Start with your mindset when choosing career

In response to my first post in the series of career selections SEE LINK  , I received interesting feedback via comments , emails and discussions I had with people. It alerted me that people seem to put quite a lot of emphasis on the various assessments offered for career guidance but yet don’t seem to see it beneficial.

When I was 21 years old, after my army duty, my dad made it clear that I will have to study in a university. I had no idea what and where and was extremely muddled. It was decided that I will do an assessment with a professional guidance counselor. I remember the long and excruciating assessment. I had to fill in a long questionnaire followed by a cumbersome interview. After long hours in his office, I left with one message: “I can do anything I put my mind to”… I was still confused about the path to take.

Carol Dweck, a professor from Stanford University and the author of “Mindset” has dedicated years of research onto people’s belief in their abilities and talents and how it affects which paths they choose to take in life. She demonstrates that what matters most is our mindset. There are two types of mindsets: people with the fixed mindset where they believe that we were born with our abilities and talent and there is nothing that can be done to change it and people with growth mindset who believe in their ability to grow and learn from mistakes rather than seeing those mistakes as failures.

How are this types of mindsets linked to selecting your career path? I believe there is a strong connection between what you believe you can do to the path you choose. Adopting a growth mindset would help you with choosing a path that may be more difficult to pursue but at the end, more fulfilling. Having a mindset that failures are perceived as opportunities will ease your choice process towards your own development.

I wish I understood this when I did my own assessment. I would have understood the advice given to me better. Anyone at any time can adopt the growth mindset. We should start embedding this mindset into our schools from an early stage.

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