Complacency? If you bury your head in the sand, you hope the career problems will go away.
Confusion? If you wonder what else you would do for your career, you get frustrated because you don’t know the answer.
Our career counseling clients have one big advantage over everyone else: they are doing something affirmative to take control of their careers. Even if I provided no useful career guidance, the mere act of doing something – anything – starts the process of taking control of one’s career.
As for the issues of anxiety, complacency, and confusion, here’s how the career counseling process helps:
Talking to a skilled advisor of any sort about any problem should lower anxiety. By preparing for a career counseling meeting will get you out of complacency. As for confusion, let’s say that here’s where the real practical value emerges from good career counseling.
“You have given me clarity”
“I now see my options”
“I finally know what to do.”
These are the happy moments in my work. How is it that I can provide clarity?
Let’s hope that you have at least one area of expertise. If you were asked for advice from someone who does not know what to do in your area of expertise, presumably, you would confidently give correct advice.
In doing this work over a dozen years, I started realizing that I now understand the world of work and how clients fit into this world more like a puzzle that could be solved. When I first started the work, I had intuitions and a reasonable sense of what I could to do help. Now, I know what I can do: I provide clarity.
Clarity gives control.