Career Development: Don’t Let Others Limit Your Future

Many Career professionals can work their whole careers without ever realizing that they are living someone else’s dream. Many professionals reach middle age before realizing that their personality and their current job represent a square peg forced into a round hole.

The hospitality industry offers a satisfying career for everyone, you just need to learn where you fit. The first thing you need to identify is whether you belong behind a restaurant manager’s desk, or the kitchen manager’s table.

Candace was a writer. She worked from home and managed a team of 5 other writers who were also house wives. She did this job for 10 years but no matter how hard she worked never secured the type of clients who paid on time, paid above the bare minimum, and offered her the types of assignments that inspired and motivated her. After six months of coaching she finally realized that she was living by her parent’s beliefs that a) a woman’s place is in the home, b) that women should take care of their families and not pursue careers, and c) that she was a ‘good’ home grown girl and should accept her reality.

Candace was limited by her parent’s beliefs without ever questioning whether they were right for her. After a few false starts and some self exploratio
Candace became a successful, energetic, and happy kitchen manager at a local restaurant.

Jim took accounting subjects in School. Every aspect of his university education furthered his pursuit of a job in the accounting field. Very little of his world existed beyond financial and business entertainment, friends, and associates. This was his life and as far as anyone could see, Jim was satisfied. The only one who knew he wasn’t happy was the life coach he visited for 45 minutes every Tuesday.

Jim made slow progress, because even this amount of self-evaluation was deemed as a waste of time and risky. Accounting was a safe, recession proof profession. He could work for the most stable businesses, and if needed, live anywhere in the world. There is no downsizing or layoffs in the accounting department.

It took Jim a long time to learn that his father was living vicariously through Jim’s life. His father had given up everything to give Jim the life he wanted. Jim never questioned his father’s motives, just accepted his father’s view of the world as gospel truth.

It took a long time for Jim to overcome the innate guilt forced on him, but Jim did overcome this and eventually became one of the most flamboyant, and much loved, managers at a Greek Restaurant.

These stories only echo the many that limit people’s opportunities. Many of us dream of a job that will make us happy, but we will never reach for our goals until we first shed the ‘core beliefs’ that others have forced on us.

This information can help prepare you to move your manager’s career forward, but it needs to serious reflection and honest interpretation. A good Candidate is a restaurant manager who avoids laying blame, ignores what they have no control over, and empowers themselves to overcome. Making excuses and blaming others is not the goal of this exercise. It is meant to provide freedom from the voices from our past that ensnare us and limit our potential.