Why Career Planning Is Time Wasted
Our culture worships planning. Everything must be planned in advance. Our days, week, years, our entire lives. We have diaries, schedules, checklists, targets, goals, aims, strategies, visions even. Career planning is the most insidious of these cults precisely because it encourages a feeling of control over your reactions to future events. As that interview question goes: where do you see yourself in five years time? This invites the beginning of what starts as a little game and finishes as a belief built on sand. You guess what employers want to hear, and then you give it to them. Sometimes this batting back and forth of imagined futures becomes a necessary little game you play in order to 'get ahead'.
"We want to make a decision all of our own, based on our own values and preferences."
In reality, people frequently don't know what they want and psychology has proved it. That's why career planning, or at the very least just deciding what you're going to do next, is so unpleasant. It's no fun at 18 years old when people ask what you want to do. There seem to be so many different options, each with myriad branching possibilities, many of which lead in opposite directions, but all equally tempting. Surrounded by these endless spiralling futures, it is no wonder that many a school-leaver sticks with what they know and follows in parental footsteps. But we don't all want to trust the tried and tested, whether for good reasons or bad. We want to make a decision all of our own, based on our own values and preferences.Midlife crisis
If it's hard at 18, it's even harder in midlife when people are theoretically better equipped to make their choice. In reality by your 30s wide-eyed optimism has normally been replaced by a more cynical outlook on jobs and the workplace. Now it's more clear what the downsides of certain jobs are. There's not only our own experiences of work but we also have friends at work, all of whom colour our perception of their careers.
Everyone has their own internal trade-offs. How much routine do you like: boring but safe? How much do you like travel: exciting but you'll be away from loved ones? How much do you care about earning more money: and taking a more boring/stressful/less fulfilling job? Whatever the outcome of all these swings and roundabouts along with many more, the reason that deciding what to do with your life is so difficult is that it involves predicting the future.
There's many reasons why it seems we should be good at prediction what we want. If I know that I'm enjoying what I'm doing now, then I should enjoy it in the future shouldn't I? On top of this I've got years of experience building up a set of things I like - cinema, books, sitcoms - and things I don't like - trips to the dentist, severe embarrassment and flu, especially not all at the same time. If I've got this huge bank of likes and dislikes it should be easy to predict my wants in the future. And yet, it seems we are often surprised by what the future throws at us.
Miswanting
"We are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future."
The idea of making mistakes about what we might want in the future has been termed 'miswanting' by Gilbert and Wilson (2000). They point to a range of studies finding we are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future. My favourite is a simple experiment in which two groups of participants get free sandwiches if they participate in the experiment - a doozie for any undergraduate. One group has to choose which sandwiches they want for an entire week in advance. The other group gets to choose which they want each day. A fascinating thing happens. People who choose their favourite sandwich each day at lunchtime also often choose the same sandwich. This group turns out to be reasonably happy with its choice.
Amazingly, though, people choosing in advance assume that what they'll want for lunch next week is a variety. And so they choose a turkey sandwich Monday, tuna on Tuesday, egg on Wednesday and so on. It turn out that when next week rolls around they generally don't like the variety they thought they would. In fact they are significantly less happy with their choices than the group who chose their sandwiches on the day.
Prediction failure
This variety versus sameness is only one particular bias that people display in making predictions about their future emotional states. There is another counter-intuitive bias emerging from the work being done in positive psychology. This looks at how people predict they will feel after both catastrophically bad, and, conversely, fantastically positive occurrences in their life. For example, how good would you feel if you won the lottery? Most people predict their lives will be completely changed and they'll be much happier. What does the research find? Yes, people are measurably happier after they've just won, but six months down the line they're back to their individual 'baseline' level of happiness.
So, in the journey from the sublime - predicting how we'll feel about winning the lottery - to the ridiculous - predicting which sandwiches we'll want for lunch - we are incredibly bad at knowing our future selves. And if we can't even decide what type of sandwich we might like next week, how can we possibly decide what type of job we'd like to be doing in twenty years?
With age occasionally comes wisdom. Over time we learn, whether implicitly or explicitly, that we are not that good at predicting the future. At the very least we begin to recognise it is a much less precise science than we once thought.
A stranger future
This means your future self is probably a stranger to you. And, on some level, you know it. That's why it might be hard for an 18 year old to choose their career, but it's a damn sight harder for someone in midlife when limitations have been learnt.
"People begin to understand that the future holds vanishingly few certainties..."
This might seem like just another way of saying that people get more cautious as they get older, but it is more than that. It's actually saying that it's not caution that's increasing with age, but implicit self-knowledge. People begin to understand that the future holds vanishingly few certainties, even for those things that would seem to be under our most direct control, like our sandwich preferences. Best guess beats careful planning
The argument about miswanting applies to any area of our lives which involves making a prediction about what we might like in the future. Career planning becomes painful precisely because it's such an important decision and we come to understand that we have only very limited useful information.
The best strategy for career planning is this: make your best guess, try it out and don't be surprised if you don't like it. But for heaven's sake don't mention this in your interviews.
[Also see the aptly named 'chaos theory' of career planning that I've noted before.]
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ReferencesGilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2000) Miswanting: some problems in the forecasting of future affective states. In: J. Forgas (Ed.). Feeling and Thinking: the role of affect in social cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Labels: Career
63 comments
Hello,
Random question about the sandwiches: do the people picking their sandwich on the day get to see the sandwiches? I'd assume not, but hey, have to ask :-)
I've found time and time again that a well rounded life is a mix of planning and of no planning at all. I might fill some days to the brim with organization; others, I'll wake up and have nothing planned for the day. One helps me get things done, the other keeps me vital. It's all about balance.
Nice read. Reminds me of "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert.
Personally I like this post, really. And it would be better and more convincing if more support data could be added.
Hi Douglas, I'm afraid I don't have the study to hand, but I would guess both groups would have been either shown the sandwiches or not shown the sandwiches to make the comparison fair.
Hi Cui, it's difficult to provide supporting data for an article like this. Plus I'm deliberately trying to keep the academic content down compared to my other posts.
Thanks for your comments!
Nice reading. Congrats! For those who like the topic, there is this article by Herminia Ibarra: "How to stay stuck in the wrong career" which can also provoke interesting insights on career planning, if it still exists... anyway, it's also a good reading.
Hi,
Well, I agree, we do not know the future events in advance and hence may not be able to plan. But I guess, planning should encompass all the possible outcomes of the future event. Thats what planning is done for. Not to take care of events in a pre-definced sequence, but to be better able to handle events as and when they happen in the future. If we already know the events in the future, we need not plan. We plan to be in a better position irrespective of the occurance of the future events.
What say?
Hi Chetan, the point I'm making is that not only do you not know what's going to happen in the future, it's also difficult for you to predict your reaction to these future events. It's a double bind.
Thanks Rodolpho.
hmm true prediction cannot be made about whats going to happen next. but
we can have a long term goal lets say becoming a distinguished engineer from 15-16 years from now. Then have a few guiding principles use them whenever you are at an inflexon point. Just like going to north pole we dont know what will meet us next in our voyage but in long term we should be moving north :)
This is a terrific article! As someone who has spent years agonizing about my career choices and why I am unable to find a career that truly fits with my skills, interests, and passions (and earns me enough money to live on!), it is refreshing to get another perspective about this issue. I don't know if it will completely remove my anxiety or urge to plan as much as I do, but it is definitely food for thought! Thanks for posting!
Like the previous commenter, this post made me feel so much better about my state of mind regarding career planning! I even showed it to my mum!!
I have always tried to do whatever makes me emotionally healthy and satisfied at the period of life I'm currently in. If I recognise I'm not happy or getting my emotional needs met, I make an effort to change direction as much as I can in some part of my life, be it job, relationships or whatever.
I also feel like I change so much over the course of only one year, how can I possibly be expected to have a plan for the rest of my life!
Thanks Eleanor, Ella and Colonel Hell, I'm very glad you found the post useful.
I don't disagree with the conclusion but I have a question:
How will these people ever learn to shop for next week's family dinner if they don't practice "projecting" what will make them happy. Sure you can go to the store every day but that seems impractical.
While I agree with some aspects of your post, I would broadly disagree with your arguments and conclusions. As a career coach and counselor, I believe that while precise career planning is difficult, assessing someone's innate tendencies, aptitudes and more important one's compensation drivers about a career(money, status, recognition, work/life balance etc.) provide clear directions to one's career choices and simultaneously rules out some careers. For instance, Someone who has a great aptitude for people management and has the requsite skills and has average numerate skills will do very poorly as a financial analyst.
Both aptitudes and compensation drivers dont change much over time, though there are some shifts in emphasis over time.
I believe time spent on career planning is not only necessary but rewarding. It is never a one shot effort, but a continous on going affair
I'm reminded of John Lennon's lyrics from his song Beautiful Boy, "Life is what happens as we're busy making other plans."
Good that you brought it to focus and kicked off responses into group introspection.
Like to quote live examples. Boys in India today mostly go for a choice in IT career, simply because it is money and future seemingly assured at this point in time.
So to the basics. Bread, shelter and you know what. You need them through life. Need to secure them even better as you age. So it is actually a forced choice between what you like to do and what you have to do. And may be the trick of the trade is to learn to like what you have to do.
But I would say one should dare to incline more to the side of one innately likes to do and work towards money and security. After all you career can only sail by you accumulated domain expertise. So choose your ball park carefully. So would I think.
Those of us in technology would/should feel somewhat more comfortable with the unknown. If, twenty years ago, a psychic told me I'd be a Web designer I'd say "What the hell is that?!" But here I am, a Web designer.
Given the very fast changes that technology offers (and not always delivers), feeling ok with facing the unknown is something I'm coming to terms with.
Really great post.
The conversation you stirred up has been good too.
I am a 54 yr old with the mental freshness of someone at least 20 yrs younger. Have been working for close to 34 years and have tried my hand at a few careers mainly in banking. This article provides truths that I had been searching for and validates some of the beliefs that I had been reluctant to voice. After experimenting with a wide variety of career choices, am now reasonably happy with having become a consultant who helps IT companies and banks either in their own consultancy business or in bettering their processes or products. The message I get is stay focussed in the present and use every opportunity to live life well even if it is 'unplanned'. If you have idle moments use them to rest and rejuvenate yourself as life is cyclic and could become hectic again with "little time to stop and stare".
Thanks again to everyone whose posted comments on this story. I'm very happy to see this article resonating with you all. It's very interesting for me, and other readers, to hear different perspectives.
I'm sure it won't be long before I'm posting on a similar subject again as this area is close to many people's hearts, not least my own!
Hi,
I am a 19 year old Student At University, and am currently in my second year. This term i have been set an essay about what 'i wish to be' and 'how i need to get there'. As i feel i am in no way able to answer these questions fully yet, i found your post very helpful. If there is any new posts along these lines, please keep us informed. Thank you.
Thanks anonymous!
As someone who has led a largely unplanned life, let me throw in a few zingers. How do we get people seek education in difficult subjects like engineering, math, and playing the violin. Talking with twenty somethings who work at a retail store and can not think of anything else they want to do but "hang out" got me to thinking that maybe a little more career planning would help. The baseline problem in the US that I see can be summed up as too many lawyers, not enough engineers.
Nancy, you're right, some people would certainly benefit from a little career planning. It goes back to what Trent is saying in the second comment: it's all about balance.
I found this a really interesting read as a coach (including career coaching) of some thirty years standing. Of course it wouldn’t be sensible, or interesting, to rebut all of your comments and arguments, so I’ll limit myself to just a couple and hope to stimulate a discussion to the benefit of everyone.
Your first point against career planning seems to be that it’s impossible to predict the future and so you might as well just go with the flow. That’s actually terrific career planning in itself, because you’ve likely made a decision to utilise your natural abilities, interests, skills, experience, family background and desires in forging a career path, albeit you’ve done it in a pretty instinctive and intuitive manner.
Most good career coaches and counsellors would recommend that you took all of this information into consideration anyway. The difference is that they’d probably supply you with some structure in order to help you avoid the error described in your interview scenario of letting your ‘system’ self make the decision, and instead bring the self-evaluation into your conscious awareness so as not to allow your future to be determined by other people’s standards, values and diktats.
Still a good article though!
Stephen, thanks for you comment. Very interesting to read an experienced view on this.
You'll be glad to know I'm hoping to make amends for this article with a new section of my site dedicated to careers.
some great thought provoking stuff going on, well done, great to know I'm not alone in my struggle for career choice. The 'Power of Now' by Eckharte Tolle comes to mind. A must read if you can relate to the feelings/issues being discussed here.
Thanks Jay and thanks for the recommendation.
See Barbara Sher book, "Refuse to Choose". Discusses concept of a "scanner", one who can't decide on one thing to pursue. Does many things. Uses example of diVinci and Ben Franklin as pursuers of multiple strands. Continue to eat the sandwich, until you desire another, then change.
I found this article really interesting. I'm 36 now but I know that when I was 18 I had no idea what I wanted to do. In some ways I still don't.
All you can do is try. One thing I have found is that everything happens for a reason. So if you don't get a job you were hoping for or you don't get into your preferred course, don't despair. Your future may not be what you planned but it doesn't mean that it won't be as good as you hoped. The best jobs I've had have come out of the blue and I'm so glad that some of my plans became "unstuck"!
Love the post. It took a weight off my mind reading it and the implications are still sinking in :) FYI - I've just posted a couple of extracts from it on my blog: preferences, planning & guessing
I am a "Career Diverted Survivor" and I find this report very interesting, since I have had a tumultuous career path after doing all I could in high school and college to meet my career goals. It is a tough world out there, and I don't think the universities are preparing its graduates for the harsh realities of employment today where there is no security or stability for those who have worked hard to attain a viable career through proper planning.
Take a look at my blog and tell me if today you are doing what you planned to do when you left high school.
http://doyouhavecareerinsurance.blogspot.com/
Being an Indian, I would like to cut through the BS. Why does every Indian want to argue abt cutting it safe, I cant understand. You people dont ahve any idea what a "career" really means in true sense of the word..jazzing up theories makes no sense, and you cant speak for others for chrissakes! Take my example here! "Career Planning" and "playing the advanced hard core safety net preparations" has completely screwed my life over. I know most Indians would take up an IT or SAFE job rather than "assess" what they really wanna be..irrespective of what the hell they want to do because they are conditioned about taking the safe course through their lives. I went to an education counsellor, a well planned education test..and it was found I would excel in engineering and architecture. I didnt take up architecture because other counsellers dissected it again for its superficial values of money, return on investment and costs incurred during education. I would say my counselling led me to take engineering for that "oh my future so secure" IT job and ended up completely wasting MY TALENT, mY potential, my time and my money doing something that MY real self failed to resonate with. We are individuals and in this country noone realizes that they have the most power to guide their own career. I was doing very well as a sound designer eventually, when web design in a very prestigious school beckoned me. I thought that new sandwich is what I need, since im already so happy and doing good, i can maybe combine both and be "successful". WRONG again. here i am with a club sandwich filled with all kinds of stuff but wishing for the simple cheese sandwich of a sound career, when life was good!
There are people around you here to scare you into conformity all the time, but thanks to this post and other resources, im still not gonna give up till i know what im good at. Some people(well most in my country) can replace uncertainty for routine, I simply can't anymore..why? because Id rather be dead than devote my god given body with its talents to boredom.
Ranjit, thanks for your comment and I wish you all the best with your search.
"Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans" seems an apposite quote (John Lennon)
An interesting variation on the sandwiches experiment might be to tell some of the "planned" group that their choice isn't available on the day, thus mixing up planned with improvised choices ?
People don't know themselves at 18 far less their future self. And the sandwich analogy gives great insight into the psychology of the human being but I really don't think that its a good reference for how we select careers. "What am I going to eat today?" and "What job is going to make me happy in the future?" are very different questions although I agree with the article in that the answer is: "I have no idea... what does web development taste like today?".
Are you going to starve if you don't get turkey? No, you might decide the chicken is ok today. The ability to adapt plays a major role. Careers change, people change.
Parents, friends, and even the individual would rather have a sound mind arising from the false? safety net of careful planning than lose themselves in paranoia which may lead to procrastination or inaction.
Personally, I changed my career path in the middle of University but it wasn't due to not knowing myself or what I wanted for my future (my passion drove that from a very early age) but due to circumstances affecting me and limited choices at that time. You'll know when you are unhappy. The real question is... What are you going to do about it? It is an endless iteration that we naturally progress through unless happiness isn't what we're after or naturally inclined to look for. (heresy alert!)
Career planning is way too limited. Happiness planning may be a more valuable exercise since clearly, some people do not know what will make them happy far less, how to achieve it. In the end every destination needs directions unless you're already there.
I train careers advisers throughout the UK and it may suprise you that I agree with your argument. For nearly 20 years careers choice theory has recognised the complexity of choice, that intuition and seizing chance opportunity in the moment may be more effective than rational planning. Just type Planned Happenstance into a search engine and you'll find some useful career guidance sites that follow this approach
Wasim & L Hambly, thanks for your comments.
well as a 15year old girl. i find this post rather amusingg. i hate planning too. but i <3 sandwiches
-allina
Very interesting correspondence. When I was 18, I had a strong interest in psychology. But coming from a blue-collar family (no one had more than basic secondary level education), I was pressurised into taking a safe, white collar option, in finance. I detested it and wasted 10 of the best years of my life as a cog in a machine. Then I took my first degree and became a physical therapist. Now, at nearly 50 years of age, I'm training as a psychologist, and I've never been more fulfilled in my work. The moral is, at some level I did 'know' what was right for my future at the age of 18. The only sadness is that perhaps I've missed the opportunity to fulfill my potential. Follow your dreams, youngsters. Safety is a delusion anyway.
Chris.
Thanks for sharing your experience Chris. Good luck with your new career!
Attention catching article !
Recently when I had to submit my self-evaluation form, I was tempted to write 'Who cares!' for the question 'What do you intend to be after 5 years from now?' But because my superiors may think I was trying to be a little aloof, I wrote up some thing sexy that didn't make sense to me...
Fine....I am not a great planner now. Well...I was a few years ago. Back home in India, I taught to graduate students and I really really wanted to continue to teach, until I have my priorities changing (with out my control) and they pushed me to the US to live an alien life with my husband. 4 years have passed and I am still not been able to pursue my passion - teaching due to half a dozen genuine reasons.
Now I am with a Federal Government firm as a Business Analyst. Have joined in the Oracle Financials stream, which I thought would add weight to my resume; little did I realize that my superior would have a surprise waiting for me - Informatica. Fine....I was a little upset, but had to obey him.
For the past 2 years, I have been expressing my interest in joining our CMMI team, but my boss asks me to wait, as he says, I haven't gotten the 'right' time ! hummmm....
Yeah...my husband and I has been planning to have kids and to my shock, I have been diagnosed of having Pulmonary Embolism and we had to postpone it by 2 years !! (of course this item is not related to 'Career Planning', but I wanted to mention it).
Now that I got used to NOT getting what I am wanting, I stopped to think about the future. Let the future plan for me, when I am not able to plan for it has been my attitude.
Yeah, our lives have become very fluid because of competition or peer pressure or health issues or something else. And the traditional planning what our grand parents used to do is no longer a winning strategy. We surely need several other criteria to come out with a better plan, but we are missing something....is that a Crystal Ball? :)
Jo, thanks for your comment - yes a crystal ball would certainly be useful!
See Barbara Sher book, "Refuse to Choose". Discusses concept of a "scanner", one who can't decide on one thing to pursue. Does many things. Uses example of diVinci and Ben Franklin as pursuers of multiple strands. Continue to eat the sandwich, until you desire another, then change.
I love what you are getting at here and it has come at a time in my life when I face several new decisions....glad to know I am not the only one who feels she cannot plan the next 5 years!
I've planned my next years! But I planned it because I discovered what I want to do. After several frustrating experiences in the corporate world (I hate the corporate world and the rat race and having to work for others) I discovered I want to run my own business! This is why I'm now working in the corporate world, have a good salary that enables me to save money and I plan in 2/3 years get out of this job for good and start my own business. I know that in the beginning it will be hard work, so I plan in 5 years have my business up and running.
Hi . . . While I'm shifting careers at 38, and not altogether very gracefully or smoothly, I keep thinking we're kind of misunderstanding this article and the studies it's referencing. First of all, miswanting isn't the same thing as prediction failure, right? I can't say one is the cause & one is the effect . . . I don't know enough to say that . . . they are related but not synonymous. Is this right?
I don't think career planning or counseling is presented as wholly negative unless you believe the career you choose via these methods WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY. That's the key. It might make you some money, might give you some status, more choice, etc (and it might not, of course), but the studies suggest what those things likely won't do is make you happy -- and this is because those achievements could very well be examples of how we miswant (I want safety, I want variety, I want power, I want 3 weeks paid vacation, I want limited supervision and that will make me happy).
We are falsely predicting that the results will make us happy. And that's because we're poor at predicting what will in fact make us happy, AND our wants are based on these errors. Which brings us round to the close of the article: Experiment. Make hypotheses and test them. Discover and assess what you want and what makes you happy, instead of presuming a certain thing, job, or circumstance holds the secret to your happiness.
I read this article (and helpfully, too) as saying that it's not what we do to get there (counseling, education, etc), but what we're thinking about the results of these efforts that we should bring more scrutiny & less certainty to.
CLH, Carla, Anon, Articles, thanks for your reflections on this article.
Its disturbing when an analogy is made between sandwich picking for a week and a career choice for years to come, which entails training and or school. *shudders* I think it is best to have a plan and be disappointed than not have one and be a bum. "Hope for the best expect the worst." What could be done instead of planning when it comes to career choice.?
Our culture worships the idea that you can control the future, others, your health, butterflies on your finger (thanks Wayne Dyer) If you just really really believe it will happen! This fantasy is a cross between Tinkerbell and Success Theology. It appears to be a new kind of post-religious fundamentalism to me. It's practically a crime to admit that you didn't plan your day to the last minute, your kid's career too. "wo/man proposes, God disposes".
It's been proven time and time again over the last 10,000 years that modern civilization (i.e. working/paying for food/shelter, the evolution of a global community and away from the smaller tribes that worked for millions of years) doesn't work for us as a species. We can use all the psychology we want to try to accept the fact that most of us must spend the rest of our lives slaving away, but we'll still be denying what we really are: animal.
If you want to be "happy", forget everything you've been taught about the way you "should" live. Pick up 'Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn. And then just walk away.
Most recent Anon, yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at!
Illuminating article and well articulated. Those were all things I felt but would have had a harder time expressing, and an even harder time trying to back up with scientific proof! Thank you.
When I left teaching 21 years ago I guessed the general theme of my future career path would be somehow related to education and a love of learning.
Prof Edgar Schein's work on career anchors has been of some interest to me especially when an opportunity to begin making a mid life career adjustment beckoned a few years back.
As part of my annual performance review, I had to write out a "career plan". Reading this terrific article and the comments, I'm glad that my feelings about this are not isolated.
I started out my career as an entertainment journalist and am currently a project manager at a website. not the path I would have ever imagined when I started out 12 years ago.
Also, thinking about a career path in the context of the company you're in will always be limiting, as the ladder set out in front of you is basically your boss' job and his boss' job.
I'd agree that happiness planning and making sure you don't sell yourself out are probably more important than career planning.
Either that or "more money, less work" seems to be a good mantra.
Hi,
this is such an interesting little article and comments !
i have let myself fall into what i was good at and made the mistake of making my hobby in computing a career. i'm now studying psychology which i am loving along with being a mum.
i reccommend "who moved my cheese" its only a little book but SO mighty!!! cant remember who wrote it but i'll bet google knows !!
Claire.
"Continue to eat the sandwich, until you desire another, then change"
That's been my sentence since ever. Fortunatelly I discovered at an early age that human being change, that all things are impermanent and that security is an illusion!! That we don't want today the same things we want 5 years ago and that in 5 years I'll not want the same things I want today!
Why? Because I'll have more experience, more maturity, more knowledge about myself and I'll want diferent things that will make sense for me at the present moment! Companies love a person who plans a career because that will give them a sense of security, but that doesn't mean that's the way to go. Maybe you should have your own business and not being in a company in the first place?!
So let me continue eating my sandwiche for now...
Different interpretation on sandwich choosing. You know your likes and dislikes. But you don't know the quality of the sandwiches.
If you choose the sandwich for one day only, and you get it wrong (ie you don't like it), your choice affects one day only and you know more about the sandwiches so your next choice will probably be better. Very soon you will find the choice you want to stick with.
If you have to choose for a whole week/fortnight you don't put all your eggs in one basket. The rational, odds-based assumption is that you will get some days wrong and some days right. So you pick a variety.
Hello,
please have tryed the time planning or time management but, if you can add the table planning it would be very better.
thanks.
Omowunmi A.K
There are select few in this life who have the power and the resources to completley plan their career. The rest of us are just like fallen leaves in the wind.
It felt good to read this article. My husband has just left me because I teach my children myself. He feels they should be in school and I feel that school stifles their individuality...among other abuses. My husband is now trying to force them into school using the courts which is so distressing to me I am struggling to sleep at night. He asks me what my plans are for my children's future. I keep telling him that their career choice does not belong to me, that they will go down paths that are of interest to THEM not HIM, and that they are too young to have any idea now, at 11 and 14, what is going to be good for them when they are old enough...they just haven't enough experience to make an informed decision yet so why force them to make a bad one and wreck their educational experiences? He disagrees...not for any reason. He just disagrees because it is not the "done thing".
And for that he has left forever and is now trying to use the law to force me and my children into being what he wants us to be...insitutionalised, controlled, mindless and "normal". Damn him and damn ignorant crowd followers who can't accept that there might be anyone that would enjoy the freedom of thinking outside the box! But thank you for this article...it was great! xx
A wonderful article. Career Planning often ends up in just articulating the various career options available to children completing their schooling. More often than not these talks by professional counsellors leave them confused and unsure about the future. Having read this article I think I shall be in a position to help them make realistic career choices and look to the future with greater self confidence. Thanks again.
Career planning is not anything out of the ordinary in the history of mankind.Man from the beginning of time is engaged in planning and preparing,for issues at hand and those that are expected in the future.So people equip (by learning a trade/going to college etc) themselves in order to be resourceful if given the opportunity in the future.Only change is constant. Therefore, we have to continually move with time and all it demands of us.As for HAPPINESS, we have the ability to create it;there is no price in buying happiness,if it were so,the rich would have bought all there is of it.We may not know exactly where the plan may take us because of changes along the way..But we cannot give what we do not have.Carreer planning is NEVER a waste of time unless a person is given a very distinct TALENT...even at that you still need to plan the use of it,to your advantage. OBI-ONE