The next career move is rarely a leap. It's a small, deliberate, time-boxed action that points toward a direction you can name in one sentence. Five questions produce the move. The order matters more than the questions.
1. What energises me?
Two weeks of the energy ledger. The work in your current life that gives you energy is signal about your strengths in working clothes. The Hands chapter is built for this. Skip the question and the rest of the decision is guesswork.
2. What depletes me?
The other half of the same exercise — but worth a separate question because the depleting work shows you what to remove, which is often easier to act on than what to add. People who run only the energising column miss the leverage in the depleting one.
3. What would I do on a bad week anyway?
Strip the work of its trappings — the corner office, the title, the salary, the recognition. On a bad Wednesday with nobody watching, which kind of work would you still want to do? That answer is the direction. The Compass worksheet writes it into one sentence you can defend.
4. What asset transfers?
The Anchor worksheet forces a written inventory of what crosses the boundary: skills, reputation, network, financial runway, family support. Most career changers underestimate their transferable assets by half. Seeing the list in writing changes which moves look reachable.
5. What is the smallest move that points toward the answer?
Not the biggest move. The smallest. A conversation with three people doing the work. A weekend project. A piece of writing. A class. The Doorway chapter is about the threshold — and the threshold is crossed by small steps, not single leaps. People who run the four worksheets typically have a clear small first move by the end of the weekend.
What to do next
The five questions, in order, take about a weekend with the right worksheets. The result is one concrete action you can take this month — not a year-long plan, not a fantasy. That action is the next career move.
The full method — and the four printable worksheets that walk you through it — is laid out in Berufung. The reading takes a weekend; the work itself takes most readers two to four weeks. If you'd rather sample the voice first, the free introduction is the opening chapter in full.