You know the old saying; the one how mastering something isn’t really like rocket science because it’s not that difficult. The thing is: discovering your dream career is like rocket science in that to be successful it takes designing your future and not leaving it to chance, building a foundation on which to pin your dreams, and actually testing your ideas. Besides, just like those chosen to work on rockets, you are the only person who can be “chosen” to do the job at hand.
Actually many clients have good ideas for their ideal careers, but for whatever reason they’ve discounted them over the years. When I dig into the reasons why, I discover they’ve either made incorrect assumptions about why those careers wouldn’t fit or they’ve made other assumptions about what a specific career should look like and then written it off. In either case, they never took the time to discover if those assumptions were correct! Real rocket scientists would test this.
From the get-go, it’s worth doing due diligence to find out if you are making such assumptions. It’s all right to discount an idea if it truly isn’t a fit, but not before verifying the facts. Jeremy told me one of his career ideas was to be a landscape architect. When I asked why he said, “I like being outdoors.” The thing is many landscape architects spend a lot of time indoors working with clients and designing plans, and Jeremy’s career path was based on one assumption that he hadn’t investigated thoroughly. Ultimately, Jeremy realized his major motivation to make a career change was that he felt cooped up in his present job as a member of an IT support team. In the end, he decided to transition to IT sales to use his knowledge of the industry but enable himself to be out of the office on a regular basis.
Allison always wanted to be a nurse. But she discounted it because during an anatomy class in college she had fainted. So she assumed from then on there was no way she could be a nurse. Working together, we determined that it was still the right path for her. So she spoke with an advisor at a nursing school and shared her story. The advisor assured her that fainting happens but it is something nurses get over and that this shouldn’t stand in the way of her dream. Allison was thrilled and is now in nursing school.
Making a career decision based only on one factor is unwise. Rather you want to look at the big picture and choose a path based on as many factors that are a fit.
In a nutshell: Before you discard any career idea, be sure your understanding of it is based on fact and not on assumptions.
We hope this is helpful to you! Hallie Crawford, Certified Career Coach and the career coaches at HallieCrawford.com.
