that was our life and then realizing two years later that we're still where we were, we're just on autopilot, reliving the same year over and over again.
And yes, things might be changing subtly. You are still, you still have this desire to be seen, to be heard, to be valued, to live a different type of success. And the matrix, the career design matrix, helps you really. Break down what you need to do and it stops it being so overwhelming. So here are the four sections.
It's essentially like getting a piece of paper and drawing a big cross on the piece of paper. So you've just really simple. You just have four sections and the first section. So if you think about the, the top left hand box after you've drawn that cross on that piece of paper, that's behaviours. So these are the habits and the ways of working that you need to develop.
Section two would be skills. So these are the specific abilities that you need to build on, or things you already got, but you need to strengthen on. And then section three on your matrix, these are the connections and the relationships, people that will support your journey. And then experiences. So the opportunities that you need to seek out or to create for yourself.
So we've got four sections. We've got behaviours, skills. People and experiences. So let's break those down in a little bit more detail. So the behaviours. So these are the daily habits that you need, how you show up, your mindset, all those kind of things. So ask yourself, how does the future version of me do things differently than the version of me now?
What do I need to do differently in order to, to get to where I need to go, where I want to go? So how does she work? How does she think? Does she speak up in meetings? Is she better at saying no to things? Does she, is she better at setting boundaries? Does she take more risks? So write down those behaviours and things that you need to start practicing.
Because even if you write down a couple of things, those behaviours and those practices will get you closer to that vision. Section two would be your skills. So this is where I want you to think about what technical, so what hard skills or soft skills do you need? And I want you to be really specific here because the impact is in the specifics.
So rather than don't just say, oh, I need to develop my leadership skills. Break it down. Think about what part of leadership is it? Self-leadership. Write down facilitating difficult conversations. Write down managing my emotions. Write down financial modelling. Be really, really specific to think about. One skill.
If you had it today, could really change the game for you and get you closer to that vision. And then the third section, like I said, people, so this is who do you need to know? Who do you need to know and who needs to know you? And who do you need to learn from? So think about your mentors. Think about peers in your target industry.
Think about people that have actually done the thing that are actually doing the thing that you want to do. Um, and I know this might sound harsh, but think about who you need to distance yourself from. So not everyone is meant for your next chapter. So are there people that are holding you back? Are there people that are keeping you from that vision?
And then we've got experiences. So this is about doing what experiences are going to stretch you? What are, what are you going to learn? What will prove to you and others that you can do this? How are you going to work on that confidence, that self-belief? Maybe it's leading on a project you never led on before speaking event.
Maybe it's starting a podcast, maybe it's traveling to a country. Maybe it's taking a side gig or volunteering in your targeted space where you want to end up spending more time. So experiences build confidence for you internally, but also your credibility. And that again, will feed into section three, which is people.
Because in all of those experiences, you'll be meeting, you'll be meeting people, the right people, hopefully. Alright, so let me make this a bit real for you with two examples. The thing I love most about this podcast is it's really easy for me to bring real life examples because I work with so many amazing, courageous women, either one-on-one or through my female program that want to make.
Want the next chapter to be even better than their last. So I have lots of lovely examples with you. So I'm going to share, I have changed the names of people because I always think that's quite, that's just the respectful thing to do. I'm hoping by sharing these examples with real life women that are on a similar journey and going through some same stuff as you, that will help you when you are designing your own matrix.
So example one, Sarah, not her real name. She was in a previous cohort of mine, and Sarah was head of talent for a really big corporate bank. So she was really established, respected, comfortable, well paid. Things were good, but she just felt like something was missing earlier on in her career. She'd worked in a real sort of fast-paced environment and she'd got to use quite a lot of her creativity, and she had over the years, had more of an interest in diversity and inclusion.
She'd had more exposure to that, and that was really where her passion was lying and, and certainly her values were aligned and she wanted to do that within a startup environment. So something a little bit different, more fast paced, so different sector, different culture. She felt pretty much a different everything.
So here's what her career design matrix looked like. So in her behaviours box, she had start thinking like a founder, not just an employee. So that meant she was going to expose herself more to podcasts and books written by entrepreneurs. Get comfortable with ambiguity and less structure. So how could she model that behaviour?
Well, in her experiences section, she could get involved in more projects internally that hadn't been done before, so there was no precedent. So she was opening up her ability to be comfortable with failure and change. Then she had practiced being more visible on LinkedIn and sharing her views on diversity and inclusion.
I suppose in the corporate, she'd learn to sit on the fence a bit, but by sharing her views on diversity and inclusion, she was really putting that flag in the ground and saying, this is what I believe in. You might agree with me, you might not, but this is who I am and this is what I feel. And that felt like a bit of a risk for her.
So it was, uh, yeah, a behaviour that was, yeah, definitely a bit of a shift for her, but something that was definitely going to get her closer to the end vision. Her skills. While she had a bit of experience in this sector, diversity and inclusion was part of her job, but not really. So she wanted to learn about diversity metrics and reporting frameworks in her skills section.
She also had understand startup funding stages and how they impact people strategy because a precede. Startup is very different to, has very different needs, and it's a completely different beast to a series A or a series B or a series C stage Startup startups are essentially, like, for those of you that that have worked in those environments, you might agree, they're like babies that are born and then they're toddlers and they turn into teenagers.
So understanding all of those different stages and how she could add value, each one of those was really important. And then build skills and influencing without formal authority. When you work for a really big bank, which she did and had a really big job title, you get invited to things. Yeah. You can influence rooms and conversations just by leading with the job title.
And she wanted to work on her influencing and, and a communication skills so that when that no longer was the case as she was possibly working for more of a, a disruptor bank that wasn't as well known. She would still want to have that influence. So she, that was a really big thing for her was learning about influencing communication skills.
And then in her people section was connect with three diversity leaders currently in startups, join a community of HR professionals that were transitioning from big businesses into smaller companies. And then she wanted to find a mentor who had made a similar move. Experiences volunteer to advise startups on their diversity strategy that's on there.
And she's also got write three articles about diversity in tech to build her thought leadership and post those. And I remember one of the things on there as well that we wanted to do was to bring in other names and other people into those articles so that when she posted them on LinkedIn, she could tag them in it.
And it's just a beautiful way for her to start conversations with other influencers and impactful. Professionals in that sector so that they get to know who she was. So that's just a really good example of she wasn't just sat there hoping and thinking, I'm going to start looking at job applications and see what disruptor banks are going to start advertising.
She was actually designing. Yeah, she was thinking this is not something that is going to fall on my lap. And the beautiful thing about that was that it. Just sometimes when you feel stuck somewhere, it can just, you can feel broken and you just feel like a plant that's not being watered and you're on autopilot and things are all right, but, but you don't feel alive and you are missing that excitement, that feeling of that hope and that, gosh, this really could happen.
And the beautiful thing about working intentionally with a career design matrix is that you are always doing. Things that give you hope, that are connecting you to that possibility, like, oh my God, this can really happen. So it just makes the days, even when you're not living that visualization, it makes the days a little bit more joyful and more exciting.
So another example, this is Michelle, not her real name. And she was working, I wouldn't say it was corporate. It was a smaller ish business to Sarah, but still a big, uh, established business marketing director. Brilliant at her job. But her dream long term, so sort, she had a seven to eight year dream was that she wanted to move to France and run coaching retreats for women.
So let's just say that's a really big shift. Her design matrix would look something like this. Behaviours. She might start practicing, say no to projects that drain her energy because she's going to have to put some effort and some time into other things like training to be a coach, learning to speak French, all that kind of stuff.
So behaviours might be downloading Duolingo and learning French. For 30 minutes a day skills, she gets certified as a coach. Learn event planning and retreat facilitation. Understand the basics of running a small business in France. That's a skill people. How's she going to find people that are going to help her get closer to that vision?
Join groups. Online for experts that are living in France, she might connect with three women already running retreats, and that's their business model experiences. This was a big one. Host a free one day workshop for women in her network. It doesn't need to be a retreat. It could just be let's just get a hotel room for the afternoon, get loads of tea and coffee and some nice food, and let's all share some best practice or run some training courses or run a short three, four hour mastermind together.
Take some trips to France with a husband. What places do you like? What places feel nice? What places would you not want to live in? And then I remember saying, run a pilot retreat. So you could either do that at home or you could do that abroad. It doesn't need to be a business. It could just be right. I'm going to find eight women in my network.
I'm going to hire a somewhere on Airbnb and I'm going to find a coach to come over. I'm going to find somebody to do some yoga. We're all going to spend two hours delivering. Some training on something or sharing our challenges in business and just try it. See how you feel, see how you enjoyed facilitating that experience for those women and then just fly home.
You know, these are all things that will help build that vision. Because she's not quitting her job tomorrow. Right. This isn't a, I want this to happen in the next two years. She wants to make sure her children are a certain age before she makes this her reality. But she's building, she's building a bridge.
Okay. So you've got your four sections. Now what I want you to do now is use this tool, fill it in. Literally just write down, literally brain dump and write down everything you can in there. But I want you to prioritize. You can't do everything at once. So maybe pick two or three things from each section to focus on.
First you might go, right, I'm going to do a 90 day sprint. So what one or two things? What one thing from each section am I going to do over the next 90 days or the next 30 days? It's really important to remember that your matrix is not a static document. You're not going to just write it in a piece of paper and never look at it again.
You want to make sure that it's, you are changing, you are editing it. I redo mine every 90 days, but I'm running a business and 90 day sprints are connected to my bigger vision. You might not want to do that. That, again, that comes from my startup background. When I was. Building and scaling a company. We all worked on 90 day sprints.
You might not want to do that. You might update it bi-annually or, or annually. Whatever works for you and your, your career pace if you like. But it does have to be treated like a work in progress. So keep it somewhere visible. Put it to you all. Make it your desktop background or something, or maybe put it at the front of a notebook that you open every week.
Just make sure that you are intentional with it. Because the thing about making real transformation in your career, and I'm thinking back to, you know, those, those years ago when I started to do my visualization is that, oh, and indeed when I sold my company is that when big things happen, people go, oh wow, that's amazing.
But when you ever look of How did I get here? And you follow the trail back, it always starts with something small. And then another, something small and then another something small. And it's just lots of smaller actions that eventually compound over time to create something really wonderful. And I want that for you.
So I'll see you in the next episode. We'll talk more about overcoming obstacles and essentially understanding who you are and what will truly make you happy and how to make that a reality. But please take some time this week to start your career design matrix and design that dream career because you can have it.
You deserve it. Okay, my friend. I'll see you next week. Take care.
Hi. Do you want to spend some real time with me so that we can reconnect to who you are, what lights you up, and map out your next chapter, one that truly fulfils you? Well, each month I hold a live exclusive insider session where we work together to do exactly that, and these sessions are totally free for my brilliant podcast listeners, and that includes you.
Now, I keep these sessions really small and intimate, so spaces are limited, but you can grab your spot. The link is in the show notes or just drop me a note and we can get cracking. I cannot wait to see you.
