This is a tricky area when we talk about how much you should be planning in your career, especially in regards to students. Is it worthwhile putting in a whole lot of work early to find that you would much rather do something else?
The question is, how much can you actually know about yourself years down the line? This article explores career planning and why you’re probably going to get it wrong [if you haven’t already].
The idea of making mistakes about what we might want in the future has been termed ‘miswanting’ by Gilbert and Wilson (2000). They point to a range of studies finding we are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future.
In the end the best we can do is guess and hope for the best. However, this could get tricky when trying to recruit students for longterm learning professions like medicine.
Of course, the reverse may be true also: that people shy away from certain opportunities because they think it’s not them, particularly them after a few years of doing it.
Should career counselors chill out?
Why Career Planning Is Time Wasted – [PsyBlog]
