Top 4 Reasons Why Career Dreams Fail
The secret to career success is in the fine details of your plan, and having the patience and confidence to follow through with them. Specific circumstances involved with individual career dream failures may differ from person to person, but they are often variations on, or symptoms of, a few reoccurring mistakes. If you're working towards a career goal, and find yourself guilty of any of the following, it's time to take stock of what's holding you back from getting to where you want to be.
Choosing a Career Path Based Entirely on Financial Motivations
Financial considerations will play a part in working out your career dream details, but making financial considerations your sole or most important factor in pursuing a career is a sure route to misery and failure. For example, while hedge fund managers can make obscene amounts of money, pursuing a career in this field is pointless if business matters bore you to tears and you hate working in an office. Be completely honest with yourself about what truly engages you on a personal level, determine what specific types of employment are available in those fields, and take note of their accompanying average salaries. From here, you'll need to compare your monthly budget with those salaries to determine whether you can actually make a living doing what you love.
Expecting Immediate Gratification
The winding and arduous path up whatever career ladder you've chosen can seem like an exercise in extended frustration, but a reasonable degree of patience is warranted when trying to move up. This doesn't mean not having the courage to ask for a raise or promotion at an appropriate time, but rather understanding that there is a process to getting to your career goal, and that this process consists of incremental steps. Along the way, you'll pick up the very skills and experience you'll need to function well at the top of your field. Not only is bypassing this process completely unrealistic and unlikely, but it would also rob you of the development you'd need to stay in that lofty position.
The Dream is too Vague, Making Planning and Action Difficult
The more detailed your career vision, the easier it will be for you to formulate a concrete plan of attack with incremental steps. One of the biggest career dream killers is neglecting to hone in on precisely what it is that you love to do, a process which requires taking stock of your passions, skills and education. For example, working towards being a pediatrician is easier to accomplish than simply nursing a vague desire to become a doctor. If you can't clearly articulate your dream career to others in one sentence, then you'll probably need to hone in a bit more. The key here is direction
Lack of Self-Confidence and Positive Support
Possessing self-confidence, at least in this instance, should not be confused with having an inflated ego. An egotist has an inflated sense of their abilities (which can spell disaster in the workplace), while a self-confident person can simultaneously be honest about their shortcomings while still remaining positive about their skills and talents. Engaging in negative self-talk and defeatist attitudes while working towards a career dream serves to counterproductively shut the very doors you're trying to open. On a related note, it's important to surround yourself with people who believe in you, believe in your goals and give you the courage to hang in for the long haul. If your social network harbors any consistently unsupportive and/or jealous types, you may need to wish them the best and cut them loose.
