The Waysfinder Framework
Your career path isn't lost. It just doesn't exist yet.
Why It Matters
The problem everyone feels, but nobody talks about.
Uncertainty isn't your enemy. Not knowing how to move through it is.
The career advice you've been given doesn't work anymore. Five-year plans? Outdated before you finish writing them. Follow your passion? Vague and unhelpful when bills are due.
You don't have to find another personality test or motivational pep talk. You may want practical navigation tools for when the path forward isn't clear.
Robert Merlo: A Different Kind of Career Advisor
Welcome to Waysfinder
Career clarity doesn't arrive fully formed—it emerges through exploration. The Waysfinder framework helps you navigate professional uncertainty, whether you're launching your first career, positioning yourself for advancement, or ready to shift into something new.
Instead of requiring a predetermined destination, Waysfinder helps you establish a meaningful direction, set boundaries that keep you focused and safe, and explore possibilities through small, low-risk experiments. You discover what works by testing options, gathering feedback from real experience, and adjusting your path as you learn—like navigating with a compass rather than following a rigid map.
This approach honors the reality that your needs, priorities, and circumstances will evolve, and that the strongest career decisions come from self-discovery rather than external pressure. Whether you're facing a blank slate, competing opportunities, or the sense that your current path isn't quite right, Waysfinder gives you a practical structure for making progress without pretending to predict the unpredictable. It's permission to move forward thoughtfully, even when—especially when—you don't have everything figured out.
Meet the Creator of Waysfinder: Sonja Blignaut
Sonja Blignaut is the creator of the Waysfinder framework and the broader Waycraft body of work from which it emerged.
She works at the intersection of complexity, change, and human sense-making, with a particular focus on how people orient and move when familiar maps no longer hold. Over more than two decades, her work has explored how individuals and organizations navigate uncertainty, transition, and emergence without defaulting to optimisation or false certainty.
Waysfinder was developed as a practical, accessible integration of complexity thinking, systems awareness, and embodied attention. It supports people in orienting to and moving through unfamiliar terrain, especially during career and life transitions. The framework sits within Sonja’s wider Waycraft approach, which brings together complexity science, relational practice, and Earth-centred ways of knowing.
Sonja’s work is used globally across leadership, organisational change, and professional transition contexts. She is particularly interested in helping people develop their own capacity to navigate complexity, rather than relying on external experts or prescribed pathways.
She is currently in the final stages of publishing her first book, which applies Waycraft to the changing nature of work, careers, and professional identity
Who Waysfinder Career Coaching is For
Find work that actually fits you.
Just Graduated? You're Not Far Behind.
A CAREER COMPASS WITHOUT A MAP: Launching Your First Career
You’re overwhelmed by options, and everyone expects you to have it figured out. Here’s what nobody tells you: the “perfect first job” that aligns with your identity doesn’t reveal itself through endless scrolling. It reveals itself through smart exploration.
Through career coaching, you’ll learn to find work that actually fits you—not just pays the bills—by testing different paths without the pressure of lifelong commitment.
Stuck in the Messy Middle? Time to Level Up.
Stop Feeling Invisible. Start Growing Strategically: Positioning Yourself for Advancement
You’re overwhelmed by options, and everyone expects you to have it figured out. Here’s what nobody tells you: the “perfect first job” that aligns with your identity doesn’t reveal itself through endless scrolling. It reveals itself through smart exploration.
Through career coaching, you’ll learn to find work that actually fits you—not just pays the bills—by testing different paths without the pressure of lifelong commitment.
Ready for Something Different? It's Not Too Late.
Discover Your Next Chapter: You're Feeling Ready to Shift Into Something New
You’re successful but unfulfilled. You’ve been thinking about a change, but feel paralyzed by the options or worry that it’s too late to pivot.
Through this career coaching approach, you’ll learn to build the career you actually want—not the one you fell into—by leveraging your experience in ways that create unexpected possibilities.
Here's How Waysfinder Works
You start where you actually are.
Not where you wish you were. We map your current reality honestly—your skills, constraints, and what’s genuinely possible from here.
You pick a direction, not a destination.
Instead of “I must become a VP by 35,” you choose a heading—like “toward more creative work” or “toward leadership roles.” Directions give you flexibility. Destinations create paralysis.
You set smart boundaries.
Guardrails aren’t limitations—they’re freedom. By defining where you can’t or won’t go, you create a focused exploration space instead of drowning in infinite options.
You run small experiments.
No career-risking bets. You test options through low-stakes actions that teach you what works without burning bridges or emptying bank accounts.
You stay flexible as you learn.
Your path reveals itself as you walk it, and you adjust as you gather real-world information.
Waysfinder: What Else You'll Get
Clarity without false certainty.
You'll understand your current reality and have a clear direction—without the pressure of predicting an unpredictable future.
Concrete steps and navigation.
Low-risk steps specifically for your situation—not someone else's template. You can use them even when the path isn't crystal clear.
A focused exploration space.
Smart boundaries that narrow infinite options into manageable possibilities you can actually test.
The skill to spot opportunities.
You'll learn to see possibilities you couldn't see before and turn everyday situations into chances for growth.
A career coaching approach that actually makes sense.
Forget everything you’ve been told before today about career planning. This career navigation approach doesn’t give you a rigid roadmap to a predetermined destination. Instead, it teaches you to move through uncertainty with confidence.
Unlike traditional career coaching that relies on personality assessments and résumé templates, I work as a Career Navigator—using the Waysfinder framework to help you develop practical skills for navigating when the path isn’t clear.
This career navigation approach is different because:
-
It’s not traditional career counseling (aptitude tests and résumé templates)
-
It’s not generic life advice (motivation without methodology)
-
It’s not a rigid 5-year plan (those don’t work in today’s world)
It’s based on complexity science—how change actually works in the real world. It’s honest about the difficulty while giving you practical tools. And it builds your capacity to navigate any career challenge, not just solve one problem.
Source: Sonja Blignaut. Click to view larger.
The Waysfinder Framework
The Waysfinder framework helps you navigate messy career transitions with clarity and confidence. Instead of getting overwhelmed by endless options or stuck on a single rigid path, we create a clear exploration space—identifying where you are now, where you want to go, what boundaries keep you focused, and what realistic next moves make sense. Think of it as bringing strategy to the messiness.