The Career Architect

Creating purpose blueprints for a work life you actually want to inhabit

🌸 ikigai 生き甲斐 is a reason for being, your purpose in life - from the Japanese iki 生き meaning life and gai 甲斐 meaning worth 🌸

Imagine if we approached our careers with the same intentionality as architects designing our dream home.

Would you willingly live in a house with rooms that make you miserable? With corridors that lead nowhere? With spaces that drain rather than energise you? With a lodger that makes you cry? Of course not. Yet somehow many of us accept jobs that do exactly that to our souls and spirits, day after day.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately especially after stumbling upon something James Clear wrote in his newsletter:

"The 4 qualities of a great career:

1. I enjoy it

2. I'm good at it

3. I make good money

4. I'm around fascinating people

Answer in reverse order:

1. Where are fascinating people?

2. In what ways can I make money with them?

3. Which ones am I good at?

4. Which ones do I enjoy?"

This resonates deeply with the hatarakigai (work worth doing) framework I've been developing and the Work Worth Doing Venn Diagram, but with an important twist.

Clear's approach suggests we start with the PEOPLE, not the passion or skill. It recognises that careers don't exist in a vacuum but within social ecosystems that shape everything else. I couldn’t love this thinking more.

I’d actually forgotten I’d written about the power of the people around you from a 1000 True Fans + Ikigai perspective, people and our relationships with them really are *all* that matters (apart from neurospicy days where you just want to live in the middle of nowhere with a LOT of dogs and cats, ahem).

I also love to see the agency in his approach, not waiting for the perfect job listing to appear but intentionally designing your work life from the foundation up.

You are the architect of your career. The question is how thoughtful are your blueprints?

Blueprint vs reality, why many career plans fail

A lot of career advice feels a bit like trying to build a house by starting with the weather vane on top. We're told to "follow our passion" (the decorative elements) before we've established the foundation or structural walls.

Traditional career planning typically fails for three reasons;

1. Too much emphasis on roles, not enough on environments. Job titles are like room labels, they tell you very little about what it's actually like to live there.

2. False linearity. Career ladders imply a straight path up, but meaningful careers are more like well-designed homes with interconnected spaces serving different purposes.

3. Disconnect from who we actually are. Just as a house should reflect its inhabitants' needs, a career should accommodate your full humanity, not just your professional skills.

The career architect mindset flips all three of these problems on their head. It prioritises building a suitable foundation first (the environment and people), establishing structural integrity (financial sustainability), designing functional spaces (making use of your skills), and finally adding the elements that bring joy and personality.

Rather than simply reacting to whatever job postings appear, this approach puts you in the draughting chair with pencil in hand.

Working backwards, the reverse blueprint approach

There's something brilliantly pragmatic about Clear's reverse-order approach. It acknowledges that we don't design careers in a vacuum, we build them within existing structures, materials, and landscapes.

Let's explore each step of the blueprint process:

Foundation: Where are fascinating people?

Just as an architect must first understand the land they're building on, your career foundation starts with the social landscape. The people around you will determine what opportunities you see, what skills you develop, and ultimately, how meaningful your work feels.

Questions to consider in your journal:

• Who are the people doing work that genuinely intrigues me?

• Which communities or industries seem to attract the kinds of minds I enjoy?

• Where do I leave conversations feeling energised rather than drained?

The goal isn't to find the most influential people but to identify environments where you can thrive through meaningful connection.

Structural Walls: How can I make money with them?

Once you've identified promising social ecosystems, the next step is figuring out how to make a sustainable living there. This is about finding the intersection between what these communities value and what you might offer.

Journal explorations:

• What problems do these fascinating people and organisations currently face?

• What skills and services are valued in these environments?

• What existing roles might allow me to contribute meaningfully?

This step is about practicality, not compromise. The strongest careers, like the sturdiest houses, have solid structural elements that provide security and stability.

Interior Design: Which options am I good at?

With foundation and structure in place, now you can focus on how your specific skills and strengths might fit into this framework. This is where personal competence meets opportunity.

For your bullet journal:

• Which of my existing skills would be valuable in these environments?

• What capabilities could I develop that would be both personally satisfying and professionally valuable?

• Where might my unique strengths meet their specific needs?

A beautifully designed career, like a well-designed home, plays to the strengths of the space while accommodating the needs of its occupants. (Aside; for those in the UK, Interior Design Masters has just started up again, LOVE!)

Decorative Elements: Which options do I enjoy?

Finally, with the fundamental elements in place, you can focus on the aspects that bring genuine pleasure and satisfaction. These are the decorative touches that make a house truly feel like home.

Journal prompts:

• Which parts of potential roles energise rather than drain me?

• What tasks put me in a state of flow?

• How might I shape roles to maximise these elements?

The beauty of this approach is that enjoyment becomes sustainable because it's built upon a solid foundation, rather than trying to support an entire career on the fragile pillar of passion alone.

The craftsman approach, remodelling vs new build

Sometimes a meaningful career doesn't require draughting entirely new blueprints, it might just need thoughtful renovation of your existing space.

This is where job crafting comes in, the art of reshaping your current role to better align with your ikigai. It's the career equivalent of remodelling rather than building from scratch.

Research by Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton shows that we can craft our jobs along three dimensions:

1. Task crafting: Changing what activities make up your workday

2. Relational crafting: Transforming who you interact with and how

3. Cognitive crafting: Shifting how you think about your role's purpose

Even in seemingly rigid workplaces, there's usually more flexibility than we initially perceive. The craftsman mindset involves looking for hidden opportunities to reshape your role;

• Which tasks could you take on that align better with your strengths?

• Which relationships could you develop that would bring more meaning?

• How might you reframe your understanding of your work's impact?

Career transformation is possible by thoughtfully reshaping your role within your current environment.

AI as your design assistant

Just as modern architects use sophisticated software to model and visualise their designs, we can use AI tools to explore career possibilities more effectively.

Here are some ideas for how you might use Claude or other AI assistants to support your career design process;

• Foundation mapping - "Based on my interests in [topics], what communities or professional environments might contain fascinating people I'd enjoy working with? Please suggest both obvious and less conventional options."

• Opportunity identification - "Given my background in [field] and my interest in [topics], what specific problems might I be well-positioned to solve for organisations in [target industry and/or place]?"

• Skill gap analysis - "To transition into [target role] in [target industry], what skills would I need to develop beyond my current capabilities in [current skills]?"

These tools won't design your career for you, but they can help you see possibilities you might otherwise miss, just as design software helps architects visualise options before committing to final plans.

Bullet journal as design studio

While AI can help with ideation, your bullet journal becomes the design studio where you refine your career blueprints through ongoing reflection and iteration.

Here's a simple spread you might create to explore your career architecture;

The Career Blueprint Spread

Page 1: Foundation

• List fascinating people/communities

• Note what draws you to them

• Map connections between different groups

Page 2: Structure

• For each foundation element, list potential income streams

• Rate each for viability (1-5)

• Note which most interest you

Page 3: Skills & Strengths

• Map your existing skills relevant to opportunities

• Identify skill gaps worth developing

• Connect skills to specific opportunities

Page 4: Enjoyment & Purpose

• Track activities that create flow states

• Note which work elements energise vs drain

• Identify potential purpose alignments

Revisit this spread often (perhaps quarterly), noting how your actual work compares to your blueprint and identifying adjustments needed to bring them into closer alignment.

From blueprint to reality - taking the first steps

Designing a beautiful career blueprint is meaningless if you never break ground on the actual construction. Once you've developed your career design, the next step is creating an implementation plan.

You can start with small experiments rather than dramatic leaps. Just as an architect might build a model before constructing a full building, you can test elements of your career design through;

1. Side projects that let you explore new skills and connections

2. Informational interviews with people in your target environments

3. Volunteer opportunities that provide experience in new contexts

4. Micro-pivots within your current role and/or organisation that shift toward your blueprint

Remember that career architecture is an iterative process. Your first design will evolve as you learn more about the landscape, materials, and your own changing needs and wants.

The most beautiful careers, like the most stunning buildings, emerge through a dance between vision and adaptation.

Building your life's work

The ultimate goal isn't just a satisfying job and all that entails for your wellbeing, but a meaningful life's work – the career equivalent of a home that perfectly suits its inhabitants, stands the test of time, and perhaps even leaves a lasting legacy.

When we approach our careers as architects rather than passive occupants, we reclaim agency over one of the most significant aspects of our lives. We move from asking "what jobs are available?" to declaring "this is the work I am destined to do".

In this architectural approach to career design, hatarakigai is something you thoughtfully, intentionally build, one carefully considered element at a time.

So grab your draughting pencil (or bullet journal pen), clear some space at your design table, and start sketching the blueprints for work worth doing. Your life's most important construction project is waiting.

Sarah, seeking ikigai xxx

PS - Some additional journal prompts to explore your own career architecture:

1. "What would my ideal workday look like hour by hour?"

2. "Who are three people whose careers fascinate me, and what elements might I incorporate into my own design?"

3. "If my career were a physical space, what would it look like, feel like, and sound like?"

4. "What career 'rooms' am I missing that would make my work life more complete?"

PPS - I'd love to hear about your own career architecture in the comments. What foundations are you building on? Which structural elements are working well? What renovations might you be considering?

PPPS - There's a song that's been a companion through so many career crossroads and moments of self-doubt - Tracy Chapman's "Change." Every time I listen to it, I feel this mix of vulnerability and determination washing over me. There's something about her voice that just cuts straight to my soul, especially when she asks "If not for the good, why risk falling?"

I'm not gonna lie, redesigning your career path is bloody terrifying sometimes. Realising time is ticking by, wondering if you're brave enough to make a change and it can freeze you up if you let it. But then I put this song on and something shifts inside me. It's like borrowing a bit of quiet courage, just enough to remind me to take one more small step forward, sometimes sideways but never backwards. Something about it connects me to that magical feeling that yes, we actually CAN create change, even when the world feels HUGE and we feel tiny. Give it a listen while you're mapping out your own blueprints, it might just give you that gentle push you need too.