Overwhelmed by My Lack of Career Readiness
My second year of University began with me being overwhelmed by the belief that there were very few career options available to me and that in the future, I would simply settle for whichever option seemed to be the easiest.
My perceived lack of options was a result of seeing myself as less able to cope with the workload of University in combination with the fact that I had very little job experience whilst everyone else seemed to already be taking the first steps up the ladder of their careers. I have always assumed that I was behind by peers in terms of knowing what I wanted to do and knowing how I need to get there. It seemed to me that whilst everyone else knew exactly what they wanted to specialise in and which of their strengths would lead them there, I was left struggling with no idea of what I wanted to do with no understanding of the strengths which would help in deciding the roles best suited to me.
It never occurred to me that other people might have the same issue as me in terms of not knowing what they wanted to do or that my current methods of negative reflection were placing a self-imposed limit on my goals and future choices. I never considered the fact that maybe my self-analysis was as a result of me not knowing where to start contemplating my options or not knowing what strengths or weakness would help to narrow down my search. I just assumed that being critical was helping me to be more realistic to help prevent any future disappointment of realising my current skill set was not suited to my goals.
After being asked to complete a self-reflection questionnaire by my University I realised it was down to me to determine which path I wanted to take, and it was up to me to reflect on what skills I was currently lacking to get myself there.
The questionnaire opened up a world of self-reflection which hadn’t been visible to me before, I have always over-analysed myself and my experiences but never in a way that was helpful to me. My previous self-criticism just made me lose any confidence I had in myself and my ability and made me believe I would never amount to the achievements of my peers. Turning this self-criticism into something more positive and productive has enabled me to assess my own skills (specifically digital capability and communication) and use these to widen my options for the future. I am now fully aware that even if my current skills are not necessarily at the level I want them to be at, I can continuously work to better myself and provide different career options by expanding my skill set and my experience, this isn’t limited to my current ability but to how far I can push myself and progress towards where I would like my future self to be.