Loving your job, or ready for the next chapter? Summer gives you the space to find out. Here’s how to do it

The summer break is the ideal time to reflect on your job and career, here are some tools to help you do it

Most of us treat summer as a pause button. Two weeks off, a bit of sun, then back to the same inbox, same routines, same low hum of "is this still working for me?"

But the break is also the rare stretch of time when you're far enough from the daily grind to see it clearly. Here's a simple sequence of pen and paper exercises to turn idle time into real direction.

1. Write your career chapters

Split your post-school working life into three or four chapters. Not job titles — the feeling of each era.

"Figuring it out." "Proving myself." "Coasting." "Stepping up."

Don't overthink the titles; your gut usually knows before your brain does. Once they're down, look for the pattern. Chapters aren't random — they tell you what conditions make you thrive and what conditions make you stall.

2. Say your three words

Ask yourself, right now, not aspirationally: what three words describe how you feel about your career today?

No phrases. No justifying. Just three honest words — "stuck, curious, tired" is a more useful answer than "grateful and excited for new challenges."

Then, for each word, write one sentence: why this word, and where it shows up in your work. Say it out loud to someone if you can — hearing your own words back is often where the real insight lands.

Finish with one sentence: "To shift how I feel about my career, I need more ___ and less ___." That single line is often the most honest strategy document you'll write all year.

3. Map your four zones

Where you are now needs somewhere to go. Sketch four zones:

• Growth — what's stretching you, what edge feels alive

• Sustain — what stabilises and nourishes you: routines, people, environment

• Disrupt — what you're no longer willing to tolerate

• Legacy — what you want to build toward or leave behind

This isn't a to-do list. It's a compass for the decisions you'll face in September.

4. Step into your possible selves

Draw three circles on paper — three different future versions of your working life. They can be bold reinventions or natural extensions of where you are now.

If you can, do this one on your feet: literally step into each circle and sit with it for a minute. Ask yourself — how do I feel here? What strengths am I using? How does this fit the rest of my life, not just my job? Which circle, if you're honest, lit something up?

5. Plant your seed futures

Finish with six to ten "seeds" — one-sentence, present-tense statements describing a future as if it's already true.

"I am someone who protects Friday afternoons for thinking." "My life includes work that I'd describe to a stranger with pride."

Present tense matters. It tricks the brain into treating the future as a direction rather than a wish.

None of this requires a workshop or a facilitator — just the space that summer gives you. The point isn't to solve your career in an afternoon. It's to walk back into work with a clearer read on where you've been, where you stand, and which direction is worth walking in.