Understanding Your Values, Purpose, Vision and Motivated Abilities
Professional Development: What Is Self-Discovery?
It’s the process of understanding what matters to you, what gives your working life meaning and how you can shape your choices around the person you are and the life you want to lead.
For Albert, it began with a question he had never really considered.
Albert was head of operations at a regional water company in the north of England.
He had spent years building a career, developing his expertise and taking on responsibilities that others trusted him to handle.
By most measures, he had done well.
Yet at his annual review, when his director, Martin, asked him what he wanted from his working life now, he found himself talking about what was expected of him rather than what he wanted for himself.
He knew how to make a plan, meet a deadline and solve a difficult problem.
What he hadn’t done for some time was stop to consider whether the direction he was travelling still reflected what mattered most to him.
When Success Doesn’t Answer Every Question
Albert had always believed that professional development meant becoming better at what he did.
He had pursued opportunities, acquired new skills and accepted challenges that helped him progress, from engineer on the treatment works to head of operations for the whole region.
Each decision had made sense at the time.
Recently, however, he had begun to notice a difference between being capable of doing something and wanting to continue doing it.
The work that once gave him satisfaction had become familiar.
The responsibilities he had worked hard to earn sometimes felt more like obligations than opportunities.
Looking back, Albert could also see that some opportunities he had pursued because they represented progress had not turned out quite as he had expected.
He had learnt from those experiences, although he had not yet fully understood what they were telling him about himself.
He wondered whether he needed a different role, a new challenge or perhaps an entirely different direction.
But every possibility seemed to lead to another question.
What was he actually looking for?
He realised that choosing between opportunities would be difficult if he hadn’t first understood what he wanted those opportunities to provide.
Before he could decide where to go, he needed to understand what was important to him and why.
Understanding What Matters Most
Albert began by looking back at the experiences that had stayed with him throughout his working life.
Rather than simply remembering what had happened, he tried to understand why certain moments had mattered more to him than others.
He decided to write each experience as a story, under three headings: The Situation, What I Did and What It Revealed.
Writing them this way would help him see not only what had happened, but what each experience revealed about him.
His Success Story
He began with the experience he was proudest of: the winter the river burst its banks and flooded part of the city.
The Situation: A river flooded part of the city, and the teams responding disagreed about what to do.
What I Did: I coordinated the response, and we agreed a plan by midnight.
What It Revealed: I’m good at managing a crisis.
He read it back.
It was accurate.
It was also exactly how he would have written it in an incident report.
So he asked himself a different question.
What moment from that night do I remember most clearly?
It wasn’t the plan.
It was the moment, a few hours in, when Kofi, Bev and Ian were still defending their own positions, and he had stopped asking what each of them wanted to do.
Instead, he had asked each of them what they were most afraid would happen.
Kofi said that if the pumping station flooded, the whole city could lose water for weeks.
Bev said that if they shut it down, families with young children and the care home on the riverside would be without water that night.
Ian said he had to tell the council leader something within the hour, and he didn’t know what.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then, for the first time that night, they began to listen to one another.
He rewrote the story.
The Situation: The winter the river burst its banks, the network engineers, led by Kofi, wanted to shut down a pumping station to protect it. Bev, who ran customer services, knew that would leave thousands of homes without water. Ian, the council’s emergency planner, needed answers within the hour. For the first few hours, each of them defended their own position.
What I Did: I brought them into one room and asked each of them what they were most afraid would happen. Then I listened, and helped them hear one another. By midnight, we had a plan none of us could have found alone: a phased shutdown, with water stations set up first in the streets that needed them most.
What It Revealed: I find the greatest satisfaction in helping people listen to one another, share what they know and find a solution together.
What had made it satisfying?
He could have focused on the successful outcome, but that wasn’t what he remembered most clearly.
It was the way people had listened to one another, shared their knowledge and found a solution together.
Albert began to recognise this as one of his Success Stories. What mattered was not simply that the plan had worked, but what the experience revealed about the contribution he most valued and the way he wanted to work.
His Passion Story
He thought about the decision he had once defended, even when taking the easier option would have avoided an uncomfortable conversation.
The Situation: A major repair to a water main fell behind schedule.
What I Did: I informed the residents of the revised timescale.
What It Revealed: I believe in good communication.
He read it back and frowned.
It was true, but it could have been written by anyone.
It said nothing about why he had cared enough to go against Martin.
He asked himself: Why did this matter enough that I was prepared to have an uncomfortable conversation with my director?
He remembered the residents’ meeting in the church hall, a month before the repair fell behind.
They had already been told twice that the work would be finished soon.
A man at the back had stood up and said, quietly, “We don’t mind waiting. We mind being told things that aren’t true.”
When the new delay came, Martin had wanted to wait until a new date was certain.
Albert had thought of that man.
He rewrote the story.
The Situation: A major repair to a water main had fallen weeks behind, and the residents affected had been told it would be finished by the end of the month. They had already been told twice before that the work would be finished soon. Martin preferred to wait until a new date was certain before saying anything. Waiting would have been easier, but I believed it would mean compromising my judgement.
What I Did: I asked Martin for a meeting and explained why I believed the residents deserved to know now. Then I wrote to them myself that week, telling them what we knew and what we didn’t yet know.
What It Revealed: I’m prepared to stand by my judgement when people deserve the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. Trust matters to me, and it’s built by being honest when it’s difficult.
Why had he been so determined to stand by his judgement?
He realised that the decision had mattered because he believed it was the right thing to do, even when doing the right thing came at a cost.
He recognised this as a Passion Story. It revealed what mattered enough to him that he was prepared to stand by his judgement, even when doing so was uncomfortable. His values were not simply ideas he believed in; they influenced the decisions he made and the actions he took.
His Failure Story
Then he considered the situations that had left him frustrated.
He thought of the reorganisation, a few years earlier, when two depots were merged.
The Situation: Two depots were merged, and some of the longest-serving staff were moved into roles that made no use of their knowledge.
What I Did: It wasn’t my decision.
What It Revealed: Head office didn’t consult people properly.
That evening, he showed his three stories to his wife, Grace.
She read the first two slowly and smiled.
Then she read the third, and looked up.
“In the other two, you’re in the story,” she said. “In this one, you’re not. Where were you?”
He started to answer, and stopped.
He asked himself: What part did I play in what happened?
He remembered that he had heard about the plans weeks before they were announced.
He had doubts, and he had kept them to himself.
He remembered Derek, who had worked at the valley depot for thirty years and knew every pipe in it, finding him in the yard the week after the announcement.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Derek had said.
Albert had raised his concerns with head office the following day.
By then, the decision had been made.
He rewrote the story.
The Situation: A few years earlier, two depots were merged. Some of the longest-serving staff, people who knew every pipe in the valley, were moved into roles that made no use of what they knew. The decision was made without asking them, and trust between the depots and head office took years to rebuild.
What I Did: I heard about the plans weeks before they were announced. I had doubts, but I kept them to myself. I raised my concerns only after the decision had been made.
What It Revealed: Fairness matters to me, and people affected by a decision need to be heard before it’s made, not after. When I see a decision coming that will overlook people, I need to speak up sooner.
There had been other occasions too, when people had been overlooked, when trust had been damaged or when a decision had been made without proper consideration of those affected by it.
Albert began to recognise these experiences as Failure Stories. They were not necessarily situations in which he had personally failed. They were experiences in which something had gone wrong, prompting him to consider what had happened, what he might have done differently and what he could learn about himself and the conditions people needed to work well together.
But Grace’s question had shown him something else. Even when a decision wasn’t his, he still had a part in the story.
What His Stories Revealed
His reactions had seemed obvious at the time, but now he began to ask himself what lay behind them.
Why had these situations mattered so much to him?
What did his responses reveal about the way he believed people should work together and treat one another?
As he compared his rewritten stories, patterns began to emerge.
In each of them, what mattered most was whether people were heard and told the truth.
He recognised that fairness mattered to him, that he wanted to be able to trust the people he worked with and that he valued opportunities to make a meaningful contribution.
Each story had shown him something different.
His Success Story revealed the abilities he most enjoyed using and the contribution that gave his work meaning.
His Passion Story revealed the values he was prepared to stand by.
His Failure Story revealed what happened when those values were overlooked, and what he wanted to do differently.
These were not new discoveries about the kind of person he wanted to be.
They were qualities and principles that had been influencing his choices for years.
He was beginning to understand them more consciously.
Albert realised that if he wanted to make decisions that felt right for him, he needed to understand the values guiding those decisions, rather than relying solely on external measures of success.
Discovering a Sense of Purpose
As Albert reflected further, he began to notice a pattern in the work he found most rewarding.
The moments he remembered most clearly were often those when he had helped someone else see a problem differently, encouraged a colleague to trust their judgement or brought people together to find a way forward.
He thought of Kofi, who had once been reluctant to speak in front of the board and now presented the network’s plans with confidence. Albert had spent hours helping him think through his first presentation, asking questions rather than giving answers.
These activities were not always the most visible parts of his job, and they were not necessarily the ones that had earned him the most recognition.
Yet they had given him a sense of satisfaction that other achievements had not.
He started to ask himself what these experiences had in common.
Albert recognised that, although the circumstances had differed, he had often been helping people work through difficulties, understand different perspectives and find solutions together.
What was it about them that mattered to him?
He realised that he particularly valued seeing people gain confidence, feel listened to and make progress on something important.
The satisfaction came not simply from solving a problem, but from helping people understand it more clearly and recognise what they could do about it.
What contribution did he want to make through his work?
Albert began to recognise that he wanted to use his experience to help people understand problems more clearly and find ways forward.
The questions helped him consider purpose in a more personal way.
Rather than searching for one grand ambition, he began to recognise the kind of contribution that gave his working life meaning.
Purpose didn’t dictate a particular job title or career path.
It gave him a clearer basis for considering the opportunities available to him and the difference he wanted his work to make.
Imagining What Comes Next
With a better understanding of his values and purpose, Albert found it easier to think about his future.
Previously, when someone had asked about his ambitions, he had tended to describe the next logical step in his career.
One evening, walking with Grace along the quayside, he told her about Martin’s question, and the answer he hadn’t been able to give.
Grace asked him a different question: “If no one expected anything of you, what would you want your work to be like?”
Now he began to imagine different possibilities.
Perhaps he could spend more time developing others.
Perhaps he could use his experience in a different setting, take on work that allowed greater collaboration or create more space for interests that had been pushed aside by professional commitments.
He didn’t need to settle on one answer immediately.
What mattered was that he had started to distinguish between the future he assumed he should pursue and the future he genuinely wanted to explore.
His vision began to take shape through questions about how he wanted to spend his time, what he wanted to contribute and what he wanted his professional and personal life to look like.
He realised a vision is not a prediction of what will happen.
It’s a way of imagining what might be possible and giving yourself a direction in which to move.
For Albert, that meant allowing himself to consider possibilities he might previously have dismissed before he had properly examined them.
Recognising the Abilities We Bring
As he explored these possibilities, Albert also began to reconsider his strengths.
He had always been recognised for his technical knowledge of the water network and his ability to manage complex projects.
These were valuable capabilities, and he had invested considerable effort in developing them.
But he began to notice other abilities that had been present throughout his working life.
He could listen carefully to different perspectives, identify the question that others had overlooked and help people make sense of complicated situations.
He enjoyed finding connections between ideas and turning them into something useful.
He had often done these things without thinking of them as particular strengths.
Looking back, he could see that these abilities had played an important role in many of his most satisfying experiences, from the night of the flood to the hours spent helping Kofi prepare.
Recognising these as his motivated abilities helped him consider not only what he was good at, but which activities he was naturally drawn to and wanted to use.
It gave him another way to assess the opportunities in front of him.
A role might make good use of his experience, but would it also allow him to use the abilities that engaged him?
Would the work draw on the qualities he most wanted to contribute?
These questions didn’t provide an automatic answer.
They helped Albert make more informed choices about what to pursue and what to leave behind.
Learning to Ask Different Questions
Albert began to understand that self-discovery was not something he could complete by thinking about himself in the abstract.
He needed to examine his experiences, question his assumptions and learn from the feedback available to him.
He started asking himself more precise questions.
When had he felt most engaged in his work?
What had made a particular experience satisfying?
Which decisions had left him feeling that he had compromised something important?
What did other people consistently value in his contribution?
Were there strengths he took for granted because they came naturally to him?
He also began to look at the stories he told himself about his working life.
He had often described his career as a sequence of sensible steps, each leading naturally to the next.
That account was not wrong, but it left out the moments when he had followed his curiosity, stood by a principle or discovered that an unexpected challenge suited him better than a predictable opportunity.
By revisiting these experiences, he began to see his working life from a different perspective.
Self-questions helped him investigate what he thought and felt.
Self-feedback helped him notice patterns and consider perspectives beyond his own.
Turning what he had learned into stories, and rewriting them until they told the truth, helped him connect individual experiences and recognise what they revealed about him.
Together, these approaches gave him a more rounded understanding of himself and the choices he wanted to make.
From Understanding Yourself to Directing Your WorkLife
Albert didn’t emerge from this process with a complete plan for the rest of his working life.
He had something more useful than a ready-made answer: a clearer understanding of the questions he needed to answer and the principles he wanted to use in answering them.
He could now assess opportunities against his values, consider whether they supported his sense of purpose and vision, and look at how well they made use of his motivated abilities.
He could also identify what he needed to learn, what he wanted to change and which possibilities deserved further exploration.
His next steps became more deliberate.
Rather than accepting an opportunity simply because it represented progress, he could ask whether it was progress towards something that mattered to him.
This was where Albert began to see how professional self-discovery connected with the way he approached his working life.
- Self-coaching — He could ask himself the questions that brought clarity, explore his experiences and find his own answers.
- Self-directing — He could use what he had learned about himself to decide which steps to take next.
- Self-leadership — He could take responsibility for the choices he made and how he moved forward.
He realised that understanding himself would not remove uncertainty or give him all the answers.
It would, however, give him a more considered way of navigating his working life.
Creating a WorkLife That Reflects What Matters Most
Some weeks later, in a follow-up conversation, Martin asked him the question that had started his reflection: what did he want from his working life?
This time, Albert didn’t immediately describe a job title or the next stage of a familiar career path.
He talked about the contribution he wanted to make, the abilities he wanted to use and the kind of working life he wanted to create.
He could explain what mattered to him and why certain possibilities appealed to him more than others.
He still had decisions to make.
Some of his ideas needed testing, and his circumstances would continue to influence what was possible.
But he was no longer approaching those decisions without a sense of direction.
Professional self-discovery hadn’t told Albert who he ought to become.
It had helped him understand more clearly who he was, what mattered to him and how he might bring those things into the choices ahead.
Why Professional Self-Discovery Matters
This is why professional self-discovery matters: it helps you understand your values, purpose, vision and motivated abilities, so that the choices you make reflect who you are and the working life you want to create.
Your Success Stories show the abilities you most enjoy using, and the contribution that gives your work meaning.
Your Passion Stories show the values you’re prepared to stand by, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Your Failure Stories show what matters to you when it’s missing, and what you might do differently.
Told in three parts, the Situation, What You Did and What It Revealed, then questioned and rewritten, your stories reveal not only what happened, but what it means for the direction you choose.
Insightful self-questions help you find the stories that matter.
When have I felt most engaged in my work, and what was I doing?
What have I stood by, even when it would have been easier not to?
When has something gone wrong, and what part did I play in it?
What contribution do I most want my work to make?
What future do I want to move towards?
Effective self-feedback, and the feedback of people who know you, help you see what your stories reveal about you.
You don’t need to know every step of the journey before you begin.
You need to understand enough about yourself to decide which step to take next.
In the next story, Professional Development: Self-Discovery in Action, Albert puts what he has learnt to the test as he considers new career opportunities and decides what feels right for him.
Then, in Professional Development: Self-Discovery at Work, Albert discovers how to put his self-knowledge into practice, contribute to his new role and help others develop.
Continue the Work
If Albert’s story has prompted you to reflect on your own working life, these resources offer different ways to explore what matters to you, recognise your strengths and consider what comes next.
Explore Professional Development — stories and reflections on professional development, learning and the experiences that shape our working lives.
Explore The Art of WorkLife Storytelling – discover how the stories we tell about our experiences can help us understand ourselves, recognise what matters and use what we learn to shape our working lives.
Explore Self-Discovery Story Lessons — practical, story-based resources that help you reflect on your experiences, understand yourself more clearly and apply what you learn to your working life.
Explore Self-Discovery Programmes — Follow a guided learning journey to explore your core values, purpose, vision and motivated abilities, and align your professional and personal choices with what matters most to you.
Explore Professional Self-Coaching Resources — Work through focused resources that help you ask yourself the right questions, find your own answers and take action on what you learn.
Explore Individual WorkLife Coaching — when you need space to think with someone else about your working life, a difficult situation, a decision or what comes next, dedicated coaching sessions help you explore what matters, see your situation differently and find your own way forward.
Work With Me: Individual WorkLife Coaching, Commissioned Learning Resources, Speaking Engagements and Organisational Partnerships
Support This Work: Your support makes a difference and helps me to continue creating resources that are accessible to everyone. Thank you. Carmel
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