“But everyone else has their career figured out, right?”

One of the most challenging elements of career concerns is that they can feel so incredibly isolating. In my job as a career fulfillment coach, I can’t tell you how often I hear this sentiment from people!

My clients often feel like they’re broken. Like everyone else has their career “figured out”, and they’re the only one feeling the deep down whisper of doubt at work. They’ll often say things like, “What’s wrong with me?! This is the career that I always thought I wanted. Why don’t I feel happier at work like everyone else?”

Here’s the thing, though: it’s not just you.

One thing I’ve learned in my last 5.5 years of business is that career doubts are incredibly common. A lot of people have them. Enough that I could successfully build a business off of it. ;)

Unfortunately career doubts are simply not talked about enough, in my opinion. Which leads to many people hopping on calls with me and thinking that their situation is unique (when really it isn’t).

I wish there was a more open dialogue about career doubt. About second guessing yourself. About worrying that maybe you made the wrong choice. Because as I’ve seen over these last 5.5 years, so many people wrestle with these feelings.

Last week I was chatting with a client, and she told me an interesting story. She’s a lawyer, and she was catching up with her friend (a writer), who has been published in all kinds of big name publications. This friend said to her, “You have an amazing job! I’m just over here unemployed.” Because the friend was a freelance writer, she considered the stable 9-5 law job superior, even though she was published in all kinds of amazing places. The irony of this all was that my client did not feel like her job was amazing (hence why we were on the call to work together). She admired the writer’s job and thought it was perfect, while the writer looked at hers with envy. Funny how that happens, huh?

It’s easy to get stuck in the pattern of comparing your insides to someone else’s outsides, but it’s a mistake. Just because someone’s job seems perfect, it doesn’t mean that it is. Just because your job is perfect on paper and exactly what you thought you wanted, it doesn’t mean that it is.

For what it’s worth, you don’t have to pretend like everything is perfect all of the time. I know that as a high achiever this statement can feel preposterous (“I’ve always been the one who had things figured out!”), but it’s true. You’re allowed to have doubts, and I think we’d all be better off if we admitted we did instead of fighting it for so long. The truth about the whisper of doubt in the back of your head is that it seldom goes away when we try to ignore it. It just gets louder and louder, until you finally listen.

When it comes to career fulfillment, the key is uncovering the elements that can make a career perfect for you. Not the thing that looks perfect, but the thing that feels aligned and fulfilling based on your specific set of needs and values. If you need help uncovering that, know that I’m always just an email or a DM a way.

But please, in the meantime, take solace in the fact that you are most definitely not alone in your doubts. You have plenty of company.