How To Convince Parents About Alternative Careers

Choice of career in India is an important decision to make. Whereby all your family members and distant relatives will have an eye on. Everyone suggests their choice of career options and some might just force, and regale about how luxurious your future would be if you followed.

The Popular Ones

The popular one’s being Engineering and Medical. However, this is not the turning point, the turning point is when you tell them about the career you want to follow, your passion. It is the melodramatic, financially challenging and career choice fluctuating situation.

The Blame Game

Relatives will be blaming parents for bad up bringing and parents will be blaming children for getting influenced by a bad friend circle and the senior citizens will be consulting family Pandits and God, assuming some bad spirit might have affected the change in you.

Beyond The Usual Suspects

Usually parents whose children show little or no proclivity towards studies, despair. This despair is worsened if the parents are not very wealthy or if they do not have a flourishing business to hand over to their child. There are alternative occupations which does not require mainstream education which the parents tend to overlook and yet those are extremely important for the society.

Non Academical Career

Naturally every parent wants the best for their child, and they want to see their children settle in good careers, earning a lot of money. But apart from standard careers that involve educational qualifications, there are various other career options available for your non-academically inclined child, many of which parents have never thought of or considered, or even realized exist as a real and remunerative option. Yes they are remunerative and there are many.

• Visit a career counselor with your parents. Emphasize the advantages of alternative career choices and why you should pursue it
• Quote examples of people who achieved success in these alternative fields. Remind them that they too started early with less or no help, and yet found success due to passion and hard work
• Showcase what homework or your involvement in the filed, give them a chance to analyze
• You have to methodically and logically make them relate to your ideas and passion. That is when you create an ideal environment for belief to flourish
• Before you present your choices, you have to be logical yourself. It is imperative to develop an alternate career plan/field. This is how you plan. This can be your second most appealing career choice. Parents love it when you PLAN with reason and caution
• Following all these, is to put your plan to execution. Seek help, involve your parents and peers, in any which way possible. Through this, they will get a constant update on your progression

Don’t Bully Them

The sentiment behind CONVINCING your parents of your career choice is to give them enough, valid reasons, to believe. If we all agree to the fact that our parents, most of the times, attempt to implore us sentimentally, to stamp their choice on us, then we should not be approaching the act of convincing them in a similar manner.

Finally…

Be methodical and logical, be open to suggestions. Most of all, stand for what you believe. You have to strike a balance between being passionate and humble. Remember, just because you are passionate, doesn’t guarantee career success. Share your concerns and doubts about your choice with your parents, with reason and examples. They might help you sort them out or guide you to experts who can help you. We won’t wish you good luck, we encourage you to make your own luck.