Career counseling guides you through a set of experiences to assist you to make the correct choices recognizing core elements like your interests, family values, lifestyle, skills, and personality. It entails gaining new knowledge about yourself which eventually, positively influences your decisions related to your career. It carves out a roadmap for people to follow for suitable career growth.
To obtain experience, you need to acquire fast moreover have milestones set well in advance. With effective career counseling, you may find the appropriate career for which you are suited. Counselors provide assistance and support when you are at crossroads with what career you want to choose, not able to deal with challenging situations, decisions. Career counseling services exist to encourage you to make a significant decision about your career/work/occupational life. Choosing a career does not seem to be as easy as choosing an outfit from your wardrobe. Choosing a career is the most important choice that you make in your life.
Therefore, if you doubt whether you need career counseling, below are the 5 signs that you need career counseling.
1) You are clueless about your goals.
The beginning of choosing a career may seem to be difficult and unclear. There are several stages in life when you feel lost and are unable to decide your future career path. Being directionless addresses you all the more under-confident in securing the right decision. To secure a proper career choice, you must know your life goals. Some people have goals from early adolescence and they pursue their goals further. Other people are going with the flow. They might have some life goals, but they aren’t completely mindful of them. In this state, it is impossible to make the right career choice. You need to know what you want to achieve in your life. If you have problems identifying your goals, you should seek professional help to understand how you can develop your education and career from there onwards. Not being able to accomplish your goals might demotivate you and can become a barrier to your progress. Counselors will help you with the best career-based coaching and identify your flaws and provide you with a plan for getting back on track.
2) You are not able to decide how to move further- Higher studies/or not?
One of the most common doubts that takes a turn in the mind of a working professional is whether they should be pursuing higher studies or should continue to work. Usually, there could be many constraints in one’s life and others may want to achieve financial independence, thus making the choice of further studying or not more difficult. In these tough times, a career counselor could help you in selecting an option for you, based on your potential and your area of interest. For example, someone aiming for an MBA degree may need some work experience whereas someone who aspires to become a teacher may continue with his or her university. Therefore, career counseling could be a perfect choice as you will get suggestions personally and not generally.
3) You are suffering from career-related anxiety.
Making suitable career choices is difficult when you are dealing with career-related anxiety and uncertainty. Faced with what appears like an important life decision, it’s easy to experience career anxiety, which may turn into fear and indecision. You may also experience stress, pressure from others who may be inquiring about your career decision or supporting you towards a particular path or major. Many factors can contribute to career anxiety:
Parents may pressurize you to choose a “practical” career such as engineering or accounting, or want you to be a doctor when you want to work in business.
You may consider it important to please someone else, someone whom you value highly such as a parent, relatives, or even a professor.
Fears may also be contributing to your discomfort and feeling stressed about choosing a career. Many of these fears are just part of normal anxiety such as fear of the unknown, fear of making the wrong choice, fear of failure, or fear about one’s competence.
Career counseling ensures that your actions are positive and productive towards selecting the perfect career for you.
4) You are experiencing a lack of interest in your current job.
Probably, you may don’t cherish your work and you feel that your professional activity doesn’t suit your personality. If this is the case, then, you need career counseling to help you deal with this life problem.
If you perceive that your job doesn’t fit your personality, then, you have earlier made a wrong career choice. You will never be happy with your work if you are doing something that you don’t like. You may also strongly feel that your current job is not your correct call but you continue it for the sake of monetary benefits or experience. Moreover, if you are not having any growth in your current job then you must think about changing your job and consider career counseling to find a job where you can find growth opportunities and promotions. Maybe you thought that this job would be your dream job, but that was just not the case and now you feel frustrated and not happy with it. You want to walk out, but don’t want to risk it any further by making another wrong choice. Counseling can help you identify opportunities to advance your career and figure out the flaws that are holding you back.
5) Lack of focus on your career goals
There are times when it can be difficult to focus on your career goals, and you are getting distracted from your career path. Not being able to focus can become a major problem in life. It can stop you from moving forward in your career, and lead you to make mistakes in important areas like your economics. Not being able to achieve your goals might demotivate you and can become a barrier to your progress. It is better to take career counseling. Your career goals should be detailed, measurable, and attainable. Counselors can help you refine your career goals and provide you with beneficial advice that can help you focus on your career goals.
Importance of Professional Counseling: A friend or family member may listen to you, but they aren’t professionally, technically qualified or experienced to offer you professional advice. If you wish you can contact us at MindTribe to receive help from our team of expert psychologists.
About MindTribe.in.
MindTribe Founder Dr. Prerna Kohli, India’s eminent psychologist, established the company to leverage the strength of the online to make counseling affordable and accessible to everyone. MindTribe provides counseling, workshops, support groups, forums, and eLearning.
About the Author.
Apoorv Aggarwal is a psychologist at MindTribe.in. You can learn more about him by clicking here.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of MindTribe.in, the Founders, or management team.
Acknowledgement: All images used are open source and from Unsplash.