What would it look like to tell someone who really believed they knew what’s best for you that you were going a different direction? This question is portrayed in movies all the time. Usually with an unruly teen whose parents want to get into a steady and safe career. Instead the teen runs off for California or Nashville with stary eyes for the famous life they’ll lead. Inevitably, the parents come around. Or we see they’ve been quietly supportive the whole time. It all culminates in one great song or film in the end. In the real world, the push to choice to follow your dream is more nuanced and subtle. The people telling you what’s best for you in your career are plentiful and usually more encouraging than naysaying. Even so, I bet reflecting back now you have some idea what I’m talking about.
Why Do Other People Think They Know What’s Best?
Contrary to popular belief, there are a multitude of reasons people act as though they know what’s best for you. While I’ll bet you know #1, I wonder if you’ve considered the rest.
To keep you safe
The obvious answer, from the movies and the influencers at least, is to keep you safe. Sometimes that’s true. People who love and care about you do often want to keep you, and others who depend on you, safe and secure. This reason most often comes up with those big audacious goals. Those who care about you want you to take a path that they believe is safe so you avoid disappointment, lose money or status, etcetera. Or, on the flip side, it keeps them safe. They are able to stay in their safe little comfortable bubble. They will project all of the fears they would have about making the change you did because it doesn’t make them feel safe.
To provide a proven path
Sometimes people are pushing you to grow, develop, and change, but only in a specific way they know works. You’ll see this one when people try to parent differently than previous generations, when someone tries a new diet, or when you do want to grow in your career, just not in the traditional sense. Other people are working for the potential they see in you and know what they would have done with it. They are working off of what they would want themselves to do given the skills and the opportunities you have. If you’ve ever been in a conversation about parenting, health, or career and though ‘we want the same thing, who cares how I get there?’ This is the club you’re in. That other person believes they know what’s best because they’ve seen a proven path before. They just want you to follow what they know works.
To achieve their goals for you
This one can be the most subtle and problematic because you don’t always know it’s happening. In the movies, this one is obvious, but in real life, it comes up most when someone doesn’t have a clear vision or goal. Right when you’re trying to figure out your own way, someone comes in with their own goal for you. Your MIL says timeouts were the best way to take care of bad behaviors. Your boss says you’re the perfect fit to succeed them. It’s easy to slip into the temptation to just, agree to just follow that lead. Now, they are trying to be helpful. They’re even trying to help you grow to some extent. The problem is that they don’t understand your wants and vision and if we’re being really honest, do you?
How it plays out – It’s not like the movies
A quick story that illustrates this oh so well. I was once hired as a business analyst. If you’ve ever met or worked with me for any duration of time you’d know that analyst is not a title I should hold. I get incredibly bored in the details and I want to get up to the strategy and big picture as soon as possible. I appreciate numbers and data, but more so in percentages, trend lines, and pivot tables. While I was still doing good work, it was an absolute blessing that my co-worker was pulled to another project and I could help fill her more strategic role.
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When one of these more strategic roles came available full time, you would have thought that I would jump at it. I didn’t. I had no idea what I should do long term and was just floating. Everyone around me thought I’d get that promotion and I wasn’t even considering it. I asked my boss what he thought I should do. He said it would be better to improve at my analyst job first. (follow his goal) So, I just followed that. Then I talked to a mentor, who said that it was odd to stay in a job centered around work I didn’t like, I should look outside the department. They had a position open in their department that I’d be perfect for (take a proven path). So I took a look at that. Then my boss came back and said, you’d make more money with the promotion. You should apply, more money is always better than less. Not to mention, he didn’t want me to leave the department (keep me, and him, safe). So, I did.
What on Earth was I doing?
I was just flitting any way the wind blew. Fortunately, my lack of vision, and all of their efforts to show me what’s best, worked out in this situation. It makes me cringe looking back that I was just talking to people and doing as I was told. I never once considered if I knew what’s best for me. I simply followed orders as they came. More money sounded safe to my husband too so sure, why not go that route. Fortunately, I loved that job for years to come, but what if I didn’t? What if it didn’t actually allow the balance, influence, skills, and development that I was after? No one asked me what I wanted, and I certainly never asked myself either.
3 Steps to Avoid The ‘I know what’s best’ issue
Don’t rely on the luck of this all working out in the end. The odds that what other people believe to be best for you based on their goals, your safety, and paths they’ve seen in the past aligning with what you actually want are really low. Here are some ways to achieve what you know is best for you.
Figure out what’s best for you
This should be an obvious need but as we can tell from my own story, it’s not always done. You can’t hope to have any shift in everyone else ‘shoulding’ on you if you don’t actually know what you want. Even those angsty teens in the movies have a direction. Getting a clear vision of what you want is the very first step in moving toward it. I did a live workshop on this but in case you missed it, click here to sign up for the replay. You can get a much clearer picture of what your priorities, goals, vision, and mission is in about 30 minutes. It’s worth it to take that short amount of time to figure out what’s best for you.
Tell people what is important to you
Once you figure out what’s best for you, not only will you know, but you’ll be able to articulate it to others. Imagine the conversation with my boss if he would have said, get better at being an analyst and I knew what I wanted. I would have been able to respond with something like, I’m focused on building a career where I’m leading from the front, not the details behind the scenes. Which role do you think gets me closer to that? Boom, redirection to my goal rather than his. Again, it’s not that other people are trying to work against you, but if they don’t know what you want how can they advise you on it? If you knew your vision, how could you redirect those conversations and decisions for yourself?
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Work toward what you want
Once you know what’s best for you, and you’re able to articulate it to yourself and others, you can take action. The clarity you get will allow you to make better decisions and then, follow through on them. This part is pretty critical friend. Knowledge isn’t power until it’s applied. (I think that one is Dale Carnegie) Apply it by taking action in the direction that supports your vision, goals, and plan.
I know. This is one of those simple but difficult things, like boundaries I suppose. All you have to do is define what you want, articulate it, and take action toward it. Then all of those well-meaning, I know what’s best for you, you should just _____ people can either become helpful or be respectfully ignored. The problem isn’t that it’s complex, it’s that it takes active, intentional work. You can take that action though friend. Take one step today, tackle the Aligned Ambitions workshop replay. Then tomorrow, actively work toward and search out the opportunities that achieve what you want.