by
Avoiding the 11 Costly Mistakes Career-Seekers Make
Without Even Knowing It
December 31, 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Bill Dueease
Most people spend approximately 25% to over 67% of our waking hours
working. Eventually, most everyone will want to work in a career
that they enjoy and are paid well enough to live a prosperous life.
Yet, far too many people end up being miserable in their job and find
themselves stuck in a career that they did not choose. People then get
discouraged, produce less, and become disgruntled. Unfortunately, people
then blame themselves or they blame those they work for, when in truth
there is rarely anything wrong with them or whom they work for.
Instead, maybe their work selection process is flawed that caused them
to fall into the wrong work positions. You have considerable control
over selecting your work conditions to get the positions you are passionate
about by following these 11 selection steps.
You probably follow the trial and error path to select your work positions
or career. You take jobs that appear to be the best opportunities and
try them out. You adjust to what your bosses and the companies want
in hopes of advancement. You eventually discover that you are stuck
in jobs or careers that you really don't like. You might switch to other
jobs and try them out and eventually end up at the same unhappy position.
You will want to avoid falling back into the trial and error selection
process.
.
Many other people feel obligated to follow a career to please others
or that they feel they “should” pursue. Spousal influence,
peer pressure, family tradition, parental pressure, society pressure,
and other outside pressures are frequently allowed to dictate career
paths. In these situations, you end up working to suit the needs, wants
and expectations of someone other than yourself and deep conflicts will
arise. These conflicts will cause you stress, unhappiness and income
reduction. You end up working at a position you do not like and you
eventually disappoint the people you wanted to please in the first place.
You have your own inner wants, needs, and feelings. Many times it is
easier to follow how others view you than to look for and accept the
truth about yourself. The only way you will know which career is best
for you is to focus first on YOU to discover what YOU want and what
is important to YOU.
Most people are passionate about doing something, but have suppressed
their passions for a number of reasons. You will want to discover what
you are passionate about so you can find the position that will allow
you to fulfill them. Your passions are always with you and you probably
do not recognize or understand them. You will know you are passionate
about doing something when you become naturally excited even about the
thought of doing it and more excited about doing it.
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Most people do not take the time to discover what their desires and
priorities are in life. They seem to just go with the flow and hope
that they are heading in the right direction. Yet, the one big reason
people feel so frustrated while working is because it conflicts with
their true desires and priorities. An example of a desire is: wanting
to work outdoors with people. An example of a priority is: placing your
family first.
Everyone has his or her own value system. Unfortunately, people rarely
look into them and frequently accept the values imposed by the companies
they work for. Just look at the damage caused to the many employees
of Enron, World Com, Global Crossing and others whose beliefs did not
agree with the misguided values of the CEO's and higher executives.
Were all of the employees misguided? Certainly not. Yet, most failed
to discover their very honest values, and were penalized anyway, because
they conflicted with the values of the leaders of the companies.
The most productive and enjoyable work positions are ones that come
naturally and are easier to do because they fit your talents and skill
levels. You will enjoy working, be much more productive, and generate
more quality results when you maximize the use of your talents at work.
Your increased productivity and higher quality results will attract
greater rewards for you.
Unfortunately, many people who actually know what their ideal income
positions really are choose not to pursue them. Either they feel guilty
pursuing them, or they feel that they are unattainable, or more frequently
they do not know how to get them. You want to find or create the positions
that will allow you to fulfill your passions, desires, values and talents.
Now you can create the positions to suit you, instead of taking a position
and adjusting to it.
.
People are led to believe that they can easily look within themselves
and discover themselves on their own. Self help books and assessment
tests claim that reading the books or taking the tests will reveal all
you need to get your ideal career. Yet, both methods fall very short
of actually getting to the truth. Discovering what you really want,
what your true talents or values are is not a self-help process.
We humans cannot see our face without using a mirror or a photographic
image. Just as you must look into a mirror to see what you really look
like, you must have another person act as your objective mirror to see
what you really want to do and be in life.
Your other-person-mirror must be totally devoted to you and must be
able to actively assist you to see within, where you may have been reluctant
to look before. They must provide you an objective, non-critical mirror.
Seek out and get someone to be your objective mirror to discover the
truths about yourself, to find or create your ideal position. Career
coaches are trained, motivated and focused on assisting you to become
“The Worlds Leading Expert on You.”
Devise a program to attain your very distinct target positions. You
will not be trying to “get a job” like so many others. You
will be able to focus on getting very specific income positions. You
will not waste time, money, effort or emotional energy on pursuing unwanted
positions. You will want to recruit your ideal positions, even if they
appear not to be available. Why? Because you have now become an extremely
valuable and in essence, very marketable source of productivity. You
will be very surprised how easy it is to actually get the positions
you love. Bosses prefer people who are enthusiastic about a job because
they love it, and customers are easily attracted to professionals or
business owners who love their work.
Many people think that because they finally found the position that
they are passionate about, that they will want to stay in it forever.
The position that is ideal today will probably not be ideal in a couple
of years. Why? Because your passions, desires, priorities and needs
will most likely change with time. Your values, or at least your understanding
of your values might also change. As they change, your ideal career
positions will also change. You will want to continually keep a pulse
on yourself to determine your new priorities to reshape your career
positions to what is important to you in each stage of your life.
We welcome your opinions and comments.
Bill Dueease
Editor
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