CAREER DREAM BUILDING

Brady Cook LPC, NCC

“During our childhood and into early adolescence, fantasy role tryouts played an important part in our vocational development. Many of our vocational role models come form storybooks and TV. We dressed up and played at being parents, teachers, nurses, or sports heroes.”

(Carney & Wells, 1995, pp. 38)Discovering the Career within You 4th Edition

Fantasy

Reality

Research Active

Research

Passive

FANTASY VS. REALITY AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

3 KEY CONCEPTS TO DREAM BUILDING

Construct the Dream

• Identify What is Wanted

Identify Aspects Already Present

• Do More of this

Experiment in Areas Not

Already Present

• Try things in new ways

(Walter & Peller, 1992) Becoming Solution-Focused in Brief Therapy

CONSTRUCT THE DREAM:DREAMING EXERCISE

• It’s a few years down the road and your career problem is gone. What does your life look like?• When you wake up what do your surroundings look like?• Who is there?• City, country?• Home, apartment?• What type of clothes are you wearing?• How do you get around? Car, bike bus?• If you don’t work at home how long is your commute?• Work indoors or outdoors?• Around people or by yourself?• What activities are you participate in each day?• What are you doing when you are not at work, hobbies?

USING MENTAL IMAGERY IN DREAMING

• Used frequently by athletes

• Olympic bobsled team

• Picture in mind the action they want to do before they do it physically

(Walter & Peller, 1992) Becoming Solution-Focused in Brief Therapy

DREAMING AND MOVIES

• Think of wanted futures as a continual process, or movie rather than a picture or snap shot.

• Movies are edited, just like dreams/goals can be.

• We can continually try until we are satisfied with certain outcomes.

• Like the scripts of movies our goals should be very specific.

(Walter & Peller, 1992) Becoming Solution-Focused in Brief Therapy

DREAMING IS FOR KIDS

“As you grew up, you probably created certain occupation fantasies; for example, you may have wanted to be a rock star, a professional tennis player, or an astronaut. As you got older and knew yourself better, you had additional ideas, perhaps more closely related to the reality of who you are. Your early fantasies, however, often reveal many truths about the kind of person you are now. Those fantasies offer clues about your basic interests, values, and abilities.”

(Sears & Gordon, 2011,pp. 2)

Building Your Career: A Guide to Your Future, 4th Edition

Interests

Values

Skills

PUTTING THE CLUES TOGETHER: What is already

present

IDENTIFYING ASPECTS OF THE DREAM ALREADY PRESENT

• Focus in on parts that already are there and working.

• Baseball

• Bowling

(Walter & Peller, 1992) Becoming Solution-Focused in Brief Therapy

NOT SELLING YOUR DREAM SHORT

https://youtu.be/ajjGtsjI7CM

“It is amazing how often people do get their dreams, whether in stages or directly. The more you don’t cut the dream down, because of what you think you know about the real world, the more likely you are to find what you are looking for.”

(Bolles, 1995, pp. 255)

What Color Is Your Parachute?, 20th Anniversary Edition

EXPERIMENT IN AREAS NOT ALREADY PRESENT

• What is currently not present?

• Is realistically achievable?

• How can it be implemented?

• SMART Goal exercise

• TedX Scott Dinmore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpe-LKn-4gM

ONLINE RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES

• http://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/browse/Skills/

• https://idcis.intocareers.org/skills/skills.aspx

• http://www.mynextmove.org/explore/ip

• http://isu.edu/career/FOCUS-2.shtml

• https://idcis.intocareers.org/realitycheck/RC_introduction.aspx