Stop procrastinating on career planning

By freedomandutility @ 2022-02-06T20:32 (+55)

After 2+ years of EA involvement, I finally stopped procrastinating and applied to speak to 80000 hours.

I think the thought of discussing my career plan with EAs makes me feel self-conscious - what if they think I'm not being selfless enough, or disagree strongly with my views on global priorities?

I also find thinking about careers stressful and scary in general. I strongly believe that your career is the best way to do good, and that some careers will do a lot more good than others. These are some of my life's biggest decisions, and will always feel scary and stressful to think about, with insecurities such as:

"What if I'm missing an opportunity for much larger impact?"

"What if I sacrifice too much personal happiness?" 

"What if I completely change my mind about EA?"

As a result, I often avoid thinking about my career plans. 

I had also convinced myself that 80000 hours' advice won't be that useful. But rationally, it's likely that people with experience in EA- aligned careers advising will give useful advice. And it seems very unlikely to be harmful, and obviously, if I don't want to follow their advice, I don't have to.

Rationally, I really should have applied to speak to 80000 hours 2+ years ago! 

If I had done this 2 years ago, I probably could have made more progress in whichever direction I'd settled on. 

If like me you're procrastinating on career planning, take this as a nudge to apply to 80000 hours.

Applying to 80000 hours also made me think I should write out a more formally reasoned EA career plan to share with them (and with family, friends and other EAs I know).

I've had a career planning Google Doc for a long time, but I was shocked by how much more carefully I was thinking about things when I knew that I'd be sharing the plan with someone else. 

I would definitely recommend that other people also write up their career plans with the intention for someone else to look at and give feedback on.