Make Your Career Count: How a Self-Audit Can Guide You Toward Purpose and Impact

If you’re job hunting or re-evaluating your next professional move, there’s something you should know: you will spend roughly 80,000 hours of your life working. That’s more time than you’ll likely spend with family or friends, and far more than on any single hobby or pastime.

Given this incredible investment of time, your career should be more than just a paycheck. It should align with your skills, your values, and your goals — and ideally, offer the chance to make a positive difference in the world. That’s where a self-audit comes in.

What Is a Self-Audit — and Why Should You Do One?

A self-audit is a structured reflection on your professional identity — a personal inventory of your:

• Skills (what you’re good at)

• Values (what matters to you)

• Career Goals (where you want to go)

This exercise gives you the clarity to:

• Identify jobs that truly fit

• Avoid roles that clash with your core values

• Take ownership of your professional journey

It’s more than a job-search tactic. Done well, a self-audit is a compass that helps you make career decisions with purpose and impact in mind.

Step 1: Assess Your Skills and Build Career Capital

Start by taking stock of both your hard and soft skills.

• Hard skills: Technical abilities like data analysis, accounting, engineering, and design.

• Soft skills: Communication, leadership, adaptability, problem-solving.

Tips for skill assessment:

• Review past roles and accomplishments. What came naturally? What did others praise you for?

• Ask colleagues or mentors for feedback.

• Identify your growth areas — what skills do you need for the next stage?

When you know your strengths and areas for growth, you can better target roles that set you up for success and expand your capacity for impact.

Step 2: Clarify Your Values — Your North Star

Your values shape how fulfilled and motivated you’ll feel in a role.

Reflection prompts:

• What makes work meaningful for you — autonomy, learning, purpose, recognition, balance?

• What conditions support your best work — collaboration, innovation, structure, flexibility?

• When were you happiest (or most drained) at work? Why?

Narrow your list down to your top 3-5 values. These will serve as a filter for evaluating job postings, company cultures, and career opportunities. When your work aligns with your values, you’re more likely to stay engaged and contribute meaningfully.

Step 3: Define Your Career Goals with Intention

Goals give your career direction and focus.

Break them into:

• Short-term goals: e.g., gain experience in a new sector, develop leadership skills, relocate.

• Long-term goals: e.g., lead a team, transition into public policy, contribute to a global issue.

Make them SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.
Remember — your goals don’t have to be fixed. Think of them as guideposts, not endpoints. The key is to keep moving intentionally toward the kind of work that excites you and matters to you.

Step 4: Create Your Self-Audit Worksheet

Once you’ve clarified your skills, values, and goals, bring them together into a practical plan.

Use your self-audit to:

• Target roles that reflect your strengths and values

• Tailor your résumé to highlight relevant experiences

• Prepare for interviews with clear, authentic answers about what you’re seeking

• Evaluate employers not just for salary, but for alignment with what matters to you

This action plan helps you filter opportunities and pursue work that counts — for you, and for the difference you want to make.

Final Thoughts: Make Your Time Matter

A self-audit is more than an exercise in career planning; it’s a powerful act of self-clarity. It helps you step back from the noise of job boards and recruitment ads to ask the questions that really matter:

• What am I good at?

• What do I care deeply about?

• What kind of problems do I want to help solve?

You don’t have to have all the answers today. But by reflecting on these questions and building a plan around them, you’ll move closer to a career that gives you purpose, creates impact, and makes your time truly count.

Start Your Self-Audit Today

If this blog sparked some reflection, I’d love to share my Self-Audit Action Plan,  a simple, practical worksheet to help you clarify your skills, values, and career goals.

It’s a great way to start a conversation about your next steps, and I’m happy to connect or make introductions through my network if it’s helpful. You can request the worksheet directly through my website, and I’ll send it to you personally.