In my application essay for my Masters in Finance programme, I wrote that a major reason for applying was to explore the questions of “what to do next” and “where to do it.” In my mind, there were two options:

• continue doing what I do at the moment, but change where I do it; or
• change what I am doing now and remain open to doing it wherever I find the opportunity to do the new thing.

After speaking to many people on campus and drawing from my own experience, I realised these two broad considerations weren’t exclusive to me. In fact, they are probably a fair representation of what most people in business school are thinking about.

This article is my attempt to explain how I think about the topic, especially the “what,” which I believe is the most difficult to answer.

What to do

What to do is hard at any career level, but even more so for mid-level professionals, the typical business-school cohort.

You have the option to continue doing what you have done so far, to change to something tangential, or to move into something completely unrelated. Between these options, you must strike a balance among your income level, fixed cost of living, opportunities for growth, and the economic reality of the day, among other factors.

I don’t have a definitive answer or a formulaic approach to nail it. What I do offer are three frameworks to think about it.

1. Following your passion vs treating your career as a business venture

This framework asks you to imagine your career as a business venture. One that, like any other business, seeks to go where opportunity and profit lie. If you thought about your career this way, what would you do?

Would you do something similar to what you are doing right now, something completely different, or maybe the same thing?

Like any business venture, this framing also forces you to think about the assets required to operate successfully. Do you already have the assets (skills, network, experience) to thrive in this career, or do you need to build them from the ground up? Could you acquire them?

If you thought about your career as a business venture, what choices would you be making? That is the point of this framework.

The flip side is to think about your career as a passion project. Instead of starting with opportunities in the marketplace for which you already have (or could acquire) the necessary assets, you begin by asking what you would genuinely like to do and work your way backwards from there.

2. Are you excited about the top of the path and willing to do the work to get there?

This framework focuses on potential outcomes. It puts the end in front of you and encourages you to walk backwards.

What does the top of a given path look like, including the one you are currently on or considering? Does imagining yourself at that point excite you? Does it make you want to get out of bed early in the morning and go to bed late at night?

Is there even a clear “top” to aspire to, or are there structural constraints on progression in this path? Don’t get me wrong: you can’t know the future with certainty. You don’t even know what a year from now will look like. But this framework helps you step back and seriously consider the implications of committing to a particular path.

Here’s an example where this framework helped. When we (my wife and I) moved to the UK, my wife, a pharmacist trained in Nigeria, had to consider her career options. Becoming a licensed pharmacist in the UK takes a minimum of three years: roughly a year of applications, a year of schooling, and a year of internship, with no guarantee of success.

An alternative was to switch into Public Health, which she could complete in about 12 months. But we sat down and asked what that really meant. The work didn’t excite her; it felt more like a compromise. It was also difficult to see what the “top” looked like.

Eventually, the decision became clear: the longer route was, ironically, the shortest route. This example isn’t to say Public Health isn’t a great career, just as choosing between Consulting and Investment Banking doesn’t imply either is a bad path. It was simply a matter of fit.

As Stephen Covey puts it in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “begin with the end in mind.” That is the key point of this framework. So if you thought about the end of the path you are considering, does it look like the end you’d like?

A caveat needed here is also to say we often don’t end up doing one thing all of our career, and neglecting a path today because the top of it doesn’t excite you may not be the strategic thing to do. And this point leads me to the next framework.

3. Deliberate vs emergent strategies

I learnt about this framework from Professor Clayton Christensen in How Will You Measure Your Life. The idea is that every career has a strategy. It can start as deliberate, “I want to work in investment management,” or emergent, “I am open to any opportunity that comes my way.” What matters is being aware of which strategy you are pursuing.

At any point, there should also be something deliberate about your approach. You may start by saying you are open to any opportunity, but once you take one, you should recognise that, for the duration of that role, it has become your deliberate strategy. After all, strategy isn’t what you intend to do; it’s what you are actually doing.

There is, however, a meaningful difference between letting a deliberate strategy guide your career arc and allowing an emergent strategy to shape it.

With a deliberate strategy, you have an end goal in mind, and each decision moves you closer to that goal. This might mean leaving a job to attend business school or choosing a lower-paying role because it aligns better with your long-term objectives.

With an emergent strategy, you continually weigh options as they arise. There is no grand plan; you simply make the most of the opportunities in front of you. You might be in London today and Spain tomorrow, in product management today and HR transformation tomorrow. As long as the next opportunity feels worthwhile, you take it.

I hope these three frameworks help you think more clearly about what to do and make your decision easier, or at least more grounded and trustworthy. They aren’t mutually exclusive, and you may already have noticed overlaps. Feel free to combine them in whatever way works best for you.