The big problem, I believe, isn’t that people don’t make career commitments; it’s that they make them too soon. Instead of learning everything they can before they sign up, commitment is seen as some kind of virtue, an act of character or willpower, almost like planting your flag in the ground and pronouncing that you will pledge yourself come hell or high water.

You wouldn’t buy a house that way or decide what city or country to live in, and you wouldn’t choose a surgeon that way if you needed an operation. (You wouldn’t even buy a pair of jeans that way!) Hopefully, you’d try to find out as much as possible before you decided on any permanent commitments.

But few of us remember to try out a career. Here’s one way to do it:

Go to your Scanner Daybook and write a first-person, present-tense fantasy of what you imagine your workday will be like. Imagine you are actually in any job you’re considering. Place yourself where you imagine you’d be working and put your brain and hands to work, like this:

"I’m standing by a drawing table working on a graphics presentation of a concept that’s not easy to understand. I’m finding ways to illustrate it that will make it very clear, and that’s fun. I arrived at work at 10 a.m., as I do every day. In an hour we’ll have a meeting with all the people on my project, and I’ll show them my ideas…"

Once you’ve done that, you’ll understand what you want. Then you can start interviewing people in the field to see what really goes on.

But what if you don’t have any idea where you’d be sitting or what you’d be doing? Then you’re not ready to say yes to the position.

You’re not ready to say no, either.

And isn’t it wonderful that you found that out before you signed on? Now, how can you find out? Well, I guess you could change your name and sign on as a temp or wear a disguise and work in the mailroom for a few months. Not always possible, I fear, but it would certainly give you an inside look at corporate culture. More realistically, you can talk to some people in the position and do a reality check. How do you find such people? Call anyone and everyone you know to ask if they personally know someone in the position you’re considering. The person who grooms your dog or tutors your niece probably has a family member working in the company you’re looking at. Call whoever will respond cheerfully to hearing from you and offer them a "degrees of separation challenge" to find someone who knows someone who knows the inside of the place you’re thinking of going.

And if that gets you nowhere, start hanging out (in your best corporate disguise) at a nearby lunch restaurant or after-work location and watch, or even get to know, some of the employees.

Because if you don’t know where you’ll sit or what you’ll actually be doing, it’s way too early to consider any commitment, and your fears are absolutely appropriate.

As Barbara suggests, use your Scanner Daybook for this exercise. Do not skip this one if you’re not concerned about committing to a corporate job at this stage of your life. Get a little creative. How can you get a clear picture of what it will be like to write and self-publish a book or to spend a year in a travel trailer or to volunteer six months to work with apes in Africa? Fantasize, then check it out by finding someone who knows someone or by hanging out in the right place to meet people who know. In a new comment on this page, tell us about your experience. Did it calm your fears? Did it help you say no? Any surprises? Then read the rest of the comments and see if you would like to ask questions of someone whose experience was different from yours.

Please be sure to subscribe to future comments on this exercise or to check back here on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning for new ones.

Use the Next link (up above the title) to continue on to Exercise 3: Try a LTTL after you are done adding your comment.

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