Career Choices and Navigating the Unexpected
Largely, the decisions we make and the choices we see are based on our expectations. Are there other options? What are your career choices? What will you do when you, or an unfavorable circumstance, signals it is time for something different?
Career Choices
Career choices often don’t feel like they are our own. Very early, the influences of our parents, relatives, and other more seasoned adults often influence our path. It feels like it wasn’t really our choice.
Once on a career path sometimes the unexpected derails our trajectory, again, feeling like it wasn’t our choice. There are life events, world events, and economic events that condition outcomes. Perhaps, none of them are our choice.
Where you find yourself at currently doesn’t mean that is where you’ll stay. This is true if you are excitedly happy, it’s true if your path has encountered a roadblock, or worse, you’ve crashed.
What should you do? What are the choices?
Certainly, the first thought may be that none of your possibilities are the happiest place to be right now. Perhaps none of the options you see are perfect. They may not seem easy, or even feel like they represent positive momentum.
Opportunities and options may not always be comfortable. They involve a shift, a change, and certainly may not be ideal.
Navigating Options
Make a list. Type it up, write it down, journal about it, you decide, but get the options laid out. These are the possibilities you have right now. Let it sink in a while. Sleep on it, don’t jump too fast but don’t let procrastination allow you to avoid it.
Next, and this is the big step, consider all your options based on future possibilities, not the anchors you’re dragging around from the past.
Stop considering the time that may feel wasted, the energy spent, or the hard-earned dollars burnt.
What option offers you the best future, right now?
Get started. Where you are at, or even where you are headed next doesn’t mean that is where you’ll stay.
-DEG
Do you need help navigating a career change? Coaching may help, contact me.
Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.
