Are you in your best career?

One of the big questions playing on everyone's mind is "Am I in my best career?"

This question and career satisfaction are a kind of quantum entanglement – the moment you seek an answer to this big question, your career satisfaction goes through a major shift.

The flip side is even more dangerous. Not asking this question of yourself is to succumb to ‘satisfactory stagnation’.

Over the years I have asked leaders in the corporate world how they landed up in their current careers. The predominant answer is "More by accident. Less by choice."

We are all victims of career choice errors

It is amazing how much of our life we owe to probability and randomness. In recent years we have begun to realise what influences our thinking and how our thinking influences our choices.

Some of the factors that influence careers choices: ?

Inheritance bias and luck of the draw – A lot depends on our family, loving relationships, and place of birth. A large part of what we don't do is dictated by our early upbringing. David Eagleman, the celebrated author and explorer of neuroscience, points out – we become who we are not because of what we have gained, but because of what we have lost (what we don't experience). ??

Education bias and career choices – Probably the biggest influence on our career choices is our education. Education sparks our imagination and we begin to imagine what career we would probably enjoy. But, how far is the choice of our education deliberate? It boils down to the factors of availability, access, awareness, and affordability of education.

Availability bias and stereotypes – Daniel Kahneman too points us in this direction in his book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’. Most of us base our career choices on the success stories we see around us. The sad news is that not all careers are celebrated or talked about and therefore we all land up being victims of stereotypes. I often use the phrase "a career that someone else seems to be enjoying need not be your happy place."??

Experience bias and our formative years – When we do land in a chosen career our own experiences start shaping our views about careers. If we are lucky to find enjoyment in our work, we create a positive bias towards that career. If we are miserable, we build a negative bias. The workplace, the environment where we practice our vocation, are all unique due to various factors - the people, the market conditions, the timing and much more. E.g. Our experience with a bad boss need not necessarily reflect on our prospects within the sector.

Resource bias and our ability to change – The final influence is the resource we have access to – advisors, coaches, mentors, content, platforms, et al. Even if you do need to find your best career, it is never easy.

The catastrophe of past choices, feeling of discontenment, and an uncertain future, is overwhelming.

But what if we were wired differently and deep down enjoyed things which we haven’t even explored yet? Discovering our underlying motives helps us identify what would truly give us joy in our careers and life.?

Navigating towards our best career is anchored on how we are wired and our awareness

Our choices so far have been by accident, and the errors are piling up – for us and almost everyone we know. The recent pandemic has created a sense of urgency. Yet the danger lies in the actions being fraught with the same risks of what got us here in the first place.

While one dimension of navigation requires self-awareness, the other requires an outside-in reality check. Since both dimensions are highly influenced by biases, it requires a process that helps us overcome the inherent pitfalls.?

The process

Over the past twenty-odd years I have worked in the field of leadership development. The experience spanning assessments, development journeys, coaching, and mentoring has allowed me to reflect on what works and what doesn't.

Some of the traditional methods are over-powering the individual. Some of us can drown in the assessment information while some may not trust the accuracy of the assessment if it does not align with our view of who we are. Yet most of us are interested in finding our best career.

Distilling the best of what I have seen in my experience, I have realised that the process needs to keep the individual centre stage. It needs to be as individual-centric as genome sequencing in the field of medicine.

1. Decoding what we find energising - Diving deep into our experiences we need to identify those high points that have remained etched as positive memories. Things that get us into a state of flow. Things that make us seek more of the same. Appreciative Inquiry is a great framework to use to do this and this deep dive itself is energising.
2. Knowing what we need to explore - How good is our awareness about the various careers? How do we remain clued into the shifts taking place in the world around us? These are very pertinent self-reflection questions. It changes our perspective that may have been a victim of biases gathered over all these years.
3. Giving our best career a chance - In most cases, our best career is just a single move away. This move need not be a new career or a new job. More likely the move would be a lateral step into a related domain or just a bit of pruning de-energising activities from our work.

I do hope in the near future we all find our way to our best careers. All it takes is to begin the inquiry - "Am I in my best career?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are interested to explore your best career, here is what I could do for you - Take 5 minutes to fill out this form - My best career .

Once you submit the form, I will analyse the information and send you a LinkedIn DM with the following:

a. Appreciative Inquiry?- My perspective about the visible strengths in you and your career based on your LinkedIn profile and the answers provided by you

b. The New You?- Three suggestions for you to explore based on your unique profile

(All information will be kept confidential and will not be shared with anyone else)

PS: I may be able to handle 10-15 forms a week. So if I receive more, my responses may be slightly delayed. Bear with me.

Note: All paintings included in this article have been generated by Dall-E Open.ai. using selected descriptive text from the paragraphs.

#humanresources #management #careers #future #futurism #personaldevelopment #motivation #leadership #success