When you first arrived in the big city of Melbourne, you thought everything was going to go your way. You were fresh out of college with a new office job that you thought had major prospects. Years later, you find yourself stuck in a professional rut, feeling rudderless and directionless. It’s a tough experience that can lead to some bad decisions being made. One of the best ways out of it in your case would be to seek professional career counselling in Melbourne. 

You might have thought that such counselling was meant for school kids to try and help them find some purpose in life. You may remember meeting a counsellor yourself who told you that you had an aptitude for numbers, to study accounting and get an office job. Well, now what? Actually, counselling is for everyone, and here are just some of the benefits it brings: 

1. Outside Perspective Helps You Find Clarity on Career Goals

One of the most frustrating things that can deepen the rut in which we find ourselves is that of a thick fog descending around us, preventing us from seeing clearly where we are, what we want, what we can and can’t do, and even what our professional goals are. A professional careers counsellor will help to provide you with that clarity. 

At the very least, they will help you to establish what your professional goals are and what you really want out of your working life. It takes an outside perspective sometimes to help drag these facts out of us. They lurk within us, of course, but we’re too close to it all, and can’t see the wood for the trees. 

2. It Helps You Make an Action Plan

Once a counsellor helps you understand what your real goals are, you can start to take action, first of all by building an action plan. Together, you and a counsellor can come up with a 5-year, 10-year and longer plan of how you are going to achieve your goals. When you have a plan laid out, you have definitive steps to take, and can better see if you’re progressing or not towards those objectives. 

3. You Will Learn Where Your Real Strengths and Weaknesses Lie

Along with making an action plan and understanding what your real career goals are, you will learn other important things about yourself, namely your strengths and weaknesses. Some people go through life thinking they are meant to be doing one thing, but it turns out that they have hidden skills and talents that would be far better applied elsewhere. 

Discovering one’s weaknesses is just as important as finding strengths, if not even more important. Understanding where one is lacking gives one important content to add to one’s goals and action plan. In other words, understanding their weaknesses allows them to act on it and try to improve themselves. 

4. You’ll Get Information on Career Paths You Can Take

Career counsellors have connections and insights into career paths that most of us can’t even fathom. To take our early example of a young person who studied accounting and then found themselves working as an accountant in an office somewhere. They may not realise that their skills for analysis and creative problem-solving are wanted by consulting firms who could send them to interesting postings around the world or set them to fascinating and unique tasks each day that are challenging and engaging. 

Understanding the possible career paths can help people find an entirely new, exciting and more rewarding professional journey to take. What’s more, all it might take is a few short visits to a qualified careers counsellor.