I could never fill in the 'What do you want to do in the future?' section

When performance review season comes around, there is always a section that makes me freeze.
"Future direction," "Where do you want to be in three years?"

The more I try to write something impressive in the space provided, the more my pen stops. I still don't know what the correct answer is.
In the end, I just fill it with harmless words and submit it.

Last year, and the year before that, I just wrote "skill up" in the goal section.
If asked what skills, or to what extent, I couldn't answer. As I wrote it, I didn't even know what I was referring to myself.
I forget the content the moment I submit it. It's only when my boss reads it aloud during the interview that I realize, "Oh, I guess I wrote that." I've repeated that every year.

I don't really have anything I want to do. That sense of impatience has been growing little by little since I passed forty.
My peers are getting certifications, my juniors are requesting transfers, and they all seem to have a destination in mind.

I am the only one standing still in front of a blank space. I convinced myself that I couldn't write anything because I was unprepared, so I put that section off every year and finished it with a single line just before the deadline.

Even if I dig, nothing comes out

If it's an opinion or a sense of discomfort, I can put it into words if I think about it on the spot. Even if I get stuck in a meeting, if I write it down in a memo later, I can somehow give it shape.
If I dig into what's bothering me, I can pull it out. It's a task with tangible results.

However, goals are different. No matter how much I dig in front of my desk asking, "What do I want to do?", all that comes out from the bottom are worn-out, borrowed words.
"I want to grow," "I want to provide value." I am merely repeating phrases I read somewhere in my own voice.
It's not a lie.
But it's not my own words either. Since the person who wrote it feels no passion, it's impossible for it to reach the reader.

There are things that come out when you dig, and things that don't. Opinions were the former, and direction was the latter.
I now understand that it wasn't that I was bad at digging or that I hadn't thought about it; I was just digging in a place where nothing comes out. It was only natural that I would freeze in front of the blank space.

I tried lining up what had accumulated

It started when I happened to be organizing my computer and noticed that years' worth of work memos, incident response reviews, and drafts of internal reports had accumulated in one folder.
I hesitated to delete them, so I opened them just in case. They were all files I had left alone after writing them.

When I lined them up chronologically and looked at them, I could see myself getting stuck on the same things over and over again.

• The procedure manual is hard to understand.

• There are people who stop even though they followed the procedure.

• I explained it, but it didn't get across.

• I wrote it, but it's blurry.
  Even though the cases, systems, and times I handle are all different, the places where I felt doubts or hitches were almost the same every time.
  The same question is written in a memo from three years ago and in a draft from last month: "Why doesn't this procedure manual get across?" Only the person who wrote it was the most obsessed with that point.

I didn't go looking for it. I didn't find it by grilling myself on "What are my interests?", but when I lined up what had accumulated, it emerged from the bias itself.
Even if each piece is small, when you bundle them together, a single direction becomes visible. Direction wasn't something to dig for on the spot, but something that becomes visible when you accumulate it and look back at it.

About the size of a fragment of direction

Even so, it's still too small to call a "goal." It's not impressive enough to be proud of.
However, the bias that I am apparently a person who cannot help but be bothered by things "not getting across" remained as a contour. It's closer to a trait than a decided goal. It was a habit, not a will.

It's not a dream or self-actualization. It's about the size of a fragment of direction. Even so, it's much easier to handle than when I was frozen in front of a blank space.
Even if I don't know what I want to become, I can see what kind of person I am by looking at the bundle. It's not that I don't know what I want to do; what I was already trying to do was piled up in my hands.

I have no intention of setting a grand goal again. Instead, in the next manual I write, I will try to fix just one place where the reader might get stuck.
It's not about an ideal image three years from now, but a move for next week. I think it's fine to keep it that small.

I probably won't write 'skill up' in the next evaluation sheet section.
I've stopped trying to predict three years from now. I'll start this term by fixing that one confusing line.

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Please also take a look at this article.

This is an article about listening to the discomfort and thoughts within yourself first.

It's not that you don't have an opinion, it might just not have taken the form of words yet. I am writing about that kind of feeling.

This is an article about how your state of mind for the day bleeds into the words you use at work.

Magazine

This article is included in the magazine 'How to live in your 40s'.

I am writing about work, words, the sense of distance from others, and future directions after turning 40.
Rather than providing big answers, this is a magazine where I put into words, little by little, the things that catch my attention in my daily work and life.