Concepts, Theories and Future Directions in Career and Life Design

Career and Life Design is a new paradigm that helps individuals prepare for and adapt to the increasingly chaotic, uncertain, and temporary nature of employment using methods, competencies and mindsets from Career Planning, Vocational Counselling, Design Thinking, Entrepreneurship and Positive Psychology. This paper identifies these foundational theories and concepts to identify gaps and future directions in the research and application of Career and Life Design. Increased integration of the tools and methods from these different foundational fields will create a more holistic approach to Life Design which includes building and measuring an individual’s internal resources because they are ultimately more important for long-term happiness and well-being than traditional career goals. Future research will measure how different tools, methods and pedagogical techniques impact participants’ well-being and happiness as well as internal resources such as authentic self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism, hope, internal locus of control (ILC), perceived behavioural control, resiliency, curiosity, growth mindset, self-leadership, character strengths, human, social and financial capital.