This is the third post in a four-part series on the Power Position framework. Post 1 covered the framework overall; post 2 went into Passion & Interests.
This week features the Skills & Experience circle.
As my mid-career clients explore what’s next in their careers, they ask: What am I qualified to do?
It’s a reasonable question, but it can keep you stuck.
What matters more is: What do I want to keep doing?
The gap between those two questions is where many mid-career transitions go wrong.
A track record is not an obligation
I coach women with deep expertise in one area who are also profoundly tired of it.
Women with fifteen years of project management experience who would rather never lead another project. Women whose strongest skill on paper is people management — a skill they’re good at and dread using for the rest of their careers. Women who built their reputation on a specific competency and are now organizing their whole job search around that, not because they want to, but because they don’t know what else to put on a resume.
Having a stellar track record of applying your skills and experience does not create an obligation to build your next chapter around them.
This is the sentence that I see land hardest in coaching. Mid-career women have absorbed, often without naming it, that their job is to maximize the value of skills they’ve already built. That walking away from a competency is wasteful. That changing direction is “starting over.”
What if it isn’t? Reframe: It is choosing a direction based on where you want to be, not staying locked into where momentum has carried you.
The willingness question
The most useful question on the worksheet, in my opinion, is this one: What are you willing to do to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be?
Not “can you.” Not “is it possible.” Willing to do, given your current circumstances, responsibilities, and the energy you have.
If the answer is no, that’s not a dead end. It’s a redirect. You can make a trade-off, extend the timeline, or shift the direction slightly. All three are workable. What is not workable is proceeding as if the answer was yes when it isn’t. That is what creates the frustration six months from now.
The willingness question forces you to stop fantasizing and start planning with the materials you actually have.
Adjacent proof
The second question in this circle that I want you to spend time on: what evidence do you already have that you can do this work, even without the exact title?
Mid-career women consistently undercount adjacent experience. Projects you led informally. Volunteer work that used the same skills. A side initiative that produced results. The cross-functional project that wasn’t in your job description but became the most meaningful work of your year.
This is real evidence, and it’s part of your credentials.
If you’re considering a direction that isn’t a direct line from your current title, the question is: When have you done parts of this work, in conditions that prove you can do it again?
That evidence will be the foundation of how you tell your story in your next conversation, next application, or next interview.
What this circle is really doing
The Skills & Experience circle is not a backward-looking inventory of what you’ve already proven. It’s a forward-looking filter: of everything you’ve built, what’s worth taking with you, and what’s worth leaving behind.
What do I want to keep using, and what am I done carrying?”
Asking “What am I qualified to do?” keeps you in the same orbit, looking for a different version of the role you already have or had. I work with clients to open up the range of what’s possible.
Where to focus this week
Spend the most time on question four (willingness) and question five (adjacent proof). Those two together do the most useful work.
Download the Power Position Exercise here:
Next week is the last circle: Market Demand. It’s the one that determines whether everything else you’ve worked through is actionable or theoretical.
Are your career intentions based on a feeling or sense, or are they supported by market reality?
If you have or want to work through the Power Position Exercise and want a second set of eyes on your circles, The Power Position Review is open through June 3. One 45-minute session, one circle, one next step. Use promo code PowerPlay for $20 off through June 3.
Love this perspective.