While January 1 is the official start of a new year, most of us have the K-12 ingrained programming that September is really the start of the year.
The problem with such programming is that massive change just happened to us each year from kindergarten through high school and through college. Quite literally, our “work” shifted from ages 4 (pre-school)-23 (first year out of school). I’ve noticed such programming prevents many career seekers from taking control of their career. Most subconsciously think that “something will happen.” It doesn’t. Only you can control your career. Indeed, the “somethings” that do happen that change the work of most people are bad things: being laid off or fired.
Moreover, we were never trained to pro-actively take control of our work world. We had no choice of teachers or what we learned until at least high school. Then, at most, we had some electives. Still, that’s very little control. College choice is the first major area of control and probably why it’s so stressful. College itself does provide more areas of control but the general process of moving from freshman to sophomore… continues.
If you are now in the work world, you have to take control of your career. Otherwise, nothing will happen.