Too many off us spend far too much time whining about having made wrong career decisions at some important stages in the past. Even worse: We take those past decisions as excuses for being miserable and unhappy in our careers NOW!
- I chose the wrong subject at university and now I can’t move into the career field I’m really passionate about! There is no chance to do it with my educational background!
- If I only had chosen to follow a different path when I was still younger and had the chance to do so! Now it’s too late!
- I should have started to save money 15 years ago. I could then go for part-time and spend more hours with the kids. No way I could do that without proper funding.
There are endless ways to make wrong career decisions from the past responsible for our current situation – but does it help at all? No! This excuse is simply too easy and it’s time to take responsibility again!
The famous author Tom Clancy once said:
“Fix your eyes forward on what you can do, not back on what you cannot change.”
And I couldn’t agree more! It’s important to note that in most situations we are talking about here, you haven’t been physically forced (I hope) to follow a particular path – I guess most of the time you had a choice. You made a decision and now you have to live with the outcome – period! But that’s perfectly fine because it’s even more important to realize that you still and every day have a choice to deal with the given situation in various different ways. You need to accept that you cannot change what has happened in the past but you can always directly influence your own future by choosing to take control and make things happen. But how could you do that?
I suggest the following 4 steps to get back on track whenever you feel something from the past is keeping you from achieving your career and / or life goals
- Create awareness of where you consciously or subconsciously believe that past decisions or events are responsible for you being stuck or unhappy in your current situation.
- Think about what would make you feel more satisfied with the situation or in the particular area of your life / career. What would be different? Be very specific and write down as many points as possible.
- Take one of those points and think about a very first step you could take now to get closer to the desired state. Do the same for all the other points on your list and you might already see much clearer and automatically switch from a problem focus into solution mode.
- Now decide where to start, refine your plan and make it happen!
I’m curious to hear from you! What is the number one past decision you have taken that’s causing you the biggest pain today?