The Five Great Myths of Career Decision Making

In December we published our most successful newsletter yet, about the most common myths we hear about career decision making.

You can sign up for the next newsletter by dropping us a line here. We publish quarterly, and focus on career decision making; how to do it and how to cope with the problems it brings. Plus, as always we aim to include the very latest, most scientifically sound career related research.

Because we want to spread our ideas as far as possible, we're re-publishing last month's edition on this blog. We hope you enjoy the articles and find them useful.

Myth 1: "Staying in my crap job is the ‘real’ world"
Myth 2: "I should be happy"
Myth 3: "Following my values will make life easier"
Myth 4: "There is a perfect career for you"
Myth 5: "I need to feel more confident to do what’s important"

Myth 1: “Staying in my crap job is the ‘real’ world”

When I became a management consultant there was part of me that felt I’d made it. I’d walk into these shiny offices with my laptop and just for a moment, I felt like I was going somewhere.

That is, if I didn’t think too hard about what I was doing. When I did, I just told myself it was only five days til the weekend and 3 months to my next holiday.
But my choice appeared to be:

• Carry on, be well off but unhappy; or
• Leave my job and be worried about looking like a failure.

I was desperate to be a success, so like a rabbit frozen in headlights I remained in this strange limbo for about five years. And I can tell you, limbo is less fun than it sometimes looks.

I remember one day my boss asked me to head up some particularly meaningless new project and because I couldn’t say no outright, I decided to tell him about my doubts about my career. His reply stays with me to this day:

“I’d love to do something more interesting too, but I live in the real world.”

Mythbuster
We hear the ‘real world’ argument a lot. No doubt it makes the speaker feel better, but in fact it’s got nothing to do with the real world. It’s an argument designed to keep you out of the real world, safely trapped inside a story in your own head.
Ironically, career dilemmas like mine are defined by a reluctance to identify what a person actually wants in the real world. After all, there’s comfort in not knowing or trying, because then we can’t fail.

Looking back, I see that I wanted to be a great person, but I wasn’t prepared to exhibit any of the character traits of a great person. I wanted success, but I saw it as someone else’s job to spot my potential, or for the world to give me opportunities.

This is about as far from being ‘real world’ as possible. And it left me a passive recipient of whatever other people thought I’d be good at.

Unless you fancy a spot of limbo, the real question (which I was avoiding), is pretty simple: what is it that you actually want?

Myth 2: “I should be happy”

Everyone wants happiness. In fact these days, if we’re not happy, we tend to think there’s something wrong with us. Thinking we should be happy is not just a myth but a trap. By pursuing happiness as an objective, we’re actually setting ourselves up to be unhappy.

Mythbuster
Imagine 1000s of years ago one of your ancestors on the savannah plains sees something in the distance. Is it a bear or a blueberry bush?


The optimist may have seen a blueberry bush and had a great time munching blueberries. But equally, the optimist was more likely to be attacked by a bear...and pass on their genes.

Our ancestors were (by definition) survivors. They are the ones who anticipated the worst.

It’s part of the human condition to experience many different emotions. Most of these emotions ‘see the bear’. Our minds evolved to warn us of dangers and give us worst case scenarios.

So it’s perhaps no surprise that if we try to chase happiness too much all that happens is we feel anxious when we don’t find it. The irony is this makes us feel even worse. We become anxious about anxiety.

Paradoxically, it’s only by letting go of the struggle for happiness that we can ever begin to truly find it.

Myth 3: "Following my values will make life easier"

The modern consensus is that values are good, and if we follow our values we’ll be happier, and life will get better, right?

Mythbuster
Here’s what no one tells you:

Following your deepest values means confronting your darkest fears.

Following our values involves owning up to what we really want in life and what is of secondary importance. Living our values also means risking the possibility of failing at something that we care about most.

Because we care so much about our values, by definition we are scared by them; they represent our highest hopes, and our darkest fears.

The trick is, to understand that these are two sides of the same coin. If we want the value, we must be willing to have the fear.

The real question is: if following your values was about carrying your deepest fears and anxieties with you, would you still be willing to follow them?

Myth 4: There is a perfect career for you

I went to the Identity Project at the Wellcome Collection recently, which featured Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s cousin, who founded the first genetics laboratory. Galton was famous for inventing the fingerprint, but his research papers also included the gloriously titled Arithmetic by smell, 3 Generations of lunatic cats and Cutting a cake on scientific principles.

Bloom sees a lot of people who wonder which career would be best for them. Many expect one of those online career tests that ‘match’ them to their perfect career.
But in my experience, people feel more like Galton. They are complex and multi-faceted. They can’t fit into a box and often feel like there may be lots of ‘best’ careers. (Mind you, what would I know? The computer told me I should have been a Dental Hygienist).

Mythbuster
When someone wants to find their perfect career, very often what they are really asking for is a guarantee of success. So let’s bite the bullet here:

There is no ‘perfect’ career. Even generic advice like ‘do what you love’ is not right for everyone. The things we value in life often conflict – for example career success often conflicts with family life. So careers will always involve some risk, some compromise.

The alternative approach
Given this, why on earth would anyone see a career psychologist? Quite simply, because you still have a choice to make.

So if you don’t make a conscious choice, you’ll make an unconscious one. Unless we prioritise the things that really matter, the things that don’t matter tend to take priority.

We tell our clients we can help ‘de-risk’ their career choice, but we cannot make it perfect. The best we can do is clarify and prioritise what they actually want from life. We do this by focusing objectively on someone’s strengths, skills, personality, interests and values and by helping people to imagine what it might be like to design a life around these. Doing this, it is possible to create a life that really fits who you are. You may still feel torn between options, but it’s a conscious choice.

The alternative is to drift through your life, anxious about the future, resenting the present.

Myth 5: ‘I need to feel more confident to do what’s important’

We often think that we need to feel confident to succeed. So we make a deal; once we feel confident then we’ll change....

Mistake.

Mythbuster
Confidence is derived only from knowing you can do something. The only way you know you can do something is to try it out - practice. Real confidence only ever follows action.

Confidence is a feeling derived from external cues. As such, your mind knows better than to allow you to feel confident just by thinking positive thoughts. All our efforts to ‘think positively’ are futile; your mind only bestows real confidence from getting out there and doing something.

The reality is that we don’t need confidence to succeed – this is simply an excuse. Instead, we should focus on taking action in the direction of our values.

What can you do tomorrow to start doing what’s most important to you? What would you be doing at work? This is something you have control over. Your mind, and its obsession with confidence, is not.

Thanking The Beatles

A wonderful article today talks about writing thank you letters to the Beatles. This is a fantasy I have long since shared, without ever quite understanding why.

When I was growing up, I would listen to my Mum's Beatles records incessantly. I had With the Beatles first I think, and then the 'blue' album and then the 'red'. At some point came Please Please Me and Rubber Soul. I still remember the day The White Album came back from the library. I was stunned. I listened over and over and over again, up in my room, staring out over my neighbours' moonlit rooves and then beyond to Liverpool, where it all began.

Today, almost any Beatles song can make me cry. My love for them feels irrational; exponential to their actual musical value.

David Gray is quoted as saying that music fills a hole you never knew was there. In short, I guess the Beatles filled a hole I never knew was there. They are a sanctuary from arguments and anxiety. They are my unflinching allies when faced with rejection. With them, I can be lonely without being alone.

So for the hole they filled all those years ago, and still fill now; thank you.