When we choose a profession, look for a job or think about changing the field of activity, we find ourselves at the point of choice. Many people get stuck in this state and cannot make a decision.
Elena Rezanova in the book “This is the norm!” tells why it is difficult to move from a place and how to help yourself.
Hidden filters
When making a choice, we are most often aware of only one search criterion. For example, “find a creative job.” But in fact, the solution goes through many hidden filters. What? Most people believe that what they are looking for is recognized at first sight, will be something new, always brings pleasure, turns out quickly, is understandable to others, is financially predictable, and is decomposed into understandable steps.
This approach is dangerous. Under the action of hidden filters, the task becomes unsolvable. For example, the desire to find a creative job is transformed into “I want a creative job that will be different from everything I do now, and my heart will skip a beat when I find out about it, everything will be easy to do, bring pleasure, good money and all the path will be visible from the beginning.” At the start, not a single idea will leak through such a strict selection.
Insight or hypothesis testing?
The search for the right answer is often associated with insight and an explosion of emotions. Recall similar stories about finding a calling. The person felt sadness and longing (“I’m not in my place”), then met with a dream (“I was pierced”), then made a decision and felt the fullness of life (“ready to move mountains”). But there are other examples: when at first you feel: “This is it!” – and you experience an explosion of emotions, but in the end you make a mistake.
Insights are good, but don’t take them as definitive answers. They only indicate the possibility. For a hypothesis. And they need to be treated as a hypothesis – that is, to test it. Use the principle that underlies the testing of startup ideas: “fail fast, fail cheap.”
Main risk
What is the biggest risk at the point of choice? Many answer: turn the wrong way. But in fact, the main risk is to linger on the spot. Why? There are four reasons.
What about the risk of taking a wrong turn? It is huge if you make a choice from the paradigm “once and for all” and “this is the true calling.” And it is minimal if you understand that at the point of choice you are not looking for ready-made answers, but only testing hypotheses.
When there is no hypothesis
If you don’t have any hypotheses yet, and being at a crossroads is unbearable, try two techniques. They will help to take action when there are no guidelines and assumptions.
Technique 1. “Anti-target”
Let’s go the other way: what don’t you want? Make a list for this or that time horizon: what you do not want, say, in five years. For example: “I don’t want to work as an ordinary employee in five years without interesting trainings”, “I don’t want work to interfere with enjoying life and travel”, “I don’t want to communicate with the same boring colleagues and feel locked in this working nook”.
These are also guidelines. Only they work the other way around: not K, but OT. Look closely at the answers: they contain clues. You just need to turn the negative descriptions 180 degrees. Do not want to be left without interesting trainings – go to the training. If you don’t want work to interfere with enjoying life and travel, plan a trip. It’s scary to lock yourself in the same circle of friends – find another one (besides your colleagues) or expand the existing one.
Anti-goals are not directly related to career. But they can become a point from which changes for the better are launched. You can get out of the vicious circle in the direction that is important to you. This is also an alternative to the hard choice.
Technique 2. “The Astronaut Way”
Chris Hadfield’s book The Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth has an interesting episode. In 1969, when the author was nine years old, he saw Neil Armstrong landing on the moon on TV. The boy passionately wanted to become an astronaut. But he did not know what to do: there was no educational program that he could get into, a manual that he could read, there was no one to even turn to with questions. I had to imagine what the future astronaut should do when he is only nine years old.
This example shows how a big, difficult goal helps a person right now. Even if it is rather abstract – for example, to become a great scientist. Or a successful entrepreneur. Until the choice finally crystallizes, the goal will prompt the first steps. For example, if you are aiming for an international career, English is required in any case. And while you specify the goal, start learning the language.
Many are trying to find themselves once and for all. But this is impossible. First, because the world is changing faster and faster. Secondly, because we ourselves are also changing – we do not have a built-in map of interests. Therefore, trying, making mistakes, finding something to your liking, being disappointed and starting the search again is normal.