You might think I'm an idiot for saying so but idiography is actually the study of individual cases or events to find a pattern of success. And that's what I do to help individuals who have taken a career assessment with results that left them feeling more lost and confused than they felt before taking the test.

Have you ever taken an assessment through school or work? Some of these tools are self-assessment, and others need to be administered by a professional. But they all use a nomothetic approach, which is a technical term for a prescribed set of characteristics, such as skills, values, aptitudes, interests, or personality traits. The idea is that a lot of people in society share these general traits and if you are one of them, then you can probably do the same kind of work as other people with similar traits.

However, this approach does not distinguish between what you can do and what you want to do. Being competent at something is not the same thing as being motivated to do something. That is why most people never act on the suggested job titles - they don't feel a connection.

That is also why work is often organized around the carrot-and-stick approach to management. Think of a donkey. Getting it to move forward with a load on its back is not easy. You entice it to move forward by dangling a carrot in front of its nose because donkeys love carrots. If that doesn't get them going, you whack them with a stick. Rewards and punishment is the only way to get people to do anything (they don't really want to do)... at least that's the reasoning behind it.

This approach is the result of left-brain, cause-and-effect, linear, engineering-driven or mechanical thinking that tends to emphasize component parts, as opposed to an approach based on a systemic kind of thinking, one that looks for the relationships between parts.

For example, your personal story has many elements that influence your behavior, including your family of origin, a sense of where you grew up or where you live now, the culture and politics that shaped you, key relationships, major illnesses, or attitude to authority. Many factors can influence choices and outcomes. In my approach to job change, I focus on certain key success factors related to your talents, the way you relate to others, situations that motivate you and more. Sure, the component parts are important but they are only important in how they interact when you are in action doing what you enjoy most. What really matters in determining your right job is the pattern!

That's why I'm an idiographer. It is a proven, scientifically valid method for career assessment. I prefer to identify and define what motivates your best work, not because of external factors, like carrots and sticks, but because of internal ones, like the deep sense of satisfaction you'll get when your core job duties harmonize with your natural talents and motivations.

Individuals come to me because they want to make a significant job change. In order to help them make one, I ask them to write stories about times in their life when they are doing what they enjoy most and doing it well. I then analyze those stories for their key success factors in order to construct an accurate and reliable picture of their right work. I match this picture to specific jobs in work settings that will recognize, reward and motivate them for what they do naturally and effortlessly. We then work together on the practical and realistic stuff to move them for where they are now into a better jobfit, one that harmonizes with their motivational pattern.

At the risk of stating the obvious--like any meaningful story, our personal stories are greater than the sum of its parts. I explain this process in my free webinar 'Job Change Done Naturally & Effortlessly'. The idiographic approach is not about particular strengths or traits. It's about the pattern!

So -- put an end to the confusion and start enjoying a career that's right for you!