A career isn’t just a job, it’s a journey. One that is filled with possibilities. Like any journey, it has distinct stages, each with its own challenges, opportunities, and lessons.
The career path diagram above highlights the six stages of a person’s work life — from those first steps of exploration to the fulfillment of retirement. Let’s walk through each stage and what it means for your professional (and personal) growth.
Stage 1: Exploration
This is where it all begins. Exploration is about training, education, and self-discovery. It’s the season of asking big questions:
- What am I curious about?
- What skills do I need to build?
- Where do my interests align with opportunities?
Exploration isn’t just for the young, throughout your career, you may circle back to this stage whenever you pivot into something new. Portfolio careers are much more common and the likelihood that you will zig and then zag throughout your career is high.
Stage 2: Establishment
You’ve earned the degree or certification and landed that first real job. It feels exciting and daunting. Establishment is all about gaining experience, celebrating early successes, and learning workplace norms.
This stage can feel like drinking from a firehose. But it’s also where confidence begins to grow as you start proving yourself and finding your place.
A few tips in this phase:
- Give yourself grace as you soak up knowledge.
- Remind yourself that you are learning.
- Find leaders you admire and ask for mentoring. You’ll be surprised how many leaders are willing to give new employees their time.
- Be curious and ask lots of questions.
Stage 3: Advancement
The climb begins. Advancement focuses on promotions, leadership, professional development, and balance.
It’s the stage where you stretch into bigger roles, test your ability to lead others, and begin to ask deeper questions about career trajectory and personal fulfillment. It’s also where burnout can creep in making balance and clarity more important than ever.
A few tips here:
- Get clear on your values as now is the time to consider trade-offs.
- Are you willing to work long hours?
- Be a road warrior away from home?
- Sacrifice personal time for a company mission, wealth or a title?
- Establish healthy routines that address fitness, nutrition, sleep, and personal relationships.
- Now is the time to explore management (leadership can be individual too):
- Do you enjoy leading, coaching and developing other people and all the other requirements of management?
- Do you prefer to be a star contributor free from the administrative work tied to management?
Stage 4: Maintenance
After the hustle of advancement, maintenance is about mentoring, coaching, and developing successors.
You’ve established yourself in your career and now the focus shifts to contribution. This stage is less about climbing and more about steady growth, sharing wisdom, and leaving a legacy within your field or organization.
A few considerations to contemplate here:
- Where are you drawn to share your wisdom?
- Do you give back to your community?
- Do you take on a board seat and advise other organizations?
- Do you take on mentees within your organization or outside?
- Legacy is about creating a vision for yourself about how you contributed to society.
- When you look back on your career, what do you want others to remember about you?
- When you think about your personal life, what are the stories you want your friends and family to remember?
Stage 5: Transition
Every career eventually reaches a turning point. Transition is about transferring knowledge, financial planning, and determining the future.
For some, this stage brings excitement and a chance to reinvent what work looks like. For others, it can be challenging when you’ve built your identity around roles, titles, and work accomplishments. Still others have the choices taken out of their hands due to job loss, illness or some other setback. Mindfulness and clarity can help you navigate these big life questions with confidence.
Transitions can be difficult, some avoid it altogether:
- Seek advice on your retirement goals.
- Get your will, trust, and financial plan in order while you are still able to let your loved ones know how you want to live out your days.
- Do you want to continue to contribute in some capacity either through part-time or consulting work?
- Imagine your future self without the ties to a 9-5 job.
- Do you have a dream to create or build something completely wild?
- What would that look like and what can you do to lay the foundation for that now?
Stage 6: Retirement
Retirement isn’t the end of the journey, it’s a transition and beginning of a new one. Here, you have the freedom to pursue personal interests, volunteering, mentoring, hobbies, and travel.
It’s a stage rich with possibility, where work shifts from obligation to choice. Many discover a renewed sense of purpose by giving back or diving into passions set aside earlier in life.
Map out a strategy for intentional living:
- Monitor your financial wellness and sustainability of your lifestyle.
- Maintain a purpose and identity by finding new ways to contribute through volunteering, mentorship, or pursuing passions.
- Continue healthy and mentally stimulating activities to keep your mind and body sharp. Invest in yourself.
- Create a rich and fulfilling set of connections through friends, family and community.
Why This Roadmap Matters
Understanding these six stages can help you:
- Anticipate the challenges and opportunities ahead.
- Navigate transitions with clarity, excitement and possibility instead of fear.
- Align your work with your values at every stage.
- Recognize that growth isn’t stopping as you navigate each phase, it simply changes shape.
No matter where you are on the path, the key is to stay intentional, mindful, and open to the lessons each stage offers.
📌 At Awakening Performance, we help leaders and professionals build the clarity, resilience, and presence to thrive at every stage of their career.
