Self-control and Career Belonging
What does self-control or self-regulation have to do with career success?
Here's the answer.
Recently, I posted a diagram I'm drafting about a model of "Career Belonging/ Not Career Fit" and many of people responded that they didn't understand why I added self-regulation in the bottom of the image alongside professional identity and self-worth.
Aha, I thought to myself.
The obvious/nonobvious factor SO many of us have been missing as we ourselves seek to obtain our career goals, or we guide others to achieve theirs.
Without self-control, the rest doesn't matter. All the tools in the world won't work without this key factor.
Why I added self-regulation to career belonging
I don't add terms like "self-regulation" into my model blindly. Everything I include is based in research, and this idea comes from Laurence Steinberg's work on authentic happiness and adolescent development.
In this video at min 11:05, Steinberg says, "Self-control is probably the single most important trait to have for success in life."
It's part of the pre-frontal cortex where critical decision making and delayed gratification happens. Aka, the brain's CEO.
There have been hundreds of studies showing that people with stronger self-control do better in life, school, relationships, wellbeing and in WORK.
Tada!
That's why I included it. If we're on a path to achieve our career goals and dreams, we need to develop our awareness of our professional identity, we need to develop our self-worth, and we need to develop our self-control in order to regulate our thoughts and actions and make strong decisions on where we're going and how to get there.
Now, Steinberg uses self-regulation and self-control almost interchangeably in some of his papers and talks. With your feedback, I'm realizing I need to pick the right term wisely to help educate us on why this term needs to be explicit in the diagram I'm creating and needs to be included in career development and advising.
Thanks and keep the feedback coming