How to Overcome Indecision when Choosing a Career?

I gravitate toward the subjective approach of career indecision. Personally, I feel as though the logical positivist perspective creates a negative connotation toward career indecision. The first step outlines indecision as a dichotomy which is classifying individuals as decided or undecided in regards to their careers. There was research conducted to see if students were indecisive due to a personality, academic, or biographical problem (Sivickas, 1995, page 364). I don’t believe it is that simple nor should it be presented as a “problem” or “defect”. This type of perspective can cause an individual to change their self-concept negatively. Not everyone is lucky enough to know exactly what career path they want and the steps to get them there. There are many factors as to why an individual is indecisive. For example, going back to the case last week of Dorece, she was very indecisive because she had a lot of outside influences so she is unable to commit to a career. After reading the subjective approach, I think it is because she hasn’t recognized her life themes yet. I believe she is too focused on everyone around her and their opinions as opposed to her life experiences and attributes she has that could be useful in a career decision making process. The steps that Savickas outlines get progressively stronger in my opinion. Like I said before, there are many reasons as to why an individual is indecisive and the multidimensional concept recognizes that. Dorece would fall under the commitment to career choice subgroup. Ultimately, I feel that being indecisive should not create a negative barrier but should be thought of as a sign of a positive transformation.

I believe career decision is better viewed as an attempt to “construct the whole that will clarify the parts.” This perspective causes people to reflect on past experiences and make connections to the present and even future. A quote that stuck out to me while I was reading was “Choices are not isolated; choice are embedded within an ongoing pattern of living” (Sivickas, 1995, page 366). There is meaning and purpose to every decision or choice that is made and exploring some of them could help an individual reach a new possibility in their career path. There could be some form of objective pathology preventing the process but I do not have enough experience to have a strong opinion towards that. Other people who either have experienced this themselves or know someone who has experienced this will have a much stronger opinion. I would be interested to read other cases that include an example so I can obtain more knowledge and be able to expand my interventions that I could use.

I immediately connect the case study to the first proposition in Super’s theory, which explains that every person is unique and is made up of individualized strengths and weaknesses (Brow, 2017, page. 71). During the case study, the client was able to recognize her own strengths and weaknesses based on experiences and therefore was able to make connections as to where she is right now in her life and where she wants to be in the future. I also feel that being able to overcome career indecision correlates with career maturity in Super’s theory. If someone is able to overcome this obstacle then they are ready and able to handle other situations that may arise with their career in the future. I connect with Super’s theory because I am able to associate cases I have read so far to at least a few of his propositions in a way that makes sense to me. He has many propositions because there are many aspects that go into career development and I agree with that. The case study connects with pieces of the other theories as well. I can relate her case study to Krumboltz’s theory of happenstance and decision making. The only part of the theory I do not agree with is that the influence of inheritance on the development of interests, values, and personality traits is not taken into consideration (Brown, 2017, page 88). I believe this should be acknowledged in the process of career indecision of an individual. I don’t think there is one isolated incident that causes an individual to be indecisive, therefore all avenues should be explored.  The results of the study showed that an increase in career decision self-efficacy does not always relate to decreases in career indecision (Reed & Skaar, 2010, page 50).

The study was conducted on 100 college students taking a constructivist career course, which focused on empowerment. Most of the students felt more empowered but it did not change their indecisiveness. Some of the assignments included: a career genogram, my story writing sample, comparative analysis, career lifeline and obituary, internship search, and much more (Reed & Skaar, 2010, page 44). The results were measured with the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale, which shows an individual’s confidence in their ability to complete career tasks. (Reed & Skaar, 2010, page 46). There are other factors that influence career indecision and should be explored when working with a client. I do believe constructivist counseling is a good place to start and many of the assignments the college students had to complete in the study were beneficial. These are more tools that can be used when exploring career development with a client. In my opinion the “big picture” is career development and part of that could be when an individual becomes indecisive. Making connections from both articles to some of the theories will help create interventions that can be used in the future.

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