General career advice

[nicky_p]

Hi guys,

I've had a few setbacks recently with my career... or lack of it :rolleyes:

I haven't achieved the grade I wanted or needed at university to jump straight onto a graduate programme (although I'm still waiting for the university to get back to me on this as there's an issue with it).

I'm working as a waitress at the moment and while I have loved the type of work I'm doing I'm at the stage where I want something more, preferably with more money and more sociable working hours as I have a new relationship and I just don't get to see anyone!

I've spent a couple of weeks trawling through job sites, job centres, applying at temping agencies and applying for anything that remotely fits the criteria that I'm looking at but there doesn't seem to be a lot going.

I asked for general career advice and recieved: 46.3 - 7

I think maybe I'm being told to slow down a bit and have a bit more dicipline in my approach. But I wondered if anyone saw anything else?

Thanks
Nicky

[amalia]

As far as I can see, the advice the Oracle gave you can be translated in such terms: "Your efforts to find a different kind of work are about to lead you to some positive result, so you can successfully go on with them. Unfortunately, your satisfaction won't last long. The point is, you still do not know what is you are really talented for: so your real strength (knowledge, capability, etc.) is still hidden, like water under the earth. You are considering only the outlines of your possibile work, but not what you really would like to do. The discipline you need, in order to let the Army go further, is to understand where the Army must go." Hope this helps - kisses.

[trojan]

Agree with Amalia really. Are you really sure you want what you think you want ? You may get it with little trouble but it is an empty city - you might arrive there and wonder 'was it worth it'. The fan yao 7.3 can refer to carrying alot of old ideas and outworn principles, principles that maybe weren't yours in the first place. Maybe rethink your direction.

[willowfox]

The line says that you will be lucky in finding what you want but you need to not only know exactly what you want so then you will know what action to take in order to achieve your goal, plus it requires that you be in control of what you are doing and stay determined to win.

[nicky_p]

Thanks very much for your responses.

amalia I like the way you have described the way my talent is still hidden.. like water under earth. I can picture things when I have them described to me in terms of nature :)

And I'm in agreement with you trojan about carrying old ideas. I started my degree looking at heading into accountancy and finance but I'm feeling that that isn't necessarily the way I want to go now. Not that uni has been a bad thing as some of the lectures are what has prompted me to look further than doing something purely for it's commercial profit and look at the world and what it needs.

I'm not even that bummed about my degree not being as it should at the moment (as hopefully that will change but that's an on-going saga!) as it's giving me time to think about where I want to go. It means I'm not just jumping blindly into a graduate programme as that's easiest.

My problem is that I don't feel that I can stay where I am. As well as the bad money and hours my grandfather has just been diagnosed with cancer and I want to go and see him before Christmas. The person that owns the hotel where I work has a funny temperament and to ask for time off would be met with an immediate no and then life would be made unbearable - it's easier to go. But family is much, much more important than work.

I guess I'm looking for a stop-gap at the moment with a view to being on the right direction of my career goals but you're all right in that I just don't know exactly what direction that should be. It's not for want of trying - I keep doing those skills and interest tests on the internet and there's only been one that's come back with anything other than finance!

Does anyone have any ideas about the kind of questions I could ask that would get me going in the right direction? I kind of asked for general career advice to keep it open and see if anything jumped out at me but...:confused:

Thanks
Nicky

[trojan]

Does anyone have any ideas about the kind of questions I could ask that would get me going in the right direction? I kind of asked for general career advice to keep it open and see if anything jumped out at me but...:confused:

Thanks
Nicky

I don't think it possible the Yi can do this as it can't say 'be an accountant' or 'be a nurse' :rofl: I don't know the way round this, I used to try with this kind of question but it did seem to me the distinction i was making of a self that had a career as a opposed to just a self was false, a product of our time and culture, a great burden too if you ask me :D Okay i know thats no practical use to you but if the Yi was showing me anything i felt it never did quite buy the supreme importance of 'career' in life, well in my life at least - for that reason I reckon one has a hard job getting an answer out of the Yi for 'point me in a good career direction' since I think the Yi makes no distincton between our evolvement as a human being and your career path.

Yes :rolleyes: utterly useless when you want to know what specifically to do. I guess the other way around is asking 'what if i do career a' etc rather than asking generally, but you already got 46.3 around this issue. Hmm well for now maybe you should take the job of Nicky P who has to visit her grandfather, that is your work, what is important to you now, you already said thats more important to you than your job, quite rightly IMO.

Maybe someone else can come up with more practical suggestions, but i don't think you should give yourself a hard time if you can't fix on a definate direction right now - some of us never get there :blush:

[my_key]

Hi Nicky
Focussing on the career may present great opportunities to learn something new or may indeed allow us to learn that careers are not really that important for everyone. A career path is just a series of steps towards more learning opportunities for you (....us all).

I have asked questions about setting up my own business based on looking at both sides of the coin - "What would be the advantages?" and "What would be the disadvantages?" This approach gave me an answer I was able to make sense of. Like Trojan any more specific questions on paths/jobs have met with unfathomal replies.

I try to now focus questions about work as " What do I need to know now about this situation regarding X/ the next week / the next month at work?" This contextual question gives reasonable guidance for me. Differentiation between life and work can become fuzzy. Increasing I see that we are here to be......... and what I now see as work is not considered with the same priorities from elsewhere.

However as my time walking hand in hand with the Yi increases I realise that the work I have to do is not necessarily related to my career. As such a more simple general question such as "What do I need to know?" provides remarkably astute guidance, given the open ended nature of the question.

The questions that you frame at any given time are the right ones for you. You bring in the answer that you need to that question. There is as much to be learnt from the time you spend forming the question as there is from pondering over the answer and finding the intuitive insights that will steer you down the right path.

Love and hugs

Mike

[nicky_p]

Hi Trojan,

What you're saying about a career being a product of time and culture and a bit of a burden has made me think more about what you were saying about 7.3 and outworn principles that aren't necessarily mine. Wondering a little who I'm wanting a career for. Yes I want to move job, and there is a part of me that that would like a bit of security but maybe I'm wanting a career to ease other people's minds. My gradparents (among others :)) keep asking me what I want to do and I guess with this news of my grandad being ill I'm wanting to give them a... I don't know? Something good.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your suggestions. I'm applying for a job in a housing association and I think I'll ask for an outlook on it - advantages and such. Maybe I should ask whether a career is actually an important factor in my life.

Thanks to both of you for your help
Nicky