- What were your father's or father-substitute's values? Not what did you father say or do, but what did he stand for? What things were important to him? What was the code he lived by? Similarly, analyze your mother's values.
- What was the first thing you did that pleased your mother? (This is important because usually the first person that children try to please is their mother. Later, pleasing their father becomes important, too.) For women, the mother's value system may have more weight in forming their values (question 1), while the activities they did to please a parent (question 2) were more often performed with the father in mind. These two questions should give you insight into the way you have formed your current values system.
- Who were your childhood heroes or heroines? Did you idolize athletes, movie stars, or political figures? What kind of people do you now enjoy reading about or watching on TV? What kind of achievements do you admire?
- Who are and were your models-relatives, teachers, scoutmasters, preachers, bosses, characters in stories? What did they say or do that made you admire them?
- When you were able to make choices, what were they? What was your major in college? What jobs have you accepted? (These may appear to be random, but they were not. Look at them carefully to find the pattern.)
- What few experiences in your lifetime have been the most gratifying? Which gave you the greatest pleasure and sense of elation? The pleasure you took in the experience was really the pleasure you took in yourself. What were you doing?
- Of all the things you've done, at which were you the most successful? What were you doing and how were you doing it?
- What would you like your epitaph or obituary to say? What would you like to be remembered for? What would you like to leave as a memorial?
Try discussing your answers to these questions with a friend. During your discussion, also explore these other areas of your personality.
- How do you handle aggressive energy? Do you channel it into the organization and administration of projects or do you bottle it up?
- How do you handle affection? Do you enjoy interacting with others or do you feel more comfortable keeping your distance? Can you express your emotions to others? (Thank them, praise them, give them a pat on the back?)
- How to do you handle dependency? Can you make decisions or do you honestly prefer that someone else make them? Do you want to be in charge, be a team member or work independently?
After serious reflection, if you discover that you really don't want to leave the field in which you've been working to start a new career, you still have a number of other questions to answer.
- Where do you want to look (locale)? Are you willing to relocate? (Before you can answer that one honestly, you must discuss this thoroughly with your family, since their desires have to be considered in such a momentous decision. Especially now, with so many two-career families, the question of "where" becomes crucial to a successful job search.)
- What size company do you want to work for? Fortune 500, small business or industry, consulting firm, nonprofit organization, civil service or other governmental agency?
- Do you want to be an entrepreneur, to start your own business?
- Should you look for a management position, or are you willing to accept a lesser position if the long-term prospects look good?
- Are you willing to "settle," to accept almost any job, just so it is interesting and will last long enough for you to reach retirement age?
