“What will I be when I grow up?” What to do if you are 30+ and still don’t know what business you like
There are lucky people who know from childhood who they will become, and there are people who cannot decide who they are. They are in an eternal search for themselves, trying one thing or another, but they can’t establish themselves in their choice, and this creates a lot of problems for them. What is behind this fear of self-determination?
Desire to avoid choice
In my youth, I was depressed by the idea that I needed to associate myself with some kind of activity. For me, it was tantamount to locking myself in a cage: “Am I supposed to be an accountant all my life? Or a psychologist? Or a marketer?
The world seemed like a smorgasbord with thousands of things to do, so why did I have to settle for just one? What if I like something else better? Or will something else turn out to be more profitable and monetary (thoughts from a later period)? Or I’ll make a choice, declare myself, say, a copywriter, and I’ll get tired of copywriting, what then?
The way out seemed to be the art of not tying yourself to anything, not calling yourself anything and not associating yourself with any profession.
Who are you, Mister Hobbit?
The first warning signal that the idea of not tying yourself to anything was a so-so idea came during my training in psychotherapy. We had to come up with a character, then break into groups and act out a fairy tale. Since I didn’t know what kind of fairy tale we would act out, I decided to become a hobbit. Why a hobbit? Because this is a universal character who can be bent this way and that, and who can easily be included in any fairy tale.
And now, feeling how smart I am and how great I came up with everything, I’m standing surrounded by a goldfish, a witch and other very clearly positioned characters. So what's going on? The plot of the fairy tale begins to bend precisely to them! After all, a goldfish can do nothing but fulfill wishes, and the fairy tale is forced to take this into account.
What can I say about the hobbit? The group members looked at me in confusion – an unknown animal with whom it was not clear what to do. In the end, they decided to make me a courier who would travel between the characters and convey news to them. That is, my character did not serve any useful function and was frankly superfluous, but one should not fire him from the fairy tale.
Then for the first time the thought crept into my mind that, perhaps, the option when you are all so flexible, universal and not tied to anything promises more problems than opportunities.
Table of men's tears
The second, no longer a bell, but an alarm bell, happened when my partner and I opened a cafe. We didn’t understand who we wanted to work for and worked for everyone: we offered dishes of Russian, European, Pan-Asian cuisine, draft beer, brewed coffee and made candy ourselves. What happens to an establishment when it doesn’t have a clear positioning? If you thought that he has no clients, then everything is much worse.
There are clients, they are just few, they are all different and want different things too. As a result, we had businessmen, alcoholics (there was even a table of “men’s tears”, at which men regularly cried), teenagers on roller skates, families with children, couples in love and frail middle managers. They all wanted different things (turn down the music, turn up the music, sit in silence, eat, get drunk) and looked suspiciously at each other. An extensive menu required keeping a bunch of products and freezing money in them. We lasted a couple of months and closed.
Once again, the idea of flexibility and versatility turned into a fiasco, this time tangible in monetary terms.
However, even understanding that you need to have a clear positioning and somehow decide in this life does not eliminate the problem that most people find it difficult to do this. Why is that?
Having to choose a side
A non-obvious point that often makes it difficult to decide is the need to choose a side and refuse everyone who does not fit into your choice.
This applies not only to profession or business, but to everything in general:
– your parents call you to help at the dacha, but you don’t want to, but you agree so as not to spoil the relationship;
– in business, it’s logical to focus on clients who pay well and can’t stand your brain, but you continue to grab onto everyone, because “what if I’m left without clients”;
– you are invited to a company where no one is interested in you, and you go, because “you can’t offend people.”
If you have difficulty with self-determination in the professional sphere (it is difficult to choose a profession, specialization, or clearly position your business), look at other areas of life, how are things going there? If it turns out that you are accustomed to adapting to others, putting their interests above your own, allowing them to lead you, then this is probably your universal strategy, and it is useful to ask the question, what value does it give you?
And although it happens in different ways, most often this strategy gives a feeling of security (real or imaginary – another question).
When you refuse to make a choice, other people make them for you. They decide how much to pay you, what companies to invite you to and how you will spend your weekend – at the dacha, at work or watching a movie that is boring for you
It sounds terrible, but this prospect is often more attractive than having to make a choice.
Firstly, due to the fact that it is difficult to feel dependent on someone else’s choice, the psyche defends itself. She either agrees with this choice or turns on the “I don’t care” mode.
Secondly, making a choice means inevitably getting screwed. Someone will definitely not like him, and conflicts will arise. From time to time it will turn out to be wrong, and everyone will point the finger and say: “Ugh, this person and I will not sit at the same table” (in our culture, by the way, it is much safer to do nothing than to do something less than perfect) .
Third, making a choice means accepting its consequences and paying the price. If the choice turns out to be unsuccessful, then there is no one to blame but yourself, and if someone else makes the choice, then you can blame him and consider yourself a victim.
Thirst for guarantees
Another thing that leads to choice paralysis is the desire for assurance that you have made the one and only right choice.
— If I choose this profession, will I definitely like it?
“If I start dating this person, are you sure he won’t break my heart?”
— If I choose this positioning in business, will it definitely attract me new clients?
— If I complete this training, will it definitely bring the desired result?
If you look closely at all these situations, the problem here is not the choice itself, but that the wrong choice will lead to suffering that is impossible to bear. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a problem – well, you made the wrong choice, recognized this fact, recorded the losses, and made the next one.
But if you know that a wrong choice is associated with incredible pain, you become very suspicious – you open the door, and either a million dollars or a tiger will jump out, is it worth opening it at all? However, since life is structured in such a way that you still have to choose, 3 strategies come to the rescue (all of them are pretty stupid):
Endless analysis. You are trying to conduct a meticulous analysis of the options and choose the best one. The problem is that you can't analyze a profession without working in it, or get to know a person without meeting him. As a result, real analysis is replaced by a cocktail of projections and rationalizations with a syrup of doubt and devaluation.
Let them choose for you. Another option is to completely eliminate the choice. Let your parents or friends choose a profession for you. You can get married not with the one you want, but with the one who showed interest in you and made the choice for you. In this case, you can blame circumstances for your failures: “I was unlucky,” “it happened that way,” “that’s my fate,” “it’s all my husband’s fault.” When others are to blame, one suffers less than when one is to blame. After all, it's about the circumstances, not about you.
Try it. This strategy is when you try a new business, but not seriously, but right up to the first difficulties. We got on a bicycle, rode 3 meters, fell and decided: “a bicycle is not my thing.” We were faced with a refusal to buy your product: “business is not my thing.” At the same time, a persistent conviction arises: “But I tried, why try again?”
It gets worse when you have the belief (conscious or not) that you have to hit the bullseye the first time, that there is only one right choice and all others are false. Then the stakes skyrocket, because you can’t make a mistake, and everything becomes very sad.
What to do if you're overwhelmed by choice paralysis? Technically, everything is simple. You need to learn to perceive the world as a huge sales funnel, where you need to make many attempts and face hundreds of refusals in order to get what you want (here I wrote about this in detail).
Another thing is that for most people this is impossible (at least immediately) precisely because they cannot bear the suffering that is associated with mistakes and failures. There are different strategies for transitioning from the state: “I can’t make a mistake and bear the consequences of my mistake” to the state: “well, I made a mistake and made a mistake, I’ll try again,” but more on them another time.
Incorrect settings
Another reason why it can be difficult to choose an activity is an idealistic idea of what “that true activity” should look like.
Attitudes from the series: “if the result is difficult, then you are doing something wrong”, “choose a job you like and you will never have to work a single day in your life” create false expectations that everything should be done easily and effortlessly. As a result, many people, faced with difficulties, decide: “This is not for me.” They go looking further, where they again step on the same rake.
If you have changed 3-4 professions and are disappointed in all of them, then this is a very clear marker that the problem is not in the activity itself, but in the fact that you lack the skills to overcome difficulties and get the result that you need.
Instead of a conclusion
If you are having trouble deciding what you want to do, or you are changing one activity for another, then the first thing to start with is to understand what is holding you back from making a choice. What kind of fears are being actualized? What terrible thing will happen if you make a bad choice? What beliefs make you give up self-determination and spend a lot of energy searching for a better option?
Naturally, the points that I touched on in the article are just the very tip of the iceberg. The topic of self-determination and choice of activity is very broad and interesting. If you liked the article, subscribe to the channelwhere I write a lot about the thinking traps that keep you from finding your calling and achieving meaningful goals.
