The Women's Business, Women's Wealth book contains a number of quizzes which are tools to help you create the life you want. The ones here are just a sample of what you'll find in the book.

First Steps: The Top 10, Your Perfect Working Week, Write Your Own Obituary

Career Anchors

Career Values

Core Skills

Entrepreneurial Skills Test

First Steps:

Do you ever have time to focus on what really lights you up, on what makes your heart sing? On what kind of world you would create for yourself if you could?

Figuring out what you really want to do is the first step in creating a plan to get you there. Take the time to work out what will truly make your heart sing - you're worth it.

You need a quiet hour to yourself to do the three exercises that make up the first steps. And yes, finding an hour for yourself can be hard, but being stuck in a horrible, unsatisfying rut for the rest of your days is even harder! Invest some time in your creating your own dream life.

The other important thing to remember once you start is that these are not academic exercises. Just write and let your heart sing. You may be surprised by what comes up, but together these three exercises will give you some insights into what is really important to you, not your parents or your partner.

The Top 10 - give yourself 15 minutes to do this

Imagine you’ve won an obscene amount of money on the lottery - so much you never need to work again if you don’t want to. What would you do with the money? How would it change your life and what would you choose to do or buy over the next 12 months? Dare to dream outrageous dreams! List your top ten in order of priority.

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Imagine you’ve inherited a fortune from a distant wealthy relative, whose only stipulation is that you must continue to work, but you won’t be paid for that work. Instead the inheritance will give you secure wealth. What would you do if you couldn’t fail?

Don’t set up barriers by ruling things out because ‘I could never get the qualifications’ or ‘What’s the point of even imagining?’ Let yourself go. But on the other hand don’t just settle for ‘famous actress’ because it’s what you used to dream about as a little girl. What’s your dream now?

Describe in detail what your working life would be like: what you’d do, what environment you’d work in, with what kind of people, for how many hours, with what kind of work structure. Write at least three descriptive paragraphs, keeping in mind how you envisage your ideal average working week. Have fun with this one!

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Write your obituary, presuming you’ll live until you’re at least 82. Imagine how you would like to be remembered and what you would like to achieve over your lifetime, from both a professional and personal perspective. Writing your own obituary can be a bit confronting, but remember it’s all about making sure you begin to focus on what is really essential for you. Again, don’t be constrained by the way things are now or what might be realistic’- create your dream life, no holds barred.

Begin ‘X lived a full and happy life, passing away in her sleep this week at the age of 82. She is fondly remembered for ...’ Write at least a page and make sure you include professional, personal and community as headings.

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Moving Forward:

Together, the three exercises that make up the First Steps will have given you a strong framework for figuring out what will make your heart sing. If your career and life aren't matching up to your hopes and dreams you then need to start planning how to change things. The following quizzes will help you do that.

Career Anchors

Some experts believe that everyone has a career anchor, a single factor that is fundamental to who you are in your working life.

You may rate a number of factors highly, but there will always be one you feel you cannot do without.

Your career anchor is likely to be fairly stable, but different life stages can influence a change in priority. For instance, lifestyle may not be so important to you early in your career, but could become of primary importance while your children are young.

What is your career anchor? These are the major categories:

CAREER ANCHOR TABLE 1. Technical - you seek the chance to apply your specialist expertise and continue to develop those skills 2. Autonomy/independence - you want the freedom to define your own work in your own way 3. Security/stability - it is important to you that your job or finances are secure 4. Entrepreneurial - you run your own business or dream of creating your own business 5. Service/dedication to a cause - contributing to the greater good in some way is fundamental to you 6. Challenge - you thrive on novelty, variety and difficulty 7. General management - you aspire to manage across functions at a high level in an organisation, and seek the associated prestige, power and good remuneration 8. Lifestyle - a holistic approach to work/life balance (family, friends, time out, leisure activities, etc) is the essential factor for you

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What we do for a living is a huge part of our lives, in terms of our internal resources, time spent and financial outcomes.

It’s hard to choose a career, and sometimes even harder to make a career change - it can seem an enormous decision with a right or wrong answer that will affect your entire life. It’s just too easy to end up doing something that doesn’t ‘feel right’ or even that you down-right dislike.

So often we tie ourselves up in knots trying to please others, doing what we think we ‘should’ do instead of listening to our inner voice and following our hearts. Maybe this has been your experience or you’ve had a series of ‘just jobs’ to earn money rather than a ‘career’, but now you want to find work satisfying and fulfilling, too.

It’s not too late to change and if you've just done the career anchors exercise you've already taken the first step - working out what matters most to you and how that fits with potential job options.

While your career anchor gives you insight into your one ‘must have’ element, the next step is to work out your career values so you’ll have a better idea of the kinds of roles that will be right for you.

This career values quiz will give you the opportunity to think about which values are most important to you, as well as what doesn’t matter much at all. To be truly happy you’ll need your work to offer at least your top five values.

Ideally you should work through the whole list and rank the values from 1 to 25 (most important to least important), but you should at least rank your top and bottom five because the bottom five help you work out what you don’t care about.

For example, you may not care either way about making a contribution to the community or, alternatively, you may not care about earning a high wage. As with the career anchor exercise, this is not about value judgements, so don't try to come up with rankings that you think you should have - just give yourself an honest picture of yourself.

If there are other career values that are critical to you that don’t figure on the list, add them in to your list.

CAREER VALUES TABLE Recognition/prestige Work with the latest ideas/technology Earn above average pay Deliver great customer service Work/life balance Choice of work location Interstate or international travel Flexible working hours Advancement Make a contribution to the community/others Trust and admire my boss Lead others Opportunities for further training and development Work as part of a team Take initiative Pleasant work environment Influence others Work independently Variety in work Express creativity Intellectual challenge Work at a fast pace Feel morally fulfilled Be able to express my individuality at work Security

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Core skills are generic skills that you enjoy using but that are not necessarily technical or industry specific. Examples are analysis, problem solving, administrative skills, relationship building and creativity.

While you may need to learn new technical skills to become fully competent in a new area, core skills are transferable and enable you to make significant job shifts to new roles in new fields.

Take five minutes to think about your core skills. Use the same technique as for the career values table, ranking the ones you are best at. Ideally, rank the whole table, but at least do your top ten in order. Add in any special skills you have that aren’t listed.

CORE SKILLS TABLE Research Analysis Problem solving Sales Customer service Recruitment Training Translating/interpreting Technological Negotiation/arbitration/mediation Creativity/invention Attention to detail Budgeting Auditing Empathy Communication Promotion/PR Prioritising Persuasion Planning Implementation - getting things done Motivating/empowering others Management Leadership Influencing Teamwork Change management Consulting Mentoring Liaison Relationship building Networking Strategic thinking Facilitation Decision making Debating Evaluation Administration Writing Event management

Now - to the right of your existing list, number your top ten items in terms of the skills you most enjoy using. This will help you to work out not only what you are good at, but also what you like doing most.

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If you've done the quizzes and exercises above your thoughts now may be turning to starting up your own business as a way to bring together the things that make your heart sing and so to reconcile family, friends and work life is critical.

Running your own business can be a great choice - if you go into it fully prepared and informed and if you have the right skills to sustain you as an entrepreneur.

If you’re seriously thinking about setting up shop yourself you must make sure your personal objectives and your business objectives realistically fit. For example, if you want to spend more time with your children and work from home, a business objective requiring you to work 60 hours a week and travel to see clients will see you frustrated and exhausted very soon! (Over half of Australian small business operators work more than 60 hours a week.)

Being your own boss can be tough. In addition to a passion for what you do, it requires resilience, realism and plain hard slog. While most men who start their own businesses do so in a field they have worked in previously, over 50% of women start something completely different. Make sure you’re properly prepared and don’t discount learning the ropes by working as an employee in the area you’re thinking about starting your own business in.

To start to work out if running your own business will be a good choice for you, take this entrepreneurial skills test. It will determine how your personal background relates to success in independent business.

Rank your response to the following statements as 'No', 'Somewhat' or 'Yes'. It is vital to really think about it, and answer based on how things are, not how you’d like them to be:

ENTREPENEURIAL SKILLS TEST TABLE I feel that I’m confident, conscientious, resilient and decisive. I’m usually quite active, certainly self-motivated, ambitious and determined. I have often worked/think nothing of working a 60-hour week. People might describe me as persuasive, fairly independent, able to get on with others and quick-witted. I am experienced in such functions as selling, marketing and staff management. I am used to/good at making decisions, including making substantial expenditures/ investments and getting the best deal/price available. I want to start a business in a field where I have had substantial experience. I have enough personal resources to tide me over, in the event that the business takes longer to get going than I had anticipated. I have managed a small business successfully before. I have always been successful in my career.

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