While reading this post a few days ago I became uncomfortably aware of the fact that I made a huge ongoing mistake over the last couple years by letting myself not put in a lot of effort into developing and improving my personal career plans. On some level I’ve known this for a while, but this post made me face this truth more directly than I had done previously.
During this period I often outright avoided thinking about my career plans even though I knew that making better career plans was perhaps the most important way to increase my expected impact. I think I avoided thinking about my career plans (and avoided working on developing them as much as it would have been best for me to) in part because whenever I tried thinking about my career plans I’d be forced to acknowledge how poorly I was doing career-wise relative to how well I potentially could have been doing, which was uncomfortable for me. Also, I often felt clueless about which concrete options I ought to pursue and I did not like the feeling of incompetence this gave me. I’d get stuck in analysis paralysis and feel overwhelmed without making any actual progress toward developing good plans.
It feels embarrassing to admit this, but for many months over the last few years I failed to make much or any progress on developing good career plans for myself. I should have reached out for help, even by saying something as simple as “I haven’t been making nearly as much progress on developing my career plans as I should be, and I think this is mostly because I haven’t been taking many actions that I probably should be taking. I’m not sure whether I just need some external accountability to help with my motivation or if there’s something else that’s holding me back, but in any case I clearly haven’t solved this myself and don’t expect to solve it myself anytime soon, so I likely need help from someone in order for me to make a lot of progress soon.” Instead I did not admit this to people whom it would have been helpful for me to admit this to. I was afraid to be seen as incompetent. The conversations I had with others about where I was at with figuring out my career plans were superficial and did not help get me out of my pattern of unproductivity. If I had been more honest with myself about what I was failing at and why, I probably would have made a lot more progress on developing my career plans a lot sooner, which would have increased my expected impact in expectation, perhaps by a large amount.
Your post helped me admit a lot of things along these lines to myself and I think it will help me to not neglect putting in work (including asking for help when I need it, even if it’s uncomfortable for me to do so) to improve my career plans in the future. So thank you very much for writing this and sharing it.
This comment made me very happy! If you think you would benefit from talking through your career thoughts with someone and/or be accountable to someone, feel free to get in touch.
While reading this post a few days ago I became uncomfortably aware of the fact that I made a huge ongoing mistake over the last couple years by letting myself not put in a lot of effort into developing and improving my personal career plans. On some level I’ve known this for a while, but this post made me face this truth more directly than I had done previously.
During this period I often outright avoided thinking about my career plans even though I knew that making better career plans was perhaps the most important way to increase my expected impact. I think I avoided thinking about my career plans (and avoided working on developing them as much as it would have been best for me to) in part because whenever I tried thinking about my career plans I’d be forced to acknowledge how poorly I was doing career-wise relative to how well I potentially could have been doing, which was uncomfortable for me. Also, I often felt clueless about which concrete options I ought to pursue and I did not like the feeling of incompetence this gave me. I’d get stuck in analysis paralysis and feel overwhelmed without making any actual progress toward developing good plans.
It feels embarrassing to admit this, but for many months over the last few years I failed to make much or any progress on developing good career plans for myself. I should have reached out for help, even by saying something as simple as “I haven’t been making nearly as much progress on developing my career plans as I should be, and I think this is mostly because I haven’t been taking many actions that I probably should be taking. I’m not sure whether I just need some external accountability to help with my motivation or if there’s something else that’s holding me back, but in any case I clearly haven’t solved this myself and don’t expect to solve it myself anytime soon, so I likely need help from someone in order for me to make a lot of progress soon.” Instead I did not admit this to people whom it would have been helpful for me to admit this to. I was afraid to be seen as incompetent. The conversations I had with others about where I was at with figuring out my career plans were superficial and did not help get me out of my pattern of unproductivity. If I had been more honest with myself about what I was failing at and why, I probably would have made a lot more progress on developing my career plans a lot sooner, which would have increased my expected impact in expectation, perhaps by a large amount.
Your post helped me admit a lot of things along these lines to myself and I think it will help me to not neglect putting in work (including asking for help when I need it, even if it’s uncomfortable for me to do so) to improve my career plans in the future. So thank you very much for writing this and sharing it.
This comment made me very happy! If you think you would benefit from talking through your career thoughts with someone and/or be accountable to someone, feel free to get in touch.
William, I just want you to know that it’s really great that you’re going to have more impact by thinking through your career plans. Good luck!
I relate to what you wrote a lot, thanks for sharing.