So many people feel frustrated and annoyed with themselves because they don’t know what they want from their career. In today's episode I share:

• This is completely normal! There are probably more people who DON'T know what they want than who do know.
• Embracing career uncertainty lets you embrace personal growth and change.
• The idea that people must have a singular passion to achieve career satisfaction is misleading.
• The notion that career clarity is an ongoing process that requires continuous reflection and adjustment based on our evolving circumstances and values

About Nicola Semple

I help people to build their career confidence and achieve their career goals.

You can book a free no-obligation chat about how I can support you to achieve your career goals: https://nicolasemple.com/chat

You can get my free guide "Back Yourself: Your 7 Step Plan to Build Confidence and Achieve Your Career Goals": https://nicolasemple.com/backyourself

You can buy my book The Career Confidence Toolkit: Take Control of Your Career and Fulfil Your Potential: https://nicolasemple.com/book

Connect with me on Linked In to carry on the conversation: https://linkedin.com/in/iamnicolasemple

A new episode of The Career Confidence Podcast is released every second Friday. Hit the subscribe button and you will be the first to know when a new episode goes live.

Foreign welcome to the Career Confidence Podcast, where we share inspiring stories, practical strategies, hints and tips so that you build your career with confidence in this ever changing world.

I'm your host, Nicholas Semple, a career and confidence coach and author of the Career Confidence Toolkit.

Today, I want to address an issue that I see coming up time and time again.

When I'm having conversations with potential clients, I'll be talking to people and they will be frustrated and and even annoyed with themselves and possibly even think there's something wrong with them because they don't know what they want from their career.

And I'm guessing that if you saw the title of this podcast episode and you decided to listen to it, that you might be feeling the same way as well.

Maybe it's creeping up on you when you've got a quiet couple of minutes, or maybe it crops up on a Sunday evening, you're preparing for the week ahead and you're thinking, I really do not want to do this.

Or maybe it's when you're sitting in meetings, you look at the people around the table or in the Zoom Room and you think, this isn't how I want to spend my time.

But equally at the same time, you've got no idea what else you could be doing.

Now, when potential clients share these frustrations, I always reassure them, and I hope today that if you resonate with these feelings of just not knowing what you want, that I can reassure you too.

Because that feeling of not knowing is completely normal.

In fact, I would bet there are far more people in the world who who don't know what they want rather than do know.

If you look around you, either online or in the real world, you'll get the impression that most people have it all figured out.

You see the polished LinkedIn profiles, the posts about the career pivots, the success stories about people who always knew what they wanted to do.

And then you assume you're the one that's the odd one out for not knowing.

But the truth is, most people are just as confused as you.

Probably other people think that you have it all figured out, but what's going on is that everyone is just hiding how they really feel.

We've been sold this story that successful people always know where they're headed.

Every January, they sit down, they create their vision board, they select their word of the year, and then if you don't know exactly where you're headed, you are doomed for failure.

And not just failure in terms of your career, but failing personally as well.

And that's just not true.

And not only is it just not true, it is harmful because it makes perfectly normal career uncertainty feel like, feel like a personal feeling rather than just a natural part of being human.

Because the thing is, careers are messy, careers are non linear.

Our careers are shaped by the opportunities that unexpectedly crop up.

If you look back over the course of your career, what are the opportunities that have come up for you that you could never have imagined, but still they've allowed you to develop, they've allowed you to grow, they've allowed you to acquire skills that you would never have considered when you were starting out.

And when we were starting out, most of us started out based on very limited information.

We chose our university course when we were 18 and we really had no real life experience at that point in time.

And then we probably took our first job based on what was available.

We applied for graduate roles and we took what we could get, we took what paid decent money.

And at the time it seemed very impressive, not just to us, but to other people as well.

Then we get into those roles and we got busy, we got stuff done, we delivered what was asked of us, we bought houses, we paid mortgages, we raised families, and before we knew it, we were several decades into careers that we had never consciously chosen.

And at the moment, the world is developing at such a ridiculous speed that we have no idea what jobs are going to be available, even in five years time.

So with all of that in mind, heaven earth, can we be expected to have this beautifully crafted career vision that we're supposed to be working towards?

If you have achieved a degree of success in your career, then feeling this uncertainty is going to feel really isolating.

You're good at what you do, you earn decent money.

From the outside, everything looks fine, it looks like you've got it sorted, but you still feel like something's missing.

And this is where success can become its own trap.

Because the better you get at something, the more invested you become in continuing along that path.

The higher your salary climbs, the more lifestyle commitments you've got, the more expertise you develop, the scarier it feels to consider what your alternatives might be.

You might even be starting to feel like you should be grateful for what you have.

And yeah, you should be grateful for what you have.

But it doesn't mean that questioning whether you want to stay on this career path makes you ungrateful or selfish, or that you're having a midlife crisis.

What I have learned from working with so many people in this position is that when you're feeling that uncertainty when you have success that is out of alignment, it is utterly exhausting, because being good at something doesn't necessarily make it fulfilling.

And having financial security, that means you spend most of your waking hours doing work that sucks your soul.

That isn't security at all.

In the past, people had clearer, well, they had clearer views of their career path, but they'd a much more limited view of what was possible for them.

You would choose your profession, you'd stay in it, and then you'd retire and get your pension.

So career uncertainty in those days was largely about which path to choose, making sure you got onto the right path, not whether the path that you'd chosen was the right one for you.

But the world that we live in is much more complex.

We've got industries evolving right before our eyes, new roles are being created constantly, and this concept of a job for life has totally disappeared.

So we are now expected to continuously upskill, adapt, reinvent evolve and move forward.

And at the same time that all of that's going on, we have got access to more information about almost every career imaginable than we ever had in the past.

We can see what other people are doing on LinkedIn, we can even go onto Glassdoor and find out how much they're earning.

And then through social media, we're getting a window into how happy people are with the lives that they've created.

All of these options, all this information can be absolutely paralyzing rather than being liberating.

And rationally, I can tell you not to believe everything you see online, because people are only presenting what they want you to see rather than the full picture.

But that's, that's me telling you rationally.

But when you come across somebody you went to university with on LinkedIn and you see them jet setting around the world looking like they are having the time of their life, it's really hard to be rational about how you feel about it and then add into the mix what I think is a relatively new pressure.

And that's the pressure to find meaningful work, to have a career that contributes to something bigger than yourself.

And that's the message that's constantly being fed to us.

Our work needs to make an impact.

Why settle for anything else?

With all of that going on, it is no wonder that so many people feel confused about, about what they actually want.

I regularly work with people who from the outside, appear to have their career completely sorted.

I work with senior managers, directors, entrepreneurs, really respected professionals in their fields.

They look like they have it all together, but in private they share remarkably similar struggles.

They feel like they're sleepwalking.

They can do their jobs well.

In fact, often they are excellent at their job, but they don't feel any spark of enthusiasm or engagement.

They wonder what's happened to them.

What happened to the dreams and the interest they had when they were younger, before things like mortgage payments and family responsibilities kicked in?

They look at other people's career success stories and wonder why can't they figure out what they're passionate about?

And they feel guilty.

They feel guilty for not being happy with what they've got because they should be grateful for what they've achieved.

And then they worry that they're too old, too established, too financially committed to make any significant change.

If any of this sounds familiar, please know you're in good company.

These feelings are not a sign of failure.

They're just a sign that you're human.

One of the most damaging myths about career satisfaction is that we all have this one true passion that we're waiting to discover.

And once we find it, our work's going to feel effortless and will always feel fulfilled.

But the follow your passion narrative puts a huge amount of pressure on people to find out what this true calling is.

And then I think that makes that normal feeling of career uncertainty feel more like personal failure.

Because the truth is more nuanced.

Passion usually develops through doing something and getting good at it, not the other way around.

Most people become passionate about work they're good at, that gives them a good level of challenge, and that aligns with their values.

It's not that they're passionate about something that they're mysteriously drawn towards.

It means that when we think about career satisfaction, it's less about finding this one unicorn predetermined passion, and more about creating the conditions where you're engaged in work that you enjoy.

And that gives you a real sense of satisfaction.

So I want to encourage you to really get clear on this.

It is completely okay not to know what you want from your career.

The uncertainty that you feel isn't a problem that needs to be solved quickly as possible.

It's a natural state of being.

And actually it is such a useful place if you can learn to work with it rather than work against it.

Because if you feel uncertain, it means you're paying attention.

It means you haven't settled for good enough.

When you know that more might be possible for you, it means you're still growing, you're still evolving as a person.

What we're not looking to do is completely eliminate the uncertainty.

It's about becoming comfortable with what that uncertainty is telling you and taking small steps forward to help you figure out what it is that you do want.

So just to reiterate, and I really want, I really want to get this message across.

If you're feeling stuck in career uncertainty, you do not need to have all the answers before you start moving forward.

In fact, you are going to find much more clarity through taking action and experimenting rather than just thinking about things and analyzing things.

And I always say this to the clients I work with.

The exploration and the unpacking that we do in our sessions is absolutely vital.

But what's even more vital is for them to go away and take action in between our sessions.

I want them to become much more aware and learn about themselves.

And you can do this too as a starting point.

Just pay attention on a daily, on a weekly basis as to what energizes you in your current role.

What are the tasks, the meetings, the opportunities that you find yourself looking forward to?

What is it that makes you lose track of time?

What are the bits of the work that other people say to you?

You've done a really great job there and you feel that too.

Then notice what drains you when you look in your diary.

What are the meetings that you dread?

What are the tasks or the responsibilities you've got that you absolutely can't stand?

What's the bit of your role that makes you feel like you are slowly dying inside?

All of this is giving you data.

Data and information that you can use to figure out what you want to come next.

Also think about what's important to you.

Your values.

What matters to you beyond just earning money?

Is it helping others develop?

Is it being able to be creative?

Is it about having variety in your work?

Get really honest with yourself and identify those things that are important to you.

And also you need to think about your constraints and think about them honestly, but don't let them become an excuse for not doing anything.

So yeah, I know that you we all have financial responsibilities, but what exactly are those responsibilities and what flex might you have with them?

What trade offs are you willing to make and what are your non negotiables?

And remember, career clarity isn't a destination that you reach and you stay there forever.

It's an ongoing process.

It's working out or first of all it's paying attention to what's working and what isn't.

And then working out.

What are the small adjustments you need to make to move in a direction that is going to make you happier.

So if you've got this far and you've been listening and you think, yeah, that sounds like me.

If you would value a conversation about how I can support you to start to get the answers you need to move forward, then book in some time to chat nicholasimple.com chat I always say to my clients, I don't have a magic wand.

I can't miraculously help you identify this perfect career path for you, and you're going to follow that from now until the end of your career.

But what I can do is help you unravel the spaghetti in your head.

I can help you identify the things that are important to you so that you can move forward.

I can help you identify what your next steps should be.

And crucially, I can hold you to account so that you're still not sitting here in 12 months time thinking, why does everybody else have their career figured out apart from me?

So that's all from me for today.

I've got some great episodes lined up over the next few months, so be sure to hit the subscribe button on your podcast app of choice and then those episodes will be delivered straight to your device when they become available.

Remember, you can buy my book the Career Confidence Toolkit on Amazon, where it's available in paperback, Kindle and Audible formats.

And if you'd like to keep in contact, be sure to download my free guide Back seven Step Plan to build confidence and achieve your career goals.

And you can get that by going to nicholas semple.combackyourself as well as getting instant access to the guide.

I'll send you my fortnightly newsletter with Career confidence hints and tips.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you again very soon.

Bye for now.