MODULE 6: How Can I Be Sure to Have the Lifestyle I Value
within My Career?
Summary
Students learn about their career and life anchors. Students also learn about the
need for balance between work and non-work life roles and learn about their
personal characteristics in relation to leisure planning.
Objectives
Students will:
1. State their career and life anchors.
2. Describe the need for balance between work and non-work life roles
3. Establish leisure goals and understand the importance of these.
National Career Development Guidelines Goal(s)


GOAL PS4 Balance personal, leisure, community, learner, family and work roles.
GOAL CM1 Create and manage a career plan that meets your career goals.
Time Required
~140-150 minutes
Group Size
Individual and small group work
Preparation
Photocopy Determining Your Career Anchors worksheet, 1/student
Photocopy the 15 Favorite Activities worksheet, one/student
Photocopy the Leisure Planning Worksheet, one/student
Secure PowerPoint presentation equipment or make overhead transparencies of PowerPoint
slides
Materials
PowerPoint presentation or overhead transparency copies of slides
Determining Your Career Anchors worksheet
15 Favorite Activities worksheet
Leisure Planning Worksheet
Steps
LESSON ONE
1. Introduce class goals using Slide 1.
2. Show Slide 2 and introduce Schein’s Career Anchors. See
http://www.rapidbi.com/created/careeranchors.html for more info on Schein’s research
and model or for an alternate online assessment of career anchors.
3. Handout the Determining Your Career Anchors worksheet and assessment. Break the
class into eight groups and assign each group one anchor on which they will become
proficient. Then ask groups to introduce each of the eight anchors to the class.
4. Show Slide 3. Ask students to complete the grid and identify their own anchors;
demonstrate grid completion with a personal example.
5. Upon completion, ask how many students had each unique anchor as their top priority
and discuss the importance of anchors in career development—for example, M’s will stay
with n employer if promotional opportunities exist. T’s seek on-going professional
development opportunities.
LESSON TWO
6. Introduce Richard Bolles’ model described in his Three Boxes of Life book using
Slide 4. The boxes are education, work, and leisure. Bolles asserts that we need to focus
on all three of these throughout our lives, not short-changing any. In his book he
suggests that too often these elements of life are more like boxes that we get stuck in. He
suggests that we should be focusing on all three things all throughout our lives. Bolles
advocates a balance among lifelong education, work, and leisure/retirement planning.
7. Ask students to define leisure. Show Slide 5.
8. Ask students to discuss how they assure quality leisure time amid a hectic school/work
schedule.
9. Distribute the 15 Favorite Activities worksheet. Walk through this worksheet’s
completion with students.
10. Ask how many students are actually doing the things they love weekly.
11. Ask students to write a leisure goal for themselves for the next week. Check in one
week from this class to see if students were successful in achieving their leisure goals.
LESSON THREE
12. Show Slide 6 and read David Steindl-Rast’s definition of leisure, ask students to
discuss this definition in the context of their own lives.
13. Handout the Leisure Planning Worksheet.
14. Ask student to track how they spend their time for one week using the Leisure
Planning worksheet.
15. Demonstrate a sample completed worksheet for this activity using Slide 7.
16. After one week, discuss with the class what they have learned about “lifestyle,”
“balanced lifestyle,” and “time management” completing this assignment.
17. Ask students to discuss various lifestyles and what influences different types of
lifestyle.
18. Ask students to discuss how their current lifestyles could be defined.
19. Ask students which elements of their present lifestyle they would like to keep and
which to change.
20. In groups, discuss how their leisure activities might be used in various work settings or
for fun in retirement. Ask students to think ahead to the kind of lifestyle they would like to
have and how their occupation, leisure, and study will contribute to this. Ask each
member of the group to share the kind of lifestyle they would like to have.
21. Other group members suggest occupations that would enable the student to have that
lifestyle.
22. Share learning.
Assessment
Students will answer one or more of the following:
PS4.K1
PS4.A1
PS4.R1
PS4.K2
PS4.A2
PS4.R2
PS4.K3
PS4.A3
Recognize that you have many life roles (e.g., personal, leisure, community,
learner, family, and work roles).
Give examples that demonstrate your life roles including personal, leisure,
community, learner, family, and work roles.
Assess the impact of your life roles on career goals.
Recognize that you must balance life roles and that there are many ways to
do it.
Show how you are balancing your life roles.
Analyze how specific life role changes would affect the attainment of your
career goals.
Describe the concept of lifestyle.
PS4.K4
Give examples of decisions, factors, and circumstances that affect your
current lifestyle.
Analyze how specific lifestyle changes would affect the attainment of your
career goals.
Recognize that your life roles and your lifestyle are connected.
PS4.A4
Show how your life roles and your lifestyle are connected.
PS4.R4
Assess how changes in your life roles would affect your lifestyle.
CM1.K5
Recognize that changes in you and the world of work can affect your career
plans.
Give examples of how changes in you and the world of work have caused
you to adjust your career plans.
Evaluate how well you integrate changes in you and the world of work into
your career plans.
PS4.R3
CM1.A5
CM1.R5
Determining Your Career Anchors
Edgar Schein identified eight career “anchors,” or motivating forces that influence people’s career
development throughout their lives, regardless of the job. If present, these anchors literally anchor
people to their work; if absent, they drive the person to find other work that will fulfill the anchor.
Read the definitions for the anchors, then determine your own anchors using the grid on page two.
Technical/Functional competence
This kind of person likes being good at something and will work to become a guru or expert. They
like to be challenged and then use their skill to meet the challenge, doing the job properly and better
than almost anyone else.
General Managerial competence
Unlike technical/functional people, these folks want to be managers (and not just to get more
money, although this may be used as a metric of success). They like problem-solving and dealing
with other people. They thrive on responsibility. To be successful, they also need emotional
competence.
Autonomy/Independence
These people have a primary need to work under their own rules and steam. They avoid standards
and prefer to work alone.
Security/Stability
Security-focused people seek stability and continuity as a primary factor of their lives. They avoid
risks and are generally 'lifers' in their job.
Entrepreneurial Creativity
These folks like to invent things, be creative and, most of all, to run their own businesses. They
differ from those who seek autonomy in that they will share the workload. They find ownership very
important. They easily get bored. Wealth, for them, is a sign of success.
Service/Dedication to a Cause
Service-oriented people are driven by how they can help other people more than using their talents
(which may fall in other areas). They may well work in public services or in such as HR.
Pure Challenge
People driven by challenge seek constant stimulation and difficult problems that they can tackle.
Such people will change jobs when the current one gets boring and their career can be very varied.
Lifestyle Integration
Those who are focused first on lifestyle look at their whole pattern of living. They not so much
balance work and life as integrate it. They may even take long periods off work in which to indulge in
passions such as sailing or traveling.
Instructions
Compare each anchor in the left rows to the anchors listed in the vertical columns on the grid. For each comparison, write
the letter of the anchor that you prefer most in the box. For example, compare the first row Technical/Functional to
Managerial Competence. Which of these is most important to you to have in your work? Write the answer in the T/F row.
Answer all then tabulate the number of times each was selected in the bottom row of the grid.
M
T
S
Ch
T
S
Ch
A
L
D
A
LI
D
E
Totals
List your top two anchors: ________________________
________________________
Remember, your top two anchors will help you select jobs and training programs that will keep you content! You
should communicate your anchors to employers amid job search and job evaluations.
My 15 Favorite Activities
Instructions: List your favorite things in the world to do under the first column header titled “Activity.”
NO ONE will see your list or results except you! The purpose of this activity is to help you better
understand your activity preferences.
Activity
I learned:
$5
I/O
A/P
S/PL
M/F/B
T
S/W/F/Sp
31
R
Scoring My Favorite Things
Write the letters in your table, by corresponding to the key below. Then write what you
learned about your lifestyle, career and leisure interests at the bottom of the page, next to, “I
learned:”
$5=
Does
it cost
more
than
$5 to
do? If
so, put
a $5
I/O= Do
you
typically
do it
inside or
out? If
so, enter
I or O
A/P= Do
you
typically
do it
alone or
with
other
people?
Enter A
or P
S/PL=
Do you
do it
spontaneously or
planned?
Enter S
or PL
M/F/B=
would it
be on your
mother’s,
father’s or
both
parents’
list?
Enter M,
F, or B
T= how
much time
do you
usually
spend
doing it?
Enter # of
hours
S/W/F/Sp=
Do you do
this
summer,
winter, fall
or spring or
all?
Enter
season
abbreviation
31= How
R= Rank
many times
order
in the last
top 5,
month
1=
have you
highest
done this?
Enter the
number
Leisure Planning Worksheet
Instructions: For one week, track the time you spend engaged in your daily activities. Create category headers in the upper
columns to the right of “Eat” (titled lightly with the word “other”) for the activities you typically engage in, such as watch TV, surf
the web, read, and visit with family/friends. Total you time at the end of Sunday, before going to bed (include sleep hours
Sunday night though!) Then enter learning at the bottom. Use 15 minute intervals to capture your time expenditures as
accurately as possible. For example: 2.25 hours
DAY of
the Week
Sleep
Work
Eat
Other
Other
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
TOTALS
I learned that (continue noting learning on the back side of this worksheet):
Other
Other
Total
Hours
24
24
24
24
24
24
24
168
More notes of learning:
Leisure
Planning Worksheet, continued