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On my KALW-FM (NPR-San Francisco) radio program, listeners call in for help with a career problem. Here are two calls from today's program that may be of particular interest to Psychology Today readers:
CALLER 1: My name is Kieran. I’ve been an animator and graphic designer but I’m 47 and feeling options drying up and also want more work-life balance.
MARTY NEMKO: Two options: It’s a young person’s game so you could decide to make one last big push to get more skilled and/or to land a job. Or you could say, I need a radical change.
C: A radical change. I say that with some regret because I haven’t given it my all, but I’d have to hustle constantly.
M: So is it fair to say you’re just not that driven?
C: I’m feeling guilty about it but it’s true. Maybe I’d work harder if I had a job target that I knew could make me a good living.
M: Okay. I’ll say two careers and you simply tell me which feels better. That will, like the game hot-and-cold, get us closer and closer to a wise-choice career. I’ll choose careers quite different from graphic design—not corporate communications or some such-- since you say you want more than a small pivot. Maybe we’ll come up with something you never would have thought of.
C: Great.
M: Would you rather sell insurance or be a high school teacher?
C: High school teacher
M: High school teacher or Uber driver?
C: High school teacher
M: High school teacher or psychologist.
C: Psychologist.
M: Psychologist or human resource person.
C: Psychologist.
M: Psychologist or financial advisor?
C: Definitely more suited to psychologist. I’m bad with money and I like the idea of helping people.
M: Now let’s create a Kieran meter: O means the career makes you puke, 10 means it gives you ecstasy. The idea of being a psychologist scores a what?
C: A 3.
M: What keeps it from being a 10?
C: I don’t want to go back to school.
M: So, so far, we’ve learned that you want to help people but don’t want to go back to school.
C: Right.
M: Do you want to work in a home, office, or outdoors?
C: Outdoors, related to movement.
M: Movement is a new piece of the puzzle. Tell me about that.
C: Getting up and out can release psychological pain.
M: There are outdoor schools and camps for troubled youth. Also, organizations take corporate employees into the wilderness for personal growth. Do either feel like possibilities?
C: . I don’t like the idea of working for a corporation but personal growth or healing would be awesome.
M: So how does this feel: Investigate those schools and camps, and programs like Outward Bound and those that help often-troubled people rebuild streams and trails, and so on?
C: Sounds good. Great.
M: Especially since you say you’re not driven, your motivation to pursue this has a one-day half-life. If we were in Vegas and could bet whether, right after we get off the phone, you'd start that investigation, should we bet on you?
C: Yes.
M: Call back and let me know how it goes. Will you?
C: Yes. Good deal.
*****
CALLER 2: I’m a newspaper reporter and have always been a procrastinator. It started in school but I could get away with it then.
MARTY NEMKO: Right. Schools, with grade inflation, turn people into procrastinators. Because you waited until the last-minute, the adrenaline got triggered and fueled you, and even though you crammed, lo and behold you got a good grade. So you knew you could procrastinate until the adrenaline kicked in and you'd be okay. You became addicted to adrenaline.
C: That’s part of it but also there’s anxiety I have, especially with a long-term project, like if I have to write an article on low-income housing. I never feel I know enough so I just get paralyzed and then wait until the last-minute when I end up doing a bad job. Or I get started but life or a smaller projects intrude.
M: Do you think this would work? As soon as you get a long assignment, force yourself to start it immediately, maybe even blocking out a whole day or two right then to knock out a first draft and if life intrudes, so be it, but when later, each time you get a spare ½ hour or hour, you make the project top priority.
C: It sounds good but my anxiety also gets in the way. I get overwhelmed and take a break. I end up taking too many breaks or do something less important.
M: So at that moment of anxiety and you feel you need yet another break, is it that because the work feels too hard?
C: Yes. I feel I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know the topic well enough. I feel like a fraud.
M: Is that an accurate perception?
C: Probably not. I do know enough to write the articles.
M: Unless you’re doing something as black-and-white as 2+2, it's never completely clear whether you’re doing a good-enough job—especially in journalism in which you’re not the content expert. Do you need accept that lack of certitude as part of life, especially as a journalist?
C: Yes, I think so.
M: Then, maybe that's the package: Go into projects with the a mindset that says while your expertise is imperfect, you know enough or could learn enough in a reasonable time to do it. Then, start the project as soon as assigned so you have maximum time to do a quality job and then, if other tasks and life intrudes, when you later have a chunk of spare time, you make the project high-priority. Does that like a set of tactics worth trying?
C: Yes, it’s a matter of execution. I have to write these down and keep them top-of-mind and do them.
M: Right.
