His parents convinced him that chemical engineering was the better choice. Why? Because they were sure that Thomas Edison had already accomplished everything there was to be done in the electrical field.
Fortunately, he wised up and went back to his first instinct. But it took him awhile to realize that his parents were wrong.
In How To Help Your Child Land the Right Job (1993, New York: Workman), career counselor Nella Barkley offers some myths children learn that interfere with their ability to make personally satisfying career choices as adults. To find your way to a more fulfilling work life, you may have to unlearn some of that flawed advice you got from Mom and Dad.
Myth 1. Other People Are in Charge
When columnist Bob Greene asked, "How old are you supposed to be before you become a grown-up in your own head?" he was reflecting on the consequences that come from living your life according to someone else's (or society's) agenda. Taking on the conventions of adulthood may make you a "cultural adult," but it can also keep you one step removed from your real needs and desires. Author Tom Clancy remembers the moment when he reached that epiphany. He was in his mid-30s at the time, living the traditional American Dream. He had a wife, two kids and a fairly successful (if uninspired) career in the insurance business. He also had a car (and car payments), a house with a mortgage, and other trappings of middle-class respectability. But he knew something was missing when he found himself asking for the umpteenth time, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" Says Clancy: "The stunning and depressing realization hit me that I was grown up, and... I might not be what I wanted to be."
What Clancy lacked was a dream of his own. He was so busy following society's agenda, he hadn't realized he was programming himself for unhappiness. The type of success he'd been taught would make him content turned out to be surprisingly unfulfilling.
To come to a more emotionally satisfying resolution, he needed to make more self-directed choices. He needed a different kind of connection to his work and a way to express himself more fully. The result has been a bonanza for millions of readers and moviegoers.
Today, we know Clancy best as the writer of such military thrillers as The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.
Many dissatisfied careerists can recognize themselves in Clancy's dilemma. Surrounded with middle-class responsibilities, it isn't so easy to "follow your dream" - or even to find it under all the layers of conventional adult choices. To uncover your career dreams, my friend and colleague Cheryl Heisler in Chicago recommends what she calls "the Hansel and Gretel" approach. To find your way back to your emotional home, she says, you have to look for clues in the things that you've abandoned along the way. Search your past for discarded interests, dreams and goals. You may be surprised to find them still awake inside you.
Heisler knows firsthand the value of such a journey of self-discovery. Originally, she chose law because her pharmacist-father thought it'd be a good field for a bright, creative, articulate woman like his daughter (she'd been voted "Friendliest Person" of her senior high school class). But the law, as you may know, isn't the friendliest profession. It's filled with conflict and adversarial relationships, and it took Heisler only a few years of practicing law to figure out she didn't like it. As she looked for clues to her next career choice, she thought about her college major, which was advertising. She decided to pursue a position in marketing-advertising's first cousin-and subsequently landed a brand-management job at Kraft Foods.
If not her ultimate calling, it did prove to be a good outlet for both her creativity (which made her great at positioning new products) and her outgoing personality (which made her excel lent at client development).
She also discovered something new about herself, which leads to my next point.
Myth 2. There Is One Perfect Job for You
Marketing was definitely a better choice for Heisler than law. But it wasn't ideal. It involved too much number-crunching for a woman who had never liked math much. Having changed careers once, she found herself again on the lookout for other options. As it turns out, Heisler didn't have to search hard for her next career direction. Essentially, it came to her. Other attorneys, who'd found out about her successful career change, kept contacting her to ask how they could do the same. When she discovered how much demand there was for such information and how much she enjoyed counseling other lawyers on their options, she founded Law ternatives, a career-consulting firm that advises lawyers in transition. For her, the hardest part of becoming a career counselor was giving up the job title of "lawyer." Even as a brand manager for Kraft, she'd referred to herself as a "lawyer who was doing marketing."
In many ways, the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is itself problematic. When what you do for a living becomes synonymous with whom you are as person, you may feel trapped into choosing an identity instead of an occupation. Under these circumstances, it's no wonder many young people default into high-status professions. Not only will they garner better salaries this way, they'll also gain instant credibility and respect. With so much psychological gratification riding on the outcome, it's hard to choose more amorphous or vaguely defined fields. Never yet have I heard a child say, "I want to be a meeting planner when I grow up" - even though lots of meeting planners love their jobs. Nor have I heard parents actively encourage their kids to be physical therapists, even though it's the fastest-growing occupation in the United States. It's easy to get caught up in the stereotypes. A youngster raised on TV's Law and Order may be drawn to the glamour of the courtroom drama, but television melodrama isn't the stuff of which good career choices are made. There may be more than 26,000 occupations in the labor force, but to hear most people tell it, I'd swear there were only three: doctor, lawyer and corporate executive.
Philadelphia career counselor Douglas Richardson acknowledges how difficult it can be to steer clear of jobs that are wrong for you when so many external factors are pushing you in the wrong direction. Under these conditions, it may be difficult to distinguish between what he calls your soul (basic temperament) and your role (outside factors that impinge on judgment). What results is the classic recipe for career unrest: In an effort to please others or live up to societal ideals, you choose a career that's strikingly at odds with your essential nature. Says Richardson: "Unless we're gifted with world-class objectivity, we find it hard to distinguish what we really want from what we think we ought to want, what others tell us we should want and what it's unrealistic to want. Is it any wonder we can't tell whether we're driving or being driven?" Interestingly, though, the external trappings of professional respect may begin to seem unimportant when you find a truly satisfying career direction. For example, Heisler discovered that once she figured out what she really wanted to do and got involved with something she really loves, she lost the need to call herself "esquire." "I have a job where I can be myself and be appreciated," says Heisler. "What better title can I wear?"
