Understand yourself: Career goals and motivation

Example hero paragraph text.

Learn how to assess what is most important to you as you think about and plan your future.

Learn how your beliefs and goals are related to how you act and what you achieve.

“I have found it so important to remember why I came here to study in the first place. If I remember my love for the material and the freedom I will have one day to pursue my real interests, the daily hassles seem worthwhile.”

“You have to enjoy [your degree program] if you want to do it; that old adage: ‘Show me a person who loves what they do, and I will show you a person who has never worked a day in their life.’”

“I have noticed a disconnect between my departments’ goals and the reasons many of the students have come here to study. Programs at large institutions seem to lose sight of their training obligations while becoming overly focused on output.”

You entered graduate school with your sights set on a career in STEM. You worked hard to get to the doctoral program, and your first objective is to finish your PhD. Now, it’s important to keep up your motivation, despite the challenges, and reach the goals you have set.

One way to think about a career is as a purposeful pattern of work over time. You can be a scientist or engineer in many different ways and places. 

The notion of the “boundaryless” career (Guan, Arthur, Khapova, Hall, & Lord, 2019; Sullivan & Arthur, 2006) emphasizes nonlinear career paths rather than jobs. It acknowledges changing employment patterns that value flexibility, mobility, and self-directedness.

You may be one of the many students (in fact, the majority) who start with a specific career goal and end up with another by the time you are done with your program. If you started out intending to become a professor, for example, and you are now thinking about industry, you are not alone. 

Graduate students report that one of the frustrations of graduate school is not learning enough early on about what the possibilities are. Moreover, a good amount of career setting is influenced by serendipity!

PhD-level scientists and engineers assume research, teaching, technical, managerial, and other roles and engage their careers in many different work settings:

  • Faculty research
  • Faculty teaching
  • Industry
  • National labs
  • Government
  • Legal/regulatory
  • High school/community college teaching
  • Policy
  • Consulting
  • Lab management
  • Start-up companies
  • Nonprofit organizations
  • Museums
  • Media

The patterns for career goals and career settings can vary by gender. In some cases, women in STEM have sought roles and positions in which they expect greater collegiality, more social impact, and flexibility for integrating work and family life. You can find more on this in Balance.

Look ahead to where you are going to be—an inventor, start-up founder, faculty member or another role—and then start acting that way. As a child, did you often imagine your adult life? 

  • Do you think often about the impact your decisions will have on the life you lead years from now?
  • Do you prefer to live in the moment, taking on challenges and opportunities as they arise?

Career-motivation theory suggests you are motivated by your different “possible selves.” One is the person you want to become and another is the person you fear you could become (Markus & Nurius, 1986). 

Let’s take an example…

Ashley and Mona are both 2nd year students in chemical engineering. They work in the same lab and share the same advisor. Ashley and Mona also have the same dream (“future possible self”) of acquiring a tenure-track faculty position on the West Coast. The pair work around the clock, but still face the stereotype that, as women, they are not as committed to a career in science.

Ashley

Feared possible self – Ashley does not want to be like her mom, a successful career woman who did not have much time for the family. Ashley blames her mother for her parents’ divorce.

Outcome – Ashley decides to leave school with a master’s degree and take a laboratory position at a private company promising high flexibility in preparation for her future life as a mother. Although this was not her original career plan, she is happy to pursue chemical engineering while leaving open the possibility for the type of family life that she desires.

Mona

Feared possible self – Mona had many experiences with racism growing up, including people assuming she was not smart or able based on her cultural background and where she grew up. She is worried these types of stereotypes will continue in graduate school.

Outcome – The stereotypes Mona faces while in graduate school only increase her motivation. She eventually lands a faculty position at UC Santa Cruz

When vivid and clear, our possible selves point to meaningful goals and motivate us to work toward them (Strauss, Griffin, & Parker, 2012). Your future work self is most relevant to your career in that it represents the self in relation to your aspirations and dreams for work. 

At this time, your future work self may be elaborate and complex, meaning you know exactly what you want to be doing in the future and what it will be like.  

If you are unsure about your future work self, now is a good time to embellish your knowledge and experience with different alternatives that might suit you. For example, seek out mentors in your discipline who have different types of positions, shadow a scientist or engineer, or find internships to try out different roles. 

Having a salient idea and vision of your career goals will provide motivational power that will sustain you through and beyond your doctoral program. 

Exercise:

        Take a few moments to think about your dreams for a career in STEM and what you hope to become in your future occupation. List the careers and roles you think you may enjoy. 

        Then rank your top hoped-for careers, as these are most salient to you. This simple exercise will help provide additional context for your future work self. 

Self-test

Which of the following can help motivate you to achieve your “future work self”?

  • A. I can easily imagine my future work self being a chemistry professor.
  • B. The mental picture of my future as a chemical engineer is very clear.
  • C. I strongly identify with the career I have chosen.
  • D. All of the above

D is the correct answer,

All three contribute to sustaining your motivation to complete your degree.

Whether or not you are future-oriented, developing a vivid dream for your life after graduation will increase your short-term motivation in graduate school.

Do you remember how excited you were to start your doctoral program? You were proud of yourself. You could not wait to share the good news with your family and friends. 

You may or may not not have known exactly where it would take you, but you knew getting your degree would open up a world of career possibilities. Remembering and maintaining that excitement is what can keep you motivated now. 

It is not uncommon for graduate students to tire themselves out, get discouraged,  consider switching to another path or discontinuing their program. But reminding yourself why you selected this program and this career path can help you stay on course. 

Think about when you entered the program:

  • What were your career goals?
  • Why did you decide to enter this program?
  • How did you think the program would help you advance toward your goals?

According to expectancy-value models (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002), being and remaining motivated depend on strongly valuing the process and goals of your work and expecting that you will be successful and your work will pay off.  

The confidence you have in your ability to perform the necessary work (self-efficacy) and your expectations as to whether your efforts will pay off (outcome expectancies) are especially important in maintaining your interests, persisting, and reaching your career goals (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994).

See the Coping and Self-Efficacy module for more on these topics.

Consider how much you value each of these motivations for earning your PhD:

To achieve financial success in my career

To learn and grow over the course of my career

To have interesting work

To have a career that is intellectually challenging

To discover or build something that will help others

To have a positive impact on other people or social problems through my work. 

To do work that is meaningful and purposeful

To prove to myself that I can do it even if it’s difficult

To be a role model for others

To meet my family’s expectations

To have my family be proud of me

To be seen by others as successful

To have a prestigious career

As you might have noticed in the activity above, there are two kinds of values you place on finishing your degree program. Extrinsic motivation is the desire to achieve something for external rewards, such as money, prestige, or to please someone else. 

Intrinsic motivation is the desire to pursue an activity for the act itself and its meaningfulness (Deci & Ryan, 1985). When compared to extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation is generally associated with better performance and more persistence. 

Pursuing a STEM career because you enjoy the activities or believe you are making a worthwhile contribution are examples of intrinsic motivation. If you want to become a professor, you probably place a higher value on discovery and education and less on maximizing your lifetime income.

Women are more likely to cite altruistic, as opposed to monetary, motivators as underlying their career choices. This may help explain why disproportionately more women than men are drawn to careers and roles with higher interpersonal and societal impact.

Another way to think about your career goals is what vocational psychologists refer to as “calling.” Do you find fulfillment and passion in your engineering or physics research? Do you feel “called” to do this work? 

“Calling” refers to a belief that one’s career is a central part of a broader sense of purpose and meaning in life and serves to help others or advance the greater good in some fashion (Duffy & Dik, 2013; p. 429). Calling often arises from internal (i.e., self) or external factors (i.e., family legacy, power, and/or need in society).

Motivation is often shaped by both environmental (e.g., stereotypes) and individual factors (e.g., identity). What and who motivates you on your career journey? 

According to Albert Bandura, four types of sources shape your self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997): 

  • your personal experiences (such as past grades);
  • vicarious experiences (such as observing role models);
  • verbal persuasion (e.g., confidence in you and encouragement from others);
  • your affective states when you engage (e.g., anxiety or pleasure).    

Verbal persuasion involves the influence others have on what you pursue and how much confidence you have in your ability to be successful. Take a minute to think of your extended networks who have influenced you. 

Do you have:

  • Close colleagues?
  • A mentor?
  • A spiritual  advisor?
  • A good friend?
  • People you do leisure activities with, like running or playing music?
  • A spouse or significant other?
  • Children?
  • Extended family?
  • Casual acquaintances?
  • People you look up to, even if you don’t know them well or at all?

The people in your life can be important external motivators, reminders, and sounding boards. Once you share your goals with others, they can keep you accountable.  

You may ask yourself, why did I transfer to this school? Your sister may remember that decision very clearly: So you could be closer to her. This is a good example of how easy it is to forget the support systems you have in place and underutilize them in times of need.

Alternatively, others can discourage you, depending on how you interpret situations. How you explain and to what you attribute interpersonal interactions and past successes and failures will influence your motivation level and your actions [For more, see How You Think].

Here is an example:

Past Event

Your advisor asks a different advisee to collaborate with him on a research project.

Your Interpretation

You take this to mean that your research skills are not up to par.

Outcome

Your motivation to do research declines, and you instead focus on developing your teaching skills.

How can you motivate yourself? Tips for self-motivating: 

  • Reconnect to intrinsic motivation. Recall what motivates you internally and set reasonable goals that help you reach your own end goals (not someone else’s). 
  • If desired, engage in communal opportunities within computing and engineering. You don’t have to do this alone (Boucher et al., 2017).
  • Find counterspaces and support outside your department. 
  • Connect to your WHY.
  • Set a handful of goals in three categories: 1) advancing your research; 2) attending to your mental, physical and spiritual health; 3) serving your loved ones and community.
  • My 5-year-plan worksheet. Write down a big goal for each year and then the activities (research, pubs, grants, training) that will help you meet that goal

Self-test

Which of the following can serve as a motivator?

  • A. Imagining where you want to work after you graduate.
  • B. Telling your family about your goal to publish a recent study.
  • C. Your interpretation of past events.
  • D. All of the above.

D is the correct answer,

All of the above. Answer A can motivate you in the short-term by getting you to focus on the things that will get you to where you want to be. Answer B can be an effective career goal motivator, in that by telling your family about your goal, they can help hold you accountable. Answer C is an important factor in motivation as well—how you interpret past events that relate to your possible career goals can either motivate you to move forward, or to discontinue entirely.

The context in which you act and perform in the present can influence your future-oriented motivation. For example, the degree to which assignments relate to students’ future goals has been found to predict how engaged they are in the material, and how long they will persist academically.

Other environmental challenges affect career goals and may have a differential impact on women. Women report less support from their academic department and family in overcoming academic and career obstacles.  

Evidence shows that higher perceived support by the advisor distinguishes students who complete their doctoral degree program from those who leave their program prematurely. Further, students are more likely to complete their PhD if they perceive support from other faculty and peers (e.g., Litalian et al., 2015).

Clear career goals matter for current productivity, sustained motivation, and long-term success. You will have an easier time staying motivated now if what you are doing in your program relates to what you value in your chosen career.

Even if you detour (take an alternative path to the end goal), it does not mean you will derail (discard your career goals). No career path is linear, so continue to strive to achieve your goals. And changing your goals is ok too. It will all be worth it (one day)!

Try to boost your productivity by reconnecting with your passions and dreams, visualizing your ideal career position, reviewing your statement of purpose, or having lunch with an inspiring professor. Remember why you love what you do!

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