It requires a special effort for us to unlock ourselves from all the forces which have accumulated over the years, to overcome the fear of rejection, boldly choose what we really want to do, and then move confidently, professionally, and effectively within the market in any chosen direction and achieve a predetermined goal. Once met, however, this is the most satisfying challenge of all
Let's take a closer look at those factors that can make career decision making difficult:
Family and Early Life Experiences
Limit Career Choice
As William Wordsworth put it, "The child is father of the man." My understanding of that line is that the conglomerate of activities, behavior, experiences and all forces operating on any of us when we are children shape what we are to become in adulthood. While hopefully a majority of those forces have a positive and beneficial effect, there are also those which have a lasting detrimental effect on the individual into adulthood.
Let's look at some of those specific forces that often restrict our freedom of choice. They subtly channel our thinking in certain directions, and reduce our ability to think beyond certain limits. All of this is linked with the cultural and historical elements discussed in the previous section, and with our education and work experience.
Family and Religious Principles and Forces.
The Modesty/Humility Syndrome. Most of us learn from early childhood, within the family circle, that we are to be modest and humble at all times. "The meek will inherit the earth," we are told, and we should never take the first place at the table, but rather the last. We overlook another seemingly contrary admonition that we are not to bury our talents in a field, but we are to use and multiply them. Our society's definition of humility seems to mean a lessening of self On the contrary, real humility is truth. These attitudes, unidentified and unresolved, cause, or contribute to, a lack of self-esteem.
Specific Parental Values. Many values are implanted in our minds which we may never want to question since to do so might dishonor our parents. An exaggerated example: A client of some years ago grew up in a very strict religious atmosphere. He later became an atheist. He was obviously capable, but never ex celled in his career. During a session in which we helped him examine attitudes remaining from childhood, he became suddenly silent and thoughtful and finally said, "I've just realized that I erased from my mind the fact that my father used to tell me that it was sinful to make any more money on a job than just enough to live on. I never wanted to believe that, but just now realized that for 15 years I have been unconsciously obeying my father." His income, in effect, had never been more than "just enough to live on."
Emphasis on Past Failures. The most common cause of an inferiority or guilt complex is a parent who never praises the children, no matter how well they do ("praise a child and you turn his head"), but always punishes them ("spare the rod and you spoil the child") when they fail to measure up. The only measure of self, therefore, that children have of themselves is parental attitude, expressed as a negative. In a milder form of this same attitude, we are taught from a very young age that we are supposed to learn from our mistakes. Nobody encourages us to learn from our successes.
Parental Favoritism. Sometimes a parent will appear to give more support to one child than to the other. The second may know intellectually that he or she is capable, but has a buried fear of being valueless and is forced to live with a crippling contradiction. The favored child, on the other hand, may be hampered by unidentified feelings of guilt.
It is a wonderful thing that we honor our fathers and mothers. However, when we hide behind it to avoid certain truths or to deny real resentments, it undermines our self-esteem.
Child Abuse.
Physical, mental or sexual abuse perpetrated on a young child can have lasting and devastating effect on self-esteem and consequently on career success. The solution, as always, is for the individual to come to grips with what in reality did happen, deal with the continuing effect (anger, humiliation) it has had on him or her, and gradually develop the realization that whatever it was need not have bearing on the value of the person today.
Denial or "voluntary amnesia" is a common human response to any form of abuse. The solution is to face the fact honestly, put it in perspective, and go on with our lives.
Role Models.
Most of us, consciously or unconsciously, pattern ourselves after (or against) certain people who have importance in our lives. The tendency to compare ourselves with others can be a self-diminishing exercise, because no matter how good we may be at a given ability, we can always find someone who is better.
There are positive role models and negative role models -people whom we try consciously or unconsciously to be similar to, or different from. Whether this is conscious or unconscious, it reduces our freedom to be ourselves. A number of role model concepts can and do co-exist in our minds and can coalesce into a major force which keeps us from being what we truly are and from doing what we truly want to do.
The Family Business or Profession.
It is often said by people in their 40s and 50s that they wish they had never taken over the family business. Others wish they had never rebelled against it when they were young adults. Whether parents promote the idea or not, the existence of a family business is likely to reduce children's freedom of choice.
One of our most successful clients was a young man whose parents were teachers. His older brothers and sisters all succumbed to the parent's expressed desire that their children be teachers. This young man had never completed college because he knew if he graduated he would be under constant, subtle pressure to follow in his parents' footsteps. He harbored a deep resentment against both his mother and his father. Once he faced his resentment, he was able to decide on a career path.
He moved to another state to escape parental pressure and within two years, had founded three successful businesses.
In most families, there are certain ideas that are inadvertently implanted when we are young. It can be understood in individual families, for example, that children must become doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers-all of these and more, singly or in combination. Women in general up to recent generations were expected to become housewives and mothers, teachers, nurses, secretaries, with perhaps a few other possibilities. Under this kind of "programming" it is difficult for a person to envision broader horizons.
