Your Career is Your Life

In this article, I want to talk about my professional experience and the impressions I had when I observed my students' career planning. The 2020 YKS exam has been adversely affected by the pandemic this year. In addition to the uncertainties caused by the pandemic, a negative effect of the level of stress and anxiety occurred in the process that would normally tire students. With the announcement of the exam results recently, students and parents began a quick search and started planning for their preferences.

ARE WE THE ONES WHO CHOOSE OUR CAREERS or A TEST?

We start making decisions about choice of profession at a very young age. When we were young, we were all asked the famous question, ‘what will you be when you grow up?’’. While the answers to this question are the same in later ages, for some it has a constantly changing answer. But the sentence I have now heard from most of my students is:

- Teacher, where can I go on my undergraduate education with this result?

In other words, starting at 100,000, there are thousands of young people trying to draw their lifelines according to the ranking. However, this choice will cover their whole life and lead to a challenging life for them to continue a profession they cannot adopt. Unfortunately, many parents also share that stress and do not show an awareness for  their children in this choice, and perhaps a child who may be much more successful in a very different field will have an unhappy career after the wrong choice. So what I want students to do in this process is to make their choices under the supervision of an expert. Because the steps of the right choice system are as follows;

1- The practice of an occupational personality test,

2- Getting information from the student as to the department he wants to study, the city and why he wants to get information,

3- Learning the wishes and preferences related to the child from the parent,

4-Sharing the test result will be in the form of integrating them with the wishes of both parties and ensuring that the right choice is made.

So, it should be us, not the test that chooses our careers.

WHAT IS THE RIGHT CAREER, WHAT IS THE RIGHT PROFESSION?

One of the most important decisions we will take in our lives is to choose the right profession. Our chosen profession sets the path for our lifetime. In fact, our entire lives are shaped by the profession we do, even though we're not always aware of it. So, how can we choose the right profession? What should we pay attention to when choosing a profession? What should be our priority when deciding our profession?

TAKE THE FIRST STEP IN GETTING TO KNOW ABOUT YOU!

The first step in your chosen profession is not how it will bring you financial benefits but whether it will satisfy you.  A profession that you do not love will tire you spiritually and cause you to lose your life energy. The first thing you do is to know about yourself, to know your emotional and characteristic features. You should analyse what you like and what you don't like. If you are mobile, dynamic and social, how satisfying it can be for you to spend all day at a table? Or, if you have an introverted nature, how exhausting will it be for you in a profession that requires you to constantly intertwine with and communicate with people? Remember that you should choose your profession considering the person you are, not the person you want to be.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS THAT DISTINGUISH YOU FROM OTHERS?

Your strengths are the most important thing that separates you from others. If you need to choose a profession now ask yourself "What are my strong attributes?’’. Think about what you can do best or what you can do best. You can also ask this question to your surroundings. Objective comments from outside can reveal another strength that you are not aware of. Be sure that a profession where you prioritize your strengths will make you happier both in the short and long term.

WHAT SHOULD YOUR BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT BE LIKE?

What kind of environment would it be good for you to work in? What kind of environment increases your efficiency? That's another important issue that needs a good analysis. What happens if we choose a profession without knowing the business environment? First of all, your job will keep you in that environment for 8 hours. You will be expected to spend these 8 hours a lifetime in an environment that may be inefficient for you. As a result, you will most probably have adaptation problems and you will be unhappy with the outcome. The most important thing to do is to get help from your environment and to communicate with the individuals working in that professional group and to direct your questions to them in this sense.

THE PROFESSION OF YOUR DREAMS

Our dreams...

Our dreams that keep people alive and create the motivation at the source of their success…

The ages at which dreams are most established are childhood and adolescence. As people get older, they unfortunately stop dreaming. Research reveals that the vast majority of adults have stopped dreaming. The most important point in dreaming is that dreams belong to you. That should be the case with your profession. If your dreams about your career do not give you dynamics, if they do not create enthusiasm, I regret to say that you are a candidate to become an adult who has stopped dreaming.

Choosing the right profession should be done by blending dreams with reality. If you start by getting to know about yourself at the point of preference and combine all these I’ve mentioned above and come up with an outcome supporting your dreams, I guarantee that you will always be open to developments and innovations in this field and that you will find the strength to overcome any problems.

As Albert Einstein said, logic takes you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere …

Specialist Clinical Psychologist

Sümeyye Nursultan ÇIL