What Are Your Career Coordinates?
Career coordinates are internal reference points that keep professionals from veering off course or “crash-landing” into misaligned roles.
They include:
✔️ Core strengths that energize, not deplete
✔️ Impact that matters at the business and personal level
✔️ Strategic alignment with market demand
✔️ Work environments where performance and purpose coexist
How to Re-Align Your Career Coordinates Today
If you’re feeling disoriented or stuck right now, here are 3 things you can do this week to recalibrate your coordinates:
1. Audit your “Alive Skills”
Make a list of 5–10 moments in your career where you felt most energized and proud. What skills were you using? Who were you helping? What did you love about those moments? And, most importantly, what would moving in the direction of these things look like for you? How could you magnify these things?
2. Reconnect with your “Impact Story”
Instead of thinking in generic résumé lines like “led X team to Y result,” write out 1 paragraph of the story behind a project you’re proud of. Why did it matter? What role did you play? What problem did you solve? What results did you help create?
3. Reality-check the market
Use LinkedIn, strategic conversations, job boards, or even AI tools (I have a few I recommend) to look at roles that excite you. Check out salaries. Map out the key players in whatever industry or functional role you’re curious about. Do any of these align with your “alive skills”? Are there gaps? Where, are there opportunities, to reframe how you present your value?
When your visibility is low…
If you’re flying blind right now
Trying to move forward without clarity
The solution isn’t more hustle.
It’s alignment.
When you don’t know exactly where you’re going yet…
When nothing looks quite “right” out there…
Your coordinates are still true.
They’re what will help you land exactly where you’re meant to be.
I know it’s hard out there. But you’re stronger and more capable than you think.
It’s going to require more than you ever imagined, but you can do this.
Don’t give up.
Keep going!
