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Finally for today, a quick anecdote that highlights poor thinking about future careers. This happened when I was at college, when I was about 18.

A tutor was asking students what their aims were for their future working lives. One girl, who was very academic had very strong feelings. “I want to be either a lawyer or a doctor,” she said.

This is moronic. Those jobs are totally unrelated and the only things they really have in common is that they’re well-paid and highly respected. That’s all well and good, but you have to consider the work that you’ll be spending many thousands of hours carrying out. What is the nitty gritty?

That girl was just reacting to other people’s thinking. She hadn’t considered the matter at all herself.

This follows on from this morning’s post about whether you’re aiming to do the right thing. When you’re fresh out of college or university, it’s easy to leap into the first ‘good’ job that comes your way. A lot of people do this without for one minute considering that they might end up working in this industry for the next 40 years.

With so much at stake, surely it’s best to spend some time thinking about whether this is the right move for you. Chances are the right industry for you won’t be the first one you come across. More likely it’ll occur to you what you want to do after giving it a good amount of thought.

That thinking time might run into years.

Quite often people get so wrapped up with self improvement, they never actually ask themselves what they’re hoping to achieve.

People will go on courses and mumble on about ‘transferable skills’ without giving much thought to whether those skills will transfer to something they actually want to do. These people will often talk about ’skillsets’ as well, which is always annoying.

The point is that personal development isn’t a thing in its own right. It’s a means to an end. People will often acquire a whole range of skills and knowledge before finding that it’s only applicable to something they don’t even want to do and without enthusiasm, you’re nowhere.