What is Holding YOU Back from Reaching Your Full Career Potential?

by Stacy Pursell, CPC, CERS

The VET Recruiter®

Here we are. It’s a New Year. Last year is finally behind us, and we are all hopeful that 2021 will bring more good things than 2020 did. And that includes in your Animal Health or Veterinary career.

However, enjoying a better year than last year might include a change in your approach or way of thinking.

I say this because I noticed a pattern in 2020. Specifically, I noticed a pattern develop when speaking to some professionals regarding employment opportunities and their Animal Health or Veterinary career. That pattern involved professionals exploring an opportunity, receiving an offer of employment from an organization, admitting that the opportunity and the offer are both great, and then not moving forward to pursue the position.

What reason did they give for not moving forward? Some said that “I’m not ready.”

In other words, something was holding them back.

Weighing the opportunity vs. the circumstances

Considering the current climate in this country and around the world, it is certainly understandable why some people would be hesitant to move forward in such a situation, even if the opportunity and offer are incredibly tempting. However, it’s not the circumstances that are preventing them from moving forward, but instead their attitude toward those circumstances.

Instead of looking at an opportunity and seeing just that—an opportunity—these professionals focused on the circumstances surrounding the opportunity. They gave more power to those circumstances, and as a result, the circumstances weighed more heavily in their final decision. (And that’s even though everything else lined up perfectly for them to take the next logical step in their Animal Health or Veterinary career.)

When you get right down to it, what convinces people to not move forward in situations like these is fear. Not just one fear, though. There are multiple types of fear, and three of them are applicable here. Those three are fear of the unknown (or fear of change), fear of failure, and fear of rejection. I’ve summarized them below.

Fear of the unknown (or fear of change)

Unfortunately, human beings are hard-wired to resist change, especially when things are going well. In fact, just as I illustrated above, people will often choose to stay in what they consider to be a good situation rather than pursue what could be a great situation. Here are five steps for overcoming the fear of the unknown or the fear of change:

1. Accept the existence of uncertainty as an unavoidable part of your life.
2. Recognize that change can represent an opportunity for good things to happen.
3. Step outside of your comfort zone as much as you can and get “comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
4. Seek the advice of successful people.
5. Prepare and plan, because a solid plan is a good way to help eliminate uncertainty from a situation.

Don’t let the fear of the unknown come between you and what you want in your Animal Health or Veterinary career, because it can hold you back.

Fear of failure

No one likes to fail. However, like change is inevitable, so is failure. Once again, the key is not preventing it from happening. Instead, the key is how you react to it. Here are four steps for combatting this fear:

1. Train yourself to think rationally and positively, because it starts in your mind.
2. Set realistic expectations for yourself.
3. Do NOT try to be perfect, because that is impossible.
4. Acknowledge and accept that failure is part of the learning process.

Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

How many of us would have given up after the 50th try or the 900th try or the 9,000th try? Thomas Edison was persistent and did not let the fear of failure hold him back, and that’s why we’re still talking about him today.

Fear of rejection

This is a major fear for some people. It prevents them from moving forward because they fear that they will fail in a new role. They don’t see all of the good things that the opportunity presents, but instead see all the ways in which they could fail. Below are four steps for overcoming this fear:

1. Once again, don’t focus on the fear.
2. Focus on what you know to be true, as opposed to what you fear to be true.
3. Recognize the value that you provide to your current employer and what you could offer in a new role with another employer.
4. View yourself as worthy, because the more that you view yourself as worthy, the more you will believe that other people also view you as worthy.

Of all the fears, this may be the one that is the most deep-rooted and the one that professionals are least likely to recognize or want to deal with.

Your Animal Health or Veterinary career in 2021

If there’s one change that you’re going to make this year, don’t allow fear to hold you back. In fact, don’t let anythinghold you back from growing your Animal Health or Veterinary career, especially if you could accept a great new employment opportunity with a top organization.

One way that you can do this is by aligning yourself with an experienced Animal Health or Veterinary recruiter and building a relationship with them. An experienced recruiter can help you stay on top of the employment marketplace, so that you know about premium career opportunities as they become available. They can also guide and counsel you through every step of the hiring process, when you are a candidate on an opportunity, so that you have an advantage over other professionals and so that you can make the most of the opportunities that are available to you.

Yes, 2021 is a New Year ripe with plenty of potential. However, make sure that you don’t allow anything to hold you back from what you want in terms of your Animal Health or Veterinary career.

If you’re looking to make a change or explore your employment options, then we want to talk with you. I encourage you to contact us or you can also create a profile and/or submit your resume for consideration.

We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping Animal Health and Veterinary professionals to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of Animal Health and Veterinary organizations. If this is something that you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.

Copyright © 2021 The VET Recruiter 

The VET Recruiter is The Animal Health Executive Search Firm and The Veterinary Recruiting Firm

Stacy Pursell is an Animal Health Executive Recruiter and Veterinary Recruiter and Workplace/Workforce expert for the Animal Health Industry and Veterinary Profession.