Stage 4: Strategy | Career Identity

You've spent the first 3 stages of this method getting to know yourself. All of that work applies to your career, but most people never make the connection explicit.

Career decisions tend to happen without too much clarity. We pick a degree based on what sounds interesting, we take the first job that says yes, and we stay because leaving feels risky, or we leave because staying feels suffocating. Either way, the decision is typically reactive, not specifically designed.

Here we ask a different question: "Given everything you now know about yourself, what kind of work, environment, and career structure would let you be whole?"

Career psychology has 70+ years of peer-reviewed findings on how personality, values, and self-knowledge shape career satisfaction, and we're going to use the best of it! By the end, you'll have a clear picture of your career identity: the internal compass that should be guiding your work decisions, whether you're choosing a new role, redesigning your current one, or building something of your own.

But first, a quick note before we start.

This exercise helps you find your career identity - your internal compass for work decisions. For some people, it means discovering a clear professional self. A thing you do, a lane you're happy in, a single answer to "so what do you do?" If that's you, brilliant. But some of you are going to get to the end of this and realise your career identity doesn't fit into one clean answer. You're the operations person who also makes things, or the consultant who's also a fiction writer, or the person who could run a business and also disappear to live in a tiny house somewhere in the wild and be equally happy doing either. If that's you, you're not doing the exercise wrong. You just have more than one professional self, and they're all real. I've added a section at the end specifically for you (it's called Portfolio Identity). So whichever kind of person you are, work through the exercises first. The goal here is self-knowledge, not squeezing yourself into a single job title.

-THE RESEARCH

Holland's theory of vocational personalities

John Holland spent 40 years studying the relationship between personality and career satisfaction. His core finding is that both people and work environments can be described using 6 personality types. When your type matches your environment, you're more satisfied, more productive, and more likely to stay.

The 6 types form the RIASEC model:

• Realistic. Hands-on, practical, physical. Prefers working with tools, machines, animals, or outdoors. Values tangible results. Think engineers, mechanics, farmers, surgeons.

• Investigative. Analytical, intellectual, curious. Prefers solving abstract problems and working independently. Values knowledge and understanding. Think scientists, researchers, analysts, software developers.

• Artistic. Creative, expressive, original. Prefers unstructured environments with freedom to create. Values self-expression and aesthetics. Think designers, writers, musicians, architects.

• Social. Helpful, empathetic, cooperative. Prefers working with people, teaching, healing, or advising. Values relationships and service. Think therapists, teachers, coaches, nurses.

• Enterprising. Persuasive, ambitious, energetic. Prefers leading, selling, and influencing. Values status, power, and achievement. Think entrepreneurs, managers, salespeople, politicians.

• Conventional. Organised, detail-oriented, methodical. Prefers structured environments with clear rules. Values accuracy and stability. Think accountants, administrators, data managers, compliance officers.

Most people are a blend of 2 or 3 types. Holland called this your personality code (e.g., AIE means primarily Artistic, secondarily Investigative, thirdly Enterprising). The code helps predict which work environments will feel natural and which will drain you.

The critical insight isn't just about finding work that matches your type, but that mismatches explain a lot of career dissatisfaction. An Artistic person in a Conventional environment (a designer stuck doing compliance reporting) will feel crushed regardless of the salary. An Investigative person in a heavily Social role (a researcher forced into a role where they need to constantly interact with people) will feel exhausted without understanding why. When you know your code, you finally know what you're working with. :)

Super's self-concept theory

Donald Super, one of the most influential career psychologists of the 20th century, argued that career development is the process of implementing your self-concept. The work you choose is an expression of who you believe yourself to be.

Super introduced 2 ideas that matter here. The first is vocational maturity (later renamed career adaptability): your capacity to make good career decisions depends on how well you know yourself, how much you've explored, and how realistic your expectations are. People with low career adaptability make impulsive career moves or stay stuck in roles that don't fit because they haven't done the inner work.

The second is the Life-Space model. Super recognised that career can't be separated from life. You're simultaneously a worker, a partner, a parent, a citizen, and a friend. Career decisions that ignore those other roles create friction. The "dream job" that requires 70-hour weeks might destroy the relationship that matters most to you. Super's framework asks: how does your career fit inside your whole life?

If this sounds familiar, it's because IKIGLOO is built on a similar premise. Your career decisions should flow from self-knowledge (Stage 1), account for your life context (Stage 2), and serve your broader vision (Stage 3). Super's research is the academic foundation for that logic.

Schein's career anchors

Edgar Schein, a professor at MIT Sloan, followed 44 MBA graduates for over 12 years and discovered that despite taking very different career paths, each person's decisions were guided by a stable internal pattern he called a career anchor: a combination of self-perceived talents, motives, and values that acts as a compass.

Schein identified 8 career anchors:

• Technical/Functional competence. You want to be really, really good at something specific. Career satisfaction comes from mastery. Management doesn't appeal to you unless it's managing within your area of expertise.

• General management competence. You want to lead, coordinate, and be responsible for results. You're energised by the complexity of running things and making high-stakes decisions.

• Autonomy/Independence. You need to do things your own way, on your own schedule. You'd rather earn less and have freedom than earn more and answer to someone else's rules.

• Security/Stability. You need predictability. A clear career path, reliable income, good benefits, job security. You'll trade excitement for certainty.

• Entrepreneurial creativity. You need to build new things. Businesses, products, projects. Once something is running smoothly, you get bored and want to start again.

• Service/Dedication to a cause. Your work has to serve something bigger than you. The cause matters more than the function. You'd change industries to stay aligned with your values.

• Pure challenge. You're driven by solving increasingly difficult problems. The content almost doesn't matter; the difficulty does. You seek out roles where success seems impossible.

• Lifestyle. You want integration. Your career has to fit your life, your relationships, your geography, your hobbies. You'll make career sacrifices to protect your quality of life.

The key finding from Schein's research is this: once formed (usually by your late 20s or early 30s), a career anchor is remarkably stable. It plays a conservative, stabilising role. People who make career moves that conflict with their anchor feel pulled back. They might take a management promotion (for the salary) when their real anchor is Technical Competence, and within a year they're miserable and trying to get back to the work itself.

Knowing your anchor doesn't tell you what job to take. It tells you what to protect when making any career decision.

The Big Five and career outcomes

You explored the Big Five personality traits in Stage 1. Here's what the career research specifically says about each one:

• Conscientiousness is the single strongest personality predictor of job performance across almost all occupations. If you scored high, you'll do well in structured roles with clear deliverables. If you scored low, you may thrive in creative or entrepreneurial roles where rigid structure feels like a cage.

• Extraversion predicts satisfaction in managerial, sales, and social roles. Introverts perform just as well in these roles, but they pay a higher energy cost. The question isn't whether you can do the work, but whether you can sustain it without burning out.

• Openness to experience predicts satisfaction in creative and investigative roles. High-openness people need novelty, whereas routine work feels like slow suffocation to them. They often have broad interests and struggle to commit to one path (which is why career design matters more for them than for anyone else).

• Agreeableness predicts preference for collaborative, team-oriented cultures. Highly agreeable people may struggle in competitive environments or roles that require tough, unpopular decisions. They also tend to undervalue their own contributions (which shows up in salary negotiations and career advancement).

• Neuroticism (or low emotional stability) is the most consistent predictor of career dissatisfaction across all occupations. If you scored high, this doesn't mean you're doomed, but it does mean that you need to be more deliberate about managing stress, choosing environments with psychological safety, and building strong support systems around your work.

The Big Five don't necessarily determine your career, but they do describe the operating conditions under which you do your best work. Think of them as design constraints for your career, not labels.

-THE EXERCISES

Exercise 1: Discover your career anchor

Schein's research shows that your career anchor becomes clear when you look at patterns across your career decisions, not through abstract self-assessment. Answer the questions below by reflecting on your actual experiences.

Part A: Career history reflection

• Think of a time you were deeply satisfied at work. What specifically made it satisfying?

• Think of a time you were miserable at work. What specifically made it intolerable?

• When you've changed jobs or roles, what was the real reason?

• If you had to choose between more money with less freedom, or less money with more freedom, which would you pick? Why?

• What would you refuse to give up in a job, even for a significant promotion?

• When you daydream about ideal work, what does a typical day look like? Be specific.

Part B: Anchor identification

Review your answers above and rate how strongly each career anchor pulls you, from 1 (low) to 10 (high). Be honest about what actually drives your decisions, not what you think should drive them. Include evidence from your career history that would prove your strength rating.

• Technical/Functional competence

• General management

• Autonomy/Independence

• Security/Stability

• Entrepreneurial creativity

• Service/dedication to a cause

• Pure challenge

• Lifestyle

Your top 1-2 anchors are your primary career compass. These are the things you should protect in any career decision, even when the opportunity looks exciting on paper.

• Your primary career anchor:

• Your secondary career anchor:

• What this means for your career decisions:

Exercise 2: Your work environment profile

Holland's research shows that career satisfaction depends as much on your environment as on the work itself. But here's the catch: self-rating your own RIASEC types is unreliable. We tend to score ourselves based on who we'd like to be rather than who we actually are. (I want to be the creative Artistic type, so I give myself an 8, even though I've not made anything in years.)

So instead of guessing, let's use a proper test.

Step 1: Take the free RIASEC test.

Head to Open Psychometrics' RIASEC test. It's completely free, no signup, no email, and it uses a validated research instrument.Takes about 5 minutes. You rate how much you'd enjoy 48 different activities, and it gives you a score across all six types.

Step 2: Write down your scores

Note your score for each type, and pull out your top 3 — that's your Holland Code.

Type / Your Score

Realistic / Your Score

Investigative / Your Score

Artistic / Your Score

Social / Your Score

Enterprising / Your Score

Conventional / Your Score

My Holland Code (top 3): ___

Step 3: Sense-check it against your life

Tests are just a starting point. Does your code actually match your experience? Look back at jobs or projects you've loved and hated. Do the types that scored high show up in the work that energised you? If something feels off, trust your lived experience over the number, and note why.

Step 4: Score your current environment

Now look at your current (or most recent) work. For each of your top 3 types, how well does your actual environment let you express it (from 1 to 10) and what specifically matches and clashes?

Low match scores point straight to the source of your career friction. High scores show what to protect when you make your next move.

Exercise 3: Work energy map

Your Energy Audit from Stage 1 mapped your energy in general. This exercise focuses specifically on work energy. Over the past month, which work activities gave you energy and which drained you? Be specific. "Meetings" is too broad. "The Monday product review meeting where I present to the leadership team" is better.

Energy givers (work that fills you up):
What is the activity?
Why does it give you energy?
How often do you get to do it?

Energy drainers (work that empties you):
What is the activity?
Why does it drain you?
Can you reduce, delegate, or eliminate it?

Then think about the ratio:
What percentage of your work week is spent on energy-giving activities?
What would need to change for that percentage to reach 60% or more?

Exercise 4: Your personality at work

You did the Big Five back in Stage 1. The theory above explained what each trait means for work, and now you can actually apply your results instead of leaving them sitting.

Pull your Big Five scores. For each trait, note whether you scored high, moderate, or low, then write one sentence on what that means for the kind of work you should be designing. Use the theory above as your guide.

Then think: which two of these traits have the biggest implications for your next career move?

Maybe you scored very high on Openness, which means routine work will slowly suffocate you, so novelty isn't a nice-to-have, it's a design requirement. Maybe you scored low on emotional stability, which means psychological safety in your environment matters more for you than for most people. Name your two and write down what each one demands from the work you choose.

AI companion (optional - highly recommended)

How to use: Share your completed exercises from this workbook along with your values, strengths, and other things you think are important, such as life contexts, skills, interests, strengths, and values. The AI will help you see patterns and connections you might have missed and will explain what each of the findings means for your career identity.

This is a long one, and that's deliberate. It's a proper deep-dive, not a quick quiz. Just paste your results, hit send, and it'll walk you through one step at a time. You don't need to read the whole thing first.

Copy and paste the prompt below into Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI assistant alongside your Big Five personality results (incl. facets!), RIASEC, career anchor, energy map, and any other additional context:

You are an expert career psychologist who specialises in translating assessment results into practical, personalised career design advice. You know Holland's RIASEC model, Schein's career anchors, Super's self-concept theory, and the Big Five (Costa & McCrae) inside out — not just the definitions, but what specific COMBINATIONS of results actually mean for a real person's working life.

I've just completed a career identity workbook. I'm going to give you my full results. Your job is NOT to explain each framework back to me in general terms — I can read a textbook for that. Your job is to tell me what MY specific combination means for the work I should design.

Before we start: this is a structured, multi-part analysis. You will work through exactly eight sections, one at a time. After each section, STOP. Show me what you've done, then ask if it lands before moving to the next. Do not attempt more than one section per message. Do not summarise or skip ahead. If you try to do everything in one response, you'll do all of it badly — so don't.

Here are the eight sections you'll complete. At the end of each response, tell me which number you just finished and which is next, so we both know where we are.

1. My Big Five, translated for me specifically (with internal friction hunt)

2. My RIASEC code, translated for me specifically

3. My energy map, read as live data

4. My career anchor, as my non-negotiable

5. Where my results agree

6. Where my results conflict

7. The operating conditions for my best work

8. What I might be avoiding

If at any point you feel the urge to compress the remaining sections to save time — resist it. There is no time pressure. A shallow section is worse than no section.

Here are my results:

RIASEC / Holland Code:

- My six scores: [INSERT ALL SIX: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional]

- My top 3 code: [e.g. AIS]

Big Five (from Stage 1):

- Openness: [INSERT SCORE + FACETS]

- Conscientiousness: [INSERT SCORE + FACETS]

- Extraversion: [INSERT SCORE + FACETS]

- Agreeableness: [INSERT SCORE + FACETS]

- Emotional stability / Neuroticism: [INSERT SCORE + FACETS]

Schein career anchor:

- Primary anchor: [INSERT HERE, e.g. Autonomy/Independence]

- Secondary anchor: [INSERT HERE, e.g. Entrepreneurial creativity]

Work energy map:

- What gives me energy at work: [INSERT HERE]

- What drains me: [INSERT HERE]

My current or most recent work situation: [INSERT HERE - 1-2 sentences]

Additional details you might find helpful: [INSERT HERE - interests, skills, life context, strengths, values]

Now do the following, one section at a time:

1. THE BIG FIVE, TRANSLATED FOR ME SPECIFICALLY. Go trait by trait. For each one, tell me what MY score means for the work I should design — the environment, the pace, the structure, the people. Be concrete. Don't say "high Openness people like novelty" — say "your high Openness means routine work will slowly suffocate you, so novelty isn't a nice-to-have in your next role, it's a hard design requirement." Where two of my traits interact in an important way (e.g. high Openness + low Conscientiousness, or high Productiveness + low Responsibility), name that interaction and what it means, because the combinations matter more than the individual scores. Then, and this is the most important part: look for internal friction. I want you to actively hunt for places where two of my own traits pull against each other, because those internal tensions shape my working life more than any single score does. This includes friction between whole traits AND friction between facets within a trait. For example: someone high in Productiveness but lower in Responsibility gets a lot done but on their own terms and resents assigned obligations — that combination means they thrive self-directed and struggle under someone else's deadlines. Or someone with high Stability but low Relaxedness stays calm in a crisis but carries a constant background hum of tension — that means the source of their stress isn't external drama, it's internal, and they need to design for that specifically.

For every internal tension you find in my results, tell me three things: (a) what the friction actually is in plain terms, (b) how it's probably showing up in my working life right now — the specific ways it helps me and the specific ways it costs me, and (c) what it means for the work I should design to work with the tension rather than against it. Don't smooth over contradictions in my profile or pretend I'm internally consistent. The contradictions are the interesting part. Name them directly.

2. MY RIASEC CODE, TRANSLATED FOR ME SPECIFICALLY. Don't just tell me what my top three types mean individually — tell me what my specific combination means, because the interaction is where the insight is. An Artistic-Investigative-Social person is a very different animal from an Artistic-Enterprising-Conventional one, even though both lead with Artistic. Then do the part that matters most: compare my code against my current work environment. Where's the gap? Which of my high types is my current work completely failing to feed? That gap is probably the single biggest source of any career friction I'm feeling, so name it precisely. And flag my lowest types too — if my work is forcing me to live in a type I score low on, that's a slow drain I might not have consciously noticed.

3. MY ENERGY MAP, READ AS LIVE DATA. My Big Five and RIASEC describe my wiring in general. My energy map describes what's actually true right now, this month. Treat it as the ground-truth check on everything else. Do the things that give me energy line up with my RIASEC code and my anchor — or is there a mismatch that tells me something? Look at my energy drainers specifically: are they surface-level annoyances I can fix with small changes, or are they structural signs I'm in the wrong environment entirely? Help me tell the difference, because those two things need completely different responses. Then tell me: based on my energy map alone, what's the one change that would most improve my working life right now?

4. MY CAREER ANCHOR, AS MY NON-NEGOTIABLE. My anchor isn't like my other results. My RIASEC and Big Five describe what suits me — my anchor describes what I'll sacrifice other things to protect. Treat it as the veto. First, tell me what my specific primary and secondary anchor combination means in practice — not the textbook definition, but how it should actually filter the opportunities in front of me. Then do the important part: check my anchor against my current situation and against any direction I've said I'm considering. Is my current work honouring my anchor or violating it? Because if it's violating it, that's not a minor irritation I can fix around the edges — Schein's research says I'll keep feeling pulled back until I resolve it, and I need to hear that plainly. Finally, give me the one or two things my anchor says I must protect in any future move, worded specifically enough that I could hold a real job offer up against them and get a clear yes or no.

5. WHERE MY RESULTS AGREE. Look across all my results — RIASEC, Big Five, anchor, energy map. Where do they point in the same direction? Convergence across different frameworks is the strongest signal I can get. Tell me what my results are collectively screaming about the kind of work I need.

6. WHERE MY RESULTS CONFLICT. This is the most important section, so give it the same forensic attention you gave my Big Five. Hunt for contradictions ACROSS my frameworks, not just within them — my anchor pulling against my RIASEC code, a Big Five trait fighting my anchor, my energy map contradicting what my personality says should energise me. For each contradiction, tell me: (a) what the tension actually is, (b) how it's likely playing out in my working life right now, and (c) what resolving it would require — including which side should win, because with a real contradiction you usually can't keep both. Don't list them and move on. These tensions are probably the reason I'm doing this exercise at all.

7. THE OPERATING CONDITIONS FOR MY BEST WORK. Based on everything, give me a concrete list of the conditions under which I do my best work — and the conditions that will slowly damage me. Frame these as design constraints I can actually use when evaluating a role, not vague traits.

8. WHAT I MIGHT BE AVOIDING. Based on my results and how I've described my situation, flag anything you suspect I'm not letting myself see — a mismatch I'm tolerating, an anchor I'm suppressing, a type of work I keep circling but not committing to.

Remember: one section per message, and end each by telling me which number you finished and which is next. I want a conversation, not a report. Be direct — if something in my results suggests I'm in the wrong environment, say it plainly.

Once all eight sections are complete, do one final thing without being asked: a full synthesis. Pull together everything we've covered across all eight sections and give me:
(1) THE THREE THINGS MY RESULTS AGREE ON MOST LOUDLY. The signals that showed up across multiple frameworks independently — these are the most reliable findings.
(2) THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT TENSION I NEED TO RESOLVE. Not a list — the one conflict that, if I addressed it, would do the most to change how my working life feels. Be specific about what resolving it would actually require.
(3) MY CAREER IDENTITY IN ONE PARAGRAPH. Not a list of traits. A paragraph that reads like a person — something I could actually say to myself when I'm evaluating an opportunity or feeling lost. Make it specific to my actual profile, not a generic summary.
(4) THE ONE MOVE. Based on everything, what is the single highest-leverage next step I could take in the next 30 days? Not a strategy, not a list. One move. Explain why this one, not something else.

Exercise 5: Career identity synthesis

Pull together everything from the previous exercises and from your Stage 1 self-knowledge work. This is your career identity: the internal compass that should guide every work decision you make.

Go through all of the following career identity elements and answer this question: "What I've learned about myself?"

• Your career anchor (the thing you protect above all else)

• Your RIASEC code (the type of work and environment that fits)

• Your core values that apply to work (from Stage 1)

• Your top strengths in a work context (from Stage 1)

• The Big Five traits that most affect your work (from Stage 1)

• What gives you energy at work

• What drains you at work

• The kind of work environment where you thrive

• The kind of work environment that damages you

Career identity statement

In your own words, write a short paragraph (3-5 sentences) that describes your career identity. You can refer back to this before making any significant career decision.

Exercise 5: Portfolio Identity (optional)

Only do this exercise if you finished the career identity synthesis and felt like something was missing. Like you'd written a neat summary of yourself but left bits out because they didn't fit the one identity you were trying to describe. If that's you, this is for you. If you've found your one clear career identity and it feels complete, you can skip this and head to the reflection. No need to manufacture complexity you don't have. :)

Here's the thing nobody tells multi-passionate people: you don't actually need one career identity. You can have a portfolio of them!

The standard career question is "what do you do?" and it assumes one answer. A job title or a lane. For a lot of us, that question has always felt like a trap, because the honest answer is "well, several things, and they're all me." The trick isn't to pick one. It's to understand the different ways you create value, and figure out when each one gets to show up.

A portfolio identity has three parts: a few distinct strands (each one a real professional identity that could stand on its own), a through-line (the thread that connects all of them), and a narrative (a way of explaining the whole thing that sounds coherent instead of scattered).

Let's build yours.

Step 1: Brainstorm every way you create value

Everything you currently do professionally, everything you've done in the past, and everything you could do if you decided to. Paid or unpaid. Big or small. Just get it all down.

Step 2: Group them into 2-3 strands

Look at your list and notice the natural clusters. Most people find their value sorts into two or three coherent groups. One person might have a "strategy" strand, a "making things" strand, and a "teaching" strand. Group yours and give each one a name that feels like a real identity. "The Strategist." "The Builder." "The Storyteller." Whatever fits. Naming makes them feel real and separate. Add what each strand includes and what it looks like when it's active.

Step 3: Find the through-line

This is the most important step. Look across all your strands and ask: what's true about me in all of them? It might be a value, a way of working, a signature approach, a type of problem you're always drawn to. For me, every strand I have comes back to helping people and organisations design more human, freeing ways of living and working. The vehicle changes, but the through-line doesn't. So what's yours?

Step 4: Write your portfolio narrative

Now write 3 sentences that hold all your strands together and make them sound like one coherent person instead of a scattered mess. This is the thing you say when someone asks "so what do you do?" and you don't want to shrink yourself down to one answer.

Step 5: Name your possible expressions

Your portfolio narrative tells people who you are. This step translates that into what it actually looks like in the world - the roles, titles, and paths your identity could take depending on which strand leads and what the context requires. You don't need to pick one! Have it there so that when an opportunity appears, you can immediately see which strand it's primarily drawing on.

Reflection

Use these when you want to go deeper into your relationship with work.

• Looking at your career history, when did you feel most like yourself at work? What was present in that situation that's missing now?

• How much of your career dissatisfaction (if any) comes from the work itself versus the environment you're doing it in?

• What would you do differently if you trusted your career identity as much as you trust your CV?

Collaborations