I’ve said it plenty of times, but it’s true.  Job hunting?  It’s not so much fun.  First you have to worry about searching for a job (what if there are no jobs out there?), and then you have to worry about applying (what if I don’t hear back?).  If you’re lucky enough to get a call-back, you then have to worry about the interview (what if I say the wrong thing and they don’t hire me and I never get a job and I spend the rest of my life living in a box?)

(No?  Just me???)

Scarier than the prospect of not getting the job though can actually be GETTING the job – and then hating it.  Which leads me to the peskiest ‘what if’ of all:  what if I picked the wrong career?

The reasons why we pursue certain careers are almost limitless, but along the way, most of us will wonder if our reason was good enough. Maybe you picked your field because it’s what you always dreamed of doing when you were growing up.  Maybe you’re following in the footsteps of family members.  Maybe you happened to fall into it and found that, oh hey, this is kind of fun.  Maybe you ran out of time to pick a major and flipped a coin. Or maybe you’ve never known what path to choose and are still trying to figure it out.

Once you graduate – once you’ve spent all that money and done all that work and taken all those classes and spent so much time thinking about your future – it’s easy to feel as though you must follow through and find a career directly related to your area of study.  That kind of thinking though might end up keeping you from finding a career you’ll really love (just because you’ve never considered something, doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be great at it, right?).

I came across some wise words recently that finally snapped me out of my own rigid thinking – the thinking that says I should do this, or shouldn’t do that – which were that if you’re ever questioning which path to choose or whether or not you’re in the right field, you should ask yourself,

If I knew I couldn’t fail, what would I choose to pursue in life?

When it comes to planning for a career, nothing kills dreams faster than the fear of failure.  The fear that we might not be successful if we don’t land the great job, the high salary, the great benefits, the corner office.  If we don’t accomplish our goals, or end up where we’d hoped.  Faced with those insecurities, it’s natural to want to take the first job, or the easiest job, or the job that pays well but you have absolutely not one bit of interest in whatsoever (especially in an economic time when pretty much everyone is feeling insecure about their jobs).  If we remember, however, that we always have a choice to pursue the path we REALLY want (even if it won’t be easy), we’ll be one step closer to living the kind of lives that make us feel fulfilled. I think now is a pretty good time to take that step, don’t you?

As you start off the new year, think about how you’d spend your time if you knew you couldn’t fail. How would you approach your career (and the rest of your life, for that matter) differently?

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