Career Choice:
What's right for you?

Career choice satisfaction

I read with interest recently that many people can expect to change their career choice up to 4 times in their lifetime. Not their jobs, their careers!

There are some for whom their job is everything they want. They made a good decision and they really enjoy it. Getting out of bed to go to work is a pleasure, it allows them to have what they want, and they get to do what they really like.

For many, however, this is not the case. These people fall into 3 main categories. The first group find themselves in a work situation in which they are generally unhappy. They have spent years doing the same thing and may not really be sure how they got there or even why they are still there.

The second group have made a career choice that they enjoy but after some time they have lost their passion for it and it does not seem to take them where they want to go. And the third group love what they are doing and are so dedicated to the job that they spent so much time working they don't have time to move the business forward and/or work time eats into their personal time.

So how are they making their career choice? What are these people doing wrong? Or more specifically, what are they not doing right?

 

Our changing world...

The corporate world is no longer rotating steadily; it is being spun faster and faster by constantly changing variables. Markets collapse, good products don't sell, the wrong people are fired, foreign competition and cheap labour threaten jobs, technological solutions, previously only dreamed of are suddenly being used by competitors. Faster communications allow little time for rest and produces paradoxical feelings of connection and isolation.

We hope and search for order to feel in control and see only chaos at the centre of the system. We make attempts to simplify our lives so we can be comfortable only to find that such a requirement would have incredibly complex implications. Over time, the capacity for enthusiasm and vitality drains away.

How is it that those who make a career choice and are happy and successful in their work know how to maintain it, despite external conditions? One thing they are not engaged in, is doing things to find who they are.

They start with a real sense of knowing who they are, and then like this, they sort for those things that are a match and a fit, including their career choice. They choose the people, places, activities, information and things that allow them to continue to become who they want to be. They have boundless energy and they lead extraordinary lives that work on many levels.

A question that is often posed is 'How do I make a career choice?' or more specifically, 'How will I know what is right for me?'

 

A better question

A more useful question is 'How do I most know myself to be, so that I am able to recognise what resonates with who I am?' It's more useful because it's a different starting point.

Many people are living their lives according to the values, beliefs and desires of others. They are being somebody else. They have actually made somebody else's career choice. They understand at some level that the things they are currently engaged in are unfulfilling or unsatisfying to varying degrees. And they think that if they just do certain things, or make a different career choice, they will find their position in life.

The truth is, when you know absolutely that you are whole and complete, you exist and you are ok, it doesn't really matter what you are doing. Whether it is a job, or putting out the trash, or doing paperwork, when it is filtered through this knowing, it is simply a choice. In this moment, I choose this, in the next moment, I choose that.

The doing is aligned with being so that while they are completely separate, the boundaries are so indistinct as to be non-existent. And all the time, your sense of being on purpose is reinforced by what you do. Now like this, when anything is possible, the question becomes 'What next?'

If you had a strong deep felt sense of who you are, and you knew nothing could interfere, what would you be doing?

If you want to know more about how you personally make a good decision so you can make your own career choice, in order to develop a satisfying and enjoyable life, you may find this career change advice useful.

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