Finding our way
I do not like getting lost—the feeling of not knowing where I am. I suppose this is why I asked for a GPS for my birthday. And not just any GPS, but one that I could turn to when feeling lost and say, “Where am I?”—and “it” would tell me. I also wanted to be able to ask for directions from where I was to where I wanted to be. I didn’t realize just how easy it was going to be to find a device to conquer my fears of not knowing where I am or where I am headed—that dreaded feeling of losing my bearings.
My friend, on the other hand, loves to explore and would find a GPS rather restricting. “How would I discover the unexpected places, she asked?” She is a wanderer who finds her way by exploring. She may have a destination in mind, but at the same time allows her curiosity to lead the way.
There are other people who feel lost without their GPS devices to guide them. Recently I was teaching a class in the Silicon Valley. As we were breaking for lunch, I handed out “maps” showing nearby cafes and restaurants. Two of the students (who perhaps not surprisingly were engineers) took one look at the map and exclaimed (almost in horror), “There are no street addresses on the map! What are we supposed to type into our GPS devices? How will we find them.”? I took them to a window and pointed across the street, “You will find them.”
Thinking about GPS devices, directions and destinations, lead me to thinking about work.
How we figure out what we want to do and finding the place where we can do it—and, of course get paid for what we do. Some of my clients are like me. They are uncomfortable not knowing the answers. It makes them feel lost—unsure about where they are headed. They have a need to have a picture of the destination, as well as the route to travel in advance. Others are more like my friend—the explorer. They have a notion of what they want to do and that is enough to get them started. They enjoy exploring and experimenting and discovering the career neighborhood where they can feel “at home.” Then there are the clients who see the process in terms of its perceived linearity—literally going from “a to b”. Time is not to be wasted on side trips or inefficient routes.
These differences show up in the work we do together, and as a career counselor it is my job to make sure that I do not offer a GPS to a wanderer, or give imprecise information to those who do not leave their house without their GPS devices. But it is also my job to help clients feel comfortable going in another direction—and even temporarily being directionless. Like me, many will feel uncomfortable at first—not knowing. It takes practice to break our habits—our customary ways of navigating through life. But, if we do not figure how ways to take a different look at things, we will be stuck doing what we do—being where we are.
… a career counselor might make the journey easier.