5 Outdated Pieces of Career Advice You Should Forget

Every now and then, our friends, spouses, and families are keen to share their advice with us. Of course, their main reason is to help us do better at our jobs and businesses. What they don’t realize is that, if their advice is wrong, the consequences we’ll face will definitely drag us down.

Not only will your friends and family try to “model” your professional life. Alongside them, you get the co-workers, bosses, and different other professionals within your industry (or not). The thing is… most people are looking to trade useful career advice for a piece of social status.

Giving advice automatically puts a person into a “leading state”. This’ll often tickle their ego, so the actual importance of the advice offered is not that important. What I’ve explained here happens on an unconscious level, so most people don’t really want to hurt you.

Either way, in order to preserve your chances of building a successful career, I’d highly suggest being very careful with all “career advice” that comes your way. You’ll see that in the majority of cases, you’re going to know better than anyone else what your future actions should be.

In this post we will explore a few outdated pieces of career advice you should forget about. Take them into consideration, keep them in mind as well as you can, and always judge with your own objective filter before letting yourself be influenced by mediocre advice.

 

1. ‘Even if you don’t know, pretend you know.’

This is one of the most horrifying tips I have ever received during my career. It also damaged my employee reputation at the first companies I used to work to. Now – this advice comes from superficial employees that don’t care about their companies or their professional development.

When you have a job that you don’t know how to do, pretending that you do is the worst possible approach. First of all, you’re damaging the company’s performance. Second of all, you’re cheating yourself and your colleagues.

Avoid this by being genuine with your expertise. If you don’t know something, start asking questions, and never be afraid to admit your weaknesses.

 

2. ‘Don’t challenge your workplace’s policies.’

This advice basically tells you to sit on your bench, never ask questions, and be the ‘perfect’ employee. You see, there are many situations and decisions in which your knowledge is much bigger than your colleagues and bosses. You can use this opportunity to show your value and contribute to better things.

Contrary to the common bad advice of not challenging work policies, Harry Johnsville, Head of HR at ResumesPlanet, suggests the following to all of his employees:

“In case you find some policies, strategies, and attitudes that you don’t agree with, silence shouldn’t be your first option. Try to talk to the leading team and go with something solid. It could be a plan, a documented idea, or something else that shows that you already got involved. If you spot things that need to be changed, never hesitate to initiate that change. Who knows? You might just earn yourself a promotion in case things work as you’ve planned.”

 

3. ‘Keep all of your personal life private.’

The era of bosses is over. Nowadays, serious entrepreneurs and leaders understand the importance of their employees. If you respect yourself as an employee, you’ll choose a company that will show respect to all of its employees no matter what. The colleagues that you’ll get will also be well selected, so there’s no reason to question the social environment.

Most internet tips tell you to keep your personal life out of the equation. This is a wrong practice. It only turns you into a robot that no one wants to deal with. Workplace connections are extremely important, and they can never be built without colleagues getting personal with each other.

 

4. ‘Your passion is just a hobby and never a profession.’

The world is full of negative individuals who carry a big frustration along the way. They’re doing their best to spread the negativity (whether they realise it or not) by letting everyone know what they can and can’t do. Never let yourself be influenced by those who tell you what you can’t do.

In case you have a strong passion for something and you’ve already wondered if it’s possible to make it more than a hobby, let me tell you that it is possible. I’m not suggesting that you’ll also manage to achieve it, but it is possible.

In the present moment, you get all the necessary tools and information to start your own business in every niche. You just need to dedicate to the process, stay consistent, and never give up.

It’s up to your own perception whether something is realistic for you or not. Focus on the positives and mostly ignore the negatives.

 

5. ‘Hard work is all you need.’

Not terrible advice at all, but not true entirely. I totally agree that hard work is one of the keys to success, but it’s not the only one. You need to be adaptable, flexible, motivated, creative, disciplined, organized, and basically be better than average. Success never comes quick or easy; it takes a lot of practice, failures, and feedback in order to be super good at something.

Do not focus on “just working hard”. Do that, but at the same time make sure that you’re working on your personal development progress. You need it now, and you’ll also benefit from it later.

 

Conclusion

Taking people’s advice is often advised. But when it comes to career decisions, I wouldn’t let myself be convinced so easily. Analyze every tip that you get, filter it well, and don’t rush into the decision. When you take and apply bad advice, turning things around will always be more difficult.

 

Author’s bio: Eva Wislow is a career coach an HR manager from Pittsburgh, and a guest writer for Fish4jobs. She is on a mission to help people find their true calling. Eva finds her inspiration in writing and peace of mind through yoga. Follow Eva on Twitter.