Want to transform your life? Drop these Career Myths and Common Misconceptions

Let go of these Career Myths and let your intentional life bloom

There’s a process in life that we all go through where we educate ourselves, explore our interests and enter the job market. In doing this, we unknowing adopt assumptions and career myths that are untrue or disempowering.

These career myths and misconceptions are like little mind viruses. At times they can be so insidious that we behave like they’re true even when we logically know that they aren’t.

The goal of an empowering livelihood is to create meaning and transform lives in a way that is uniquely fulfilling to you. If your wish is to craft an intentional life that is uniquely yours, it is less about basing your success on these assumptions but in learning to drop them entirely.

My first career myth to let go of...

Career Myth #1

Professional success is determined based on an ideal lifestyle

To have a livelihood that is true to your own unique vision, you must drop what you determine to be society’s “success goalposts.” To engage in work that honors your vision of an intentional life requires being authentic and tune into your own internal compass.

It’s our human nature to want to “keep up with the Joneses” and to seek success by what others have achieved.

If those who surround us have prestigious job titles, status, high income levels and purchasing power, it’s hardwired into us to be like them as well. We can get caught up in placing a deeper importance on being like the rest of the flock then following our own intuition.

Unfortunately, in doing so, you lose your own inner compass.

To be your own unique and interesting self requires you to tune out the comparison noise. It’s impossible to simultaneously fulfill your own true desires while mimicking what you think societies version of success looks like.

Consider…

How much weight do I base my career choices on how it will reflect on how others see me?

It becomes exhausting if you are trying to check all the boxes on what success looks like based on other’s standards.

By carving out your own vision of success, you get to narrow your focus on a window of circumstances that only are truly important to you.

Whew. That’s much easier to keep track of.

The irony is that in being authentic to only your “true desires,” you become the visionary in your social circle that everyone admires. Authenticity is a rare attribute that those trying to “just keep up” never can recreate and are always seeking for.

Career Myth #2

You must avoid failure and setbacks

I get it. Nobody likes the feeling of career failure or a humble setback. It’s instinctual to try and avoid it.

But…

There’s a fundamental problem that arises though when you try too hard to avoid career setbacks. You become safety oriented and place so much effort and resources into minimizing all perceived risks.

I see this frequently when someone is unhappy in their job. So often in this situation nothing is done to significantly change the circumstances because people instead place all their efforts into minimizing all risk of “failure.”

Yet, their happiness suffers greatly over the long term.

Rather than placing inspired action into transforming their career, the resources are exhausted in keeping the status quo.

Ever heard of Career Burnout? This is what is looks like.

So often our imagined or perceived failures are not catastrophic, yet we avoid them as if they are.

Most importantly, in difficult times, our willingness to embrace changes and setbacks requires crafting a new skillset. The adaptability and tenacity required in constructing a resolution offers some of the deepest meaning in our ability to craft a livelihood.

By attempting to play it safe, you would be denying yourself this gift.

You only know the depth of your strength when you’ve been given reason to tap into it. We need the challenge of resolving failures and setbacks.

Onto my #3 of these career myths to drop.

Career Myth #3

Career Happiness is contained in attaining a specific job title or work perks

How you craft your livelihood must allow a path to roam through life. You must have freedom to explore your curiosities and express yourself.

We can’t be fulfilled in a job title alone but in a venture that allows you to alter and create your circumstances, discover and challenge yourself and empower who you really are.

A career should be a path of hope that participating in it offers the opportunity to lead you somewhere.

If you’re stuck in your career, you may think that you require a specific job with a specific title as the answer to your situation. However, you just need a path that brings your fate back within your grasp.

For one individual, a job lacking all glamour may be a perfect fit and offer a meaningful path at that point in their life.

For a different individual who has a “prestigious job title,” they may experience it as a prison and a source of pain.

There are no ideal circumstances. Each depends on the individual circumstances and state in life.

Freedom and career happiness aren’t in obtaining a complicated job title. Career freedom and happiness is one decision away. They exist in a decision that brings your circumstances back within your grasp and gets you back on a path.

Stuck on what decision to make?

Consider…

Are you trying to avoid failure at all costs?

Or…

Are you limiting your options because the right one you’re judging as below you?

If you’re stuck, you can’t simultaneously stay where you are and “get back on a path.”

Career Myth #4

You must have a clear long term career goal

Whatever your journey, best thing to can do is “just get started.”

The most rewarding and fulfilling income earning opportunities are not the ones when the whole path laid out in front of you. They are the ones where you courageously take the first step and trust that that step number two will appear for you.

There is a misguided career myth that success is based on a rock solid, long-term end game that you must continuously and unwaveringly be working toward.

In reality…

We are being guided or nudged in a direction that we feel pulled toward intuitively. Ultimately, we don’t know how things exactly will play out.

But we must have the courage, dedication and strength to pursue where we are guided.

In a changing modern age, it’s increasingly important to be adaptable and in the flow of a changing world. To be forever uncompromising is going to leave you off the mark. You would be trying to hit a moving target.

We tend to make decisions linearly towards a specific goal.

And here's my final of these career myths to let go.

Career Myth #5

A career is a destination

Any work venture is a human journey and will be inherently flawed and imperfect.

Its beauty must be appreciated in that context the same way people are interesting because of their changes and imperfections.

Our livelihoods grow and flow, breathe and change and go up and down.

For someone to expect only better (by whatever metric) year upon year is being set up for disappointment.

The most driven and dedicated people can get so ruthless on themselves in their desire for job success. However, there is no ultimate “destination” for success. A career is constantly in flux and is never static.

It is never in a state to be judged as wholly good or bad.

What makes a career meaningful in life is how it changes us and shapes who we are. The shaping and changing of us is done through the good and the bad. The pushing and the pulling. The challenges and the triumphs.

These will forever be ongoing.

Enjoy the ride.