Sometimes it feels like you absolutely need a career plan and that everyone has one except for you. The best career coaching may just be to take a deep breath and relax…
Yesterday I had the opportunity to mentor a high school senior who was just admitted to two colleges: Boston College and Michigan.
As we spoke about his choices and how he was weighing them, something interesting came up:
He felt pressured to know exactly what he wanted to major in and at least have an idea of what he should ultimately do in his career (i.e. have a career plan).
In fact, there was a sense that if he didn’t make the absolute right (or best) choice, his life would get off track… He didn’t say this, but it was if the wrong choices would result in a subpar life.
YOU DON’T NEED TO HAVE A PERFECT CAREER PLAN
I explained to him that I have only 4 friends from college who knew what they wanted to be from the first day of school and followed that path all the way through:
- One wanted to be a veterinarian
- Two wanted to be doctors
- One wanted to be a financier / asset manager
That’s it. Of the four of them, only the asset manager took a path that wasn’t explicitly mapped out (i.e. the path to being a doctor is fairly obvious (see Career coaching: making a choice in your career).
What if you make a mistake and realize late what you want to do? For example, what if you decide that you want to be a physician after college (and you didn’t take science courses)? Well, enter my amazing friend Jill, who decided she wanted to be a physician’s assistant years after graduating college and without having studied biology or chemistry as an undergrad.
What did she do? She took summer classes in the courses she was missing, got her EMT training, and learned about the field. Then she applied to physician’s assistant programs and got into one… YALE.
Now, you might say that a physician’s assistant is not the same as being a physician, and you would be right. It is actually a much higher quality of life… But I won’t get into why here.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO DIDN’T HAVE A CAREER PLAN?
Well, the most financially successful of those individuals who seemingly wandered through college weren’t the ones with great grades in some random field of study, but rather those who found a career that uniquely suited their abilities.
Who are the least happy? The people who are doing what they feel they are supposed to be doing. They are smart, hardworking and in a field that they have no interest in because a series of coincidences (i.e. job opportunities) took them in a certain direction.
They worked hard, they got ahead, they achieved the trappings of wealth, and then they realized they were not happy. For some it is time to start redefining success (see Career Coaching: Redefining Success).
YES, BUT DON’T SOME PEOPLE REALLY HAVE THINGS FIGURED OUT?
On my first day at Harvard Business School there was an assembly for the entire class of 2005 in a large auditorium.
While I sat there wondering how the hell I got in, the Dean said something surprising. He said, I know you all wrote essays about what you want to accomplish and what your goals are… but I also know that most of you have no idea what you want to do and are partially here to explore that.
So there it is, some of the most motivated people in the country, most with 3-5 years of work experience post college… and they don’t know what they want to do either.
IS THE POINT TO JUST FLOAT AROUND THEN?
The point is definitely not to float around from position to position aimlessly. The point is to constantly evaluate where you are and ask yourself are you enjoying the present and will what you are doing pay off in the future? (See The 47 second career analysis).
The idea is to modify your career plan to find roles that you enjoy today that will benefit you in the future. If you are not in one of those roles, then it is critical to do the work to discover what type of opportunity would give you that feeling and identify the steps to achieving it.
Here’s the thing: most of us don’t have one unwavering passion in our lives. Instead we have interests, and those interests change as we grow. I can assure you that my current interest in internet marketing didn’t exist 5 years ago, though my interest in personal development has been around since before I could drive.
Ensure that you are in a role that you enjoy today and will benefit from tomorrow, and if you aren’t, don’t feel like you absolutely need the one right answer today, but instead seek to gain a sense of what career moves you can make to move you in the right direction.