Almost have my MBA, but I don't really have any marketable skills

[elliot]

Let's put things in perspective.
I'm 24, from Long Island and work as a bank teller. Within a month I will have an MBA from a accredited private college. My problem is that throughout my college experience, I have always chosen jobs of out security rather than passion. From 1999-2006 I worked at a supermarket part-time while mostly going to college full-time. In 2005 I started working as a teller part-time and in 06 I got a position doing it full-time. I went on an unsuccessful interview months ago for a head teller position and am glad not to have gotten it really. It would be a job that deep down inside I couldn't really become happy with. Though professionally to demonstrate advancement, etc it would be a smart thing to do career-wise.

I feel like I don't have any real skills to offer a potential employer. Even with three degrees soon. It all comes across as theoretical classroom concepts. I have not been able to really do anything in the outside world that would foster my knowledge or rely on what I've learned.

There are things I've wanted to learn, but dropped the ball on for one reason or another. In the discipline department, I have a horrible track record. I know past performance doesn't equate to future results, but what do I do from here?

Yes, I have a resume and have posted it to Monster.com. I got a few potential offers, but they looked like duds. One was from Primerica which I've personally read too many negative things about to even consider. Another was the chance to interview at a local car dealership (not to judge here, but I didn't go to college for 6 years to sell cars). Are my standards too high, too low?

I could move up with the organization I'm with now. My gut / inner instinct tells me not to and to cut ties once I receive my tuition reimbursement / annual bonus. Is this a bad thing? Please share your thoughts with me.

Some of my peers have suggested I find an entry level position with a company in NYC and try to work my way up from there. Seems like a good idea, though I also feel like I need to work on myself first. Maybe a brief break from work altogether to collect myself and get focused on the things that really matter to me. I have friends with less college schooling than myself who are easily making 15-30k more than I am annually. Money is important to me of course but ultimately isn't the end-all and be-all factor to determine my level of happiness with my life / career.

What can I bring to the table that other candidates for a position cannot. My mind draws blanks here.

[12357]

It all depends on what you want to do with your life, what your passions are and so on, so I can only give you a few ideas.

One of your main objectives in my opinion should be to gain personal skills that you can benefit from:

1: Get good at public speaking and improve your communication skills -> Join Toastmasters

2: Get some leadership experience, join an organization where you can improve your leadership skills. A CV that shows that you have leadership experience is always an advantage.

3: Get a sales job (supermarket don't count, no pun intended ) part time or full time, and improve your ability to sell. Sales experience is always a good thing as well.

4: Any other thing that can help you improve your social skills. Go out, sing Karaoke, game chicks, anything that pushes your social comfort zone and helps you improve your charm and your ability to handle rejection and difficult people.


It's true that having a lot of marketable skills can be a huge advantage, yet, you can compensate for a lack of "non school skills" by having great communication skills. A friend of mine has no high school diploma, yet earns just below $200.000 each year because he's a great salesman and because he's bold and dares to take a chance. He's not even your age...

If you want to have a management position in a big company (that pays well), doing everything to improve your social and leadership skills can be a blessing.

Maybe these ideas can help you some

[uberinquisitive]

Why do you have an MBA?

Most people I know with MBAs want to become executives in corporate America. Is this what you want?

[elliot]

Originally Posted by uberinquisitive

Why do you have an MBA?

Most people I know with MBAs want to become executives in corporate America. Is this what you want?

Well, I got my Bachelor's Degree and didn't know what I wanted to do in life. Figured I might as well continue my education while still young and do whatever was necessary to give me an edge over the competition.

[Parthon]

Originally Posted by elliot

Well, I got my Bachelor's Degree and didn't know what I wanted to do in life. Figured I might as well continue my education while still young and do whatever was necessary to give me an edge over the competition.

Unfortunately the competition you are against isn't worth competing with.

What I can hear is "This is what's happened in the past, so how can I use that in the future?" which is, let me put it bluntly, WRONG! It's not a bad way to look at it, but it's definately not the path to fulfilment, happiness or success. In fact, it's how 99% of the world operates and have you noticed it's not the 99% of the population that are running the world.

What you want to look at is what you would like to do right now. Places to look include things you do in your spare time, what you love talking about with other people, and of course the golden question "What would you do if money was no issue?" Take some time out each day and start working on finding out what inspires you. I don't think you got an MBA by accident either, few people manage to go all the way through college/university to get a degree they hate, so there's something about your course/degree that you enjoy so much you keep going regardless.

Right now you can't do until you know, and you can't know until you look. It may come as an AHA! moment, or it might be a refining of an idea you've already got.

Also don't take forever on it. It requires time and focus, but that's it. Anything else is procrastination, self discipline will work there.

I will leave you off with some of Steve's articles which best highlight what I've said. Parthon.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...ut-20-minutes/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...lf-discipline/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...-your-purpose/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...rpose-freedom/

[elliot]

So I gave the exercise from the first link posted a try. I came up with the following..

To help and educate people across the world.
To help people reach their full potential and have fun in the process.
To tap into my soul and produce great writings on business and technology related topics.
To leverage my interests in personal development, business and technology in a way that creates value.
To have a positive impact on the lives of the people I touch and the businesses I run, am employed at or do consulting work for.
To be free to learn anything I want while still earning enough to make a living and have lots over when typical retirement age rolls around.

[Catlover]

Responding to your initial post, I think you may need to expand your job search methods. I'm sure you're doing something other than posting your resume on Monster, but posting on Monster is a passive method of job searching. As you've found, you sit and wait for something to come along, and usually those employers who have to trawl for resumes on Monster are having a hard time finding people. There's probably a reason for that.

An "all out" job search requires active job searching--not only looking for open positions, but also networking with others and targeting certain companies for submission/trying to get to know people in those companies who can help you.

The preparatory step before you start to network and market yourself is to answer the question you posed at the end of your first posting--what do you have to offer the employer that others do not?

Most people do not realize how much time and energy goes into a job search. I know that I personally did not, even though I am in the HR field, and my last job search took so much more time and effort than I ever could have imagined. In retrospect, I wish that I had known what it was going to take and invested that time in starting my own business.

Regarding your second post, I would suggest looking at those goals and thinking about how likely you are to achieve them in a corporate position as an employee. Then, if you decide to continue to seek employment, you need to identify the characteristics of companies where you would be happy working. Keep in mind that you may not have a lot of free time after meeting the demands of employment. Keep in mind that while there are employers who believe that helping their employees meet their goals correlates with a positive bottom line, there are many who do not see this correlation. There simply are not employers who are going to care about you as a person and your goals as much as or anywhere near as much as you do. If you can help them to meet their goals, then a win/win relationship might be possible.

I am in a somewhat similar situation. I studied for an MBA several years back and have never figured out how to leverage that study into something that I could "sell" to an employer. The employer I worked for at the time did not see one iota of value in what I was learning, nor did I receive any tuition benefits. I loved the body of knowledge and the study itself. Therefore, I have no regrets. But I realize that I will probably have to start my own business in order to have the type of challenging work that I thought might come as a result of the MBA.

Due to my work experience, I was able to get a job with a new employer, but there were some tradeoffs, and while I find what I'm doing interesting and challenging in a better work environment, I would not call it a step up the ladder. I already had the experience that they wanted, and that's how a lot of positions get filled. There is a possibility that I could get a promotion if a more senior position becomes open, but I'm not sure if I would want it or not given that it would require many more working hours and right now I keep to the standard workday for the most part.

I'm sorry that I don't sound entirely positive, but I wanted to share my experiences with you and some of the conclusions that those experiences have led me to make for myself. Career decisions are very difficult to make, but I feel that you are off to a good start because you are asking the right questions of yourself and that you will make the right decision for you.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by elliot

What can I bring to the table that other candidates for a position cannot.

An MBA.

Why sell yourself short? There must have been SOMETHING useful that you learned during your MBA course that non-MBA folks have not.

[elliot]

I have learned to view situations both from the perspective of the employer and the employee. Much of what I've learned is of a case study analytical nature. Each situation is unique and being able to be objective is one of the greatest lessons learned in the education process. Each course has shown me that even if I don't know a great deal about the topic in question, I have the ability to learn and then make rational decisions based on the information acquired. During my undergraduate experience, much of the focus was on passing tests. Graduate school is more focused on tackling a problem or looking at several potential courses of action and figuring out which option makes the most sense and for what reasons.

For example in my strategic marketing course, I took a well-known company and compared its products to that of the competition. I looked at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the organization. I listed environmental recycling / product production practices as one of the weakness. Shortly thereafter, the CEO composed an open letter to the public about how they seek greater compliance with Greenpeace, etc.

Sample abstracts from a recent assignment:
Leadership and Managerial Development Abstract: Fresh out of _ and still somewhat unsure about where my life was to be headed, I took an introspective approach toward where I had been, where I was and where I saw myself in the future. My personality type was linked strongly to the entrepreneurial creativity anchor. I still dream of owning my own business though a job where I'd help run someone else's business to get started with the process is another possibility. My learning style is accommodating, combining both the categories of active experimentation and concrete experience, which means that if I'm not using the information presented to me, I am likely to forget it completely.

Business Law: Abstract: I took this course online and at the time I found there had been a lot of controversy at different companies with the illegal backdating of stock options along with investigations at some of the top 500 firms in the United States. One of companies I had been a stockholder in was Apple Computer. While the CEO was unscathed by the incident, the SEC had made charges against the top lawyer in the company and CFO.

Organizational Design / Theory: Abstract: For this paper I looked at the design of two companies I worked for in the food service industry with an industry leader like Wal-Mart. Waldbaums is owned by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, which in turn is owned by a holding company located in Germany. In order to effectively compare the two, I needed to analyze the overall workflow of each business, assessing what one did right and the other did wrong. I found a number of differences in the way each business operated over each other. Wal-Mart relies heavily on computer models, RFID tags and real-time tracking to determine current levels of inventory and predict future levels during specific times of year.

HRM: Abstract: At the time I wrote this paper, I was really starting to grow tired with my job. Five years of working at the supermarket with very little growth. My own thoughts about leaving the company prompted me to look at employee turnover from a Human Resources perspective. The top reasons I found for leaving included poor pay, unsatisfactory working conditions, boredom and conflicting schedules. Turnover has a substantial impact on a company's bottom line. This includes notice period (last paycheck, accrued vacation time, unemployment benefits), vacancy period (advertising / recruiter fees, interviewing expenses, running background checks, the cost of temporary employees, overtime), orientation period costs (training programs, one-on-one training) and hidden costs (missed deadlines / shipments, a brain drain in the organization, lower morale, loss of client relationships, etc).

I made some comparisons between the blue collar supermarket job I held to my more white collar bank job and the corporate cultures were very different. With the former, I felt the organization's central focus was just to keep costs down and service high. Some benefits were provided, but taking advantage of them often involved getting a union representative to explain them to you, or calling the union directly. With the latter, there was definitely more of a focus on improvement of the individual. This was demonstrated through tuition reimbursement programs, annual bonuses and some opportunities for advancement.

Operations and Quality Management Abstract: For this paper, I came up with an operations strategy for a side business. By side business I mean something I do in my spare time, but my I've been on the web since I was 11 and have seen many businesses rise and fall during that time. I asked myself an important question. How could I offer value to others and be monetarily compensated as a result? I came up with the idea of running two e businesses. One would offer personal development information, similar to stevepavlina.com, the other would be computer-centric in nature. Content for the site would fall into one of three categories, licensed content, free content and what I write myself. The rest would be a computer news / information site similar to TidBITS: Mac news for the rest of us and maccentral.com. Revenue would come from people signing up for subscriptions and through advertising such as that offered by Google Adsense. Google e.t.al pay people based on the number of clickthroughs and hits to particular sites.

[elliot]

Originally it was 10, but it's almost 5am and I should be sleeping soon.
7 Reasons why my MBA is useful.
1. Greater salary over those who simply have a Bachelor's Degree, Associates or no degree at all
2. Specific Management training - Although I have an executive MBA, if I chose to I could specialize in an area like Finance to give myself an edge and have a unique skill that is of value to a prospective employer.
3. Demonstration to employers that I am disciplined and flexible. Many people my age don't have a Bachelor's Degree, much less a Master's.
4. Overcoming the minority gap. The area I live can be rather segregated at times. Greater college education when compared to a counterpart makes me stand out.
5. Long-term asset - If I stay at one organization for an extended period of time, my education will help ensure my job security, or make me a more attractive candidate for promotion.
6. Cushion from an economic downturn - I am hard working and while my record isn't perfect, it shows that when properly motivated I can produce amazing results. Employers want people who can meet their expectations. I believe I have this ability, but haven't truly been able to demonstrate it yet.
7. A platform for other learning ventures - Ok, come the end of December I will have three degrees. Once I'm free from college, I will be able to focus more on areas that are in high demand and require a certain level of expertise. The six years of college while working part-time or full-time in mediocre jobs really was a trial run. To show that I am capable and worthy of increasing my responsibilities and committment.

[uberinquisitive]

I know everyone on this forum is all about finding your passion and focusing and blah blah blah...but as a young person, it's ok to try out a lot of different stuff. Some people are born with an overwhelming passion or a strong internal compass. Most people, however, seem more generalized.

Having an MBA is great. It will open doors for you, although you will have to put your foot in it and step inside.

Reading your posts, it seems that working as a teller isn't your passion. However, are you interested in the finance field? If so, you can apply to Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, those big financial houses. My cousin used to work as an analyst, and she had a poli-sci degree, no graduate degree.

Because you're young, and no one expects a lot of work experience from someone your age, your MBA is a definite substitute for your "lack of marketable skills." In government jobs, having a graduate degree automatically qualifies you for a higher band. In many jobs, they consider a graduate degree and 2 years of work experience to be the equivalent of 4 years work experience without a graduate degree.

I say...milk the MBA. Milk it for all it's worth.

[elliot]

A quick update on things. At 24 I have completed the last course of my MBA program with a 3.1 cumulative GPA. The class I was worked up about but crunched on till the very end I received a B in. A grade higher than I anticipated and I can't really complain. My job will reimburse me for the majority of what I paid for this course and I learned much more about myself in the process.

The last class was harder than any I've taken in the last 2 years of graduate school. I want to continue challenging myself in ways that are in-line with what I was educated formally with. So I have another two month challenge to deal with.

First, I'm becoming the person I need to be in order to be valued at a much higher rate of pay than I am currently. This will require daily discipline in multiple areas, of which I will detail more later this week.

Second, I want to boost my ability to handle problems. A problem, or challenge can be looked at from multiple perspectives. For example, I bought a Photoreading program a few months ago and have been too busy to really apply it 100%. In addition, I know that life is going to throw a lot of obstacles my way and being able to handle them better will help me in so many different areas.

Graduation is this Spring and I'm stoked!

[elliot]

Revisiting this thread. Not much has changed and the job market has tanked for the worst. Where I am now, unemployment is highest since 1991. I am looking to relocate, still with parents on LI... Suggestions?

[Dot]

No change in two years? C'mon, you gotta give us a little more than that to go by. : )

Hmm, how about taking it easy for the summer, stay at your parents, and chase girls.

Originally Posted by elliot

I want to boost my ability to handle problems. A problem, or challenge can be looked at from multiple perspectives.

OK, Mr. MBA. It's show time. (Pulls up a chair to listen to an MBA address us on how to look at problems and challenges from multiple perspectives.)

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by elliot

...
Suggestions?

Yes.

[elliot]

Originally Posted by Dot

No change in two years? C'mon, you gotta give us a little more than that to go by. : )

Hmm, how about taking it easy for the summer, stay at your parents, and chase girls.


OK, Mr. MBA. It's show time. (Pulls up a chair to listen to an MBA address us on how to look at problems and challenges from multiple perspectives.)

Well chase boys would be more like it. I've done enough of that, found one I really like, am actually leaving between tomorrow and Tuesday to visit again. He lives 8 hours away. I have never felt so passionate about being with someone before in my life. It always seemed like the relationships were doomed from the start because of either a 15 year age gap, only a mild physical attraction or radically different personalities. Ok, enough of that...

In order to have a chance at spending a life together, I need to get my affairs in order. Time to step up to the plate and play this game full-on.

Well, the Type A personality side of me starts to kick in. I can be really hard on myself, but have difficulty taking ideas or plans into reality. It's sort of like I worked hard to get three degrees, but now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I've looked for jobs left and right, but they all seem to want someone with way more experience than I have. Sometimes I read the descriptions and begin to wonder, do I really want to this. 55% travel time for only slightly more than what I make now, weekends required. Such a schedule wouldn't allow for me to make time for my family or have much of a social life. I refuse to become a slave to work, regardless of the pay. While I do appreciate the value of a solid work ethic and challenging one's self, pushing myself so hard at something I hate is not the right way to go about it.

[elliot]

It took a lot out of me to write this, but it was a worthy exercise.

Future self looking at present self:
-Ok Elliot, you've experience a lot of challenges along the way. You originally didn't even know if you were going to go to college. You're the first person in your immediate family with a Master's Degree. Despite your father not having the opportunity to finish, he did get the satisfaction of knowing that his son was not destined to a life of hopelessness and fallen dreams. He was driven to become much better than that.

Your current situation though frustrating is much better than many of the other people out there. Right now you don't have the pressure of a mortgage looming over your shoulders, kids, or live in an area where the unemployment rate is 11.5%, such as certain regions of California. You have met someone who is willing to work with you and believes that the destination is what counts, not necessarily the obstacles one experiences on the journey.

My advice to you would be to continue with your day job and visit Virginia on the weekends when you can, possibly flying down there or having your potential mate come up here. There are plenty of things for two people to do in the NY Metro area if you have money. When you aren't at your day job, you need to reinvest in your greatest asset, yourself. No one else is going to, so you have to stay focused. Take a look at what the pros are doing and model what works, toss the rest aside. A degree alone never makes a person qualified to run a company so many factors come into play here. If an employer is that stringent in their hiring requirements, maybe it's the universe's way of telling you to find a different solution.

Steve Jobs several years ago during the dot com bubble burst focused on Apple's ability to innovate itself out of a downturn. During this time period, the most widely recognized international product of our generation was borne, the iPod and later the iPhone. This was no accident, when other companies cut back, Apple leveraged what resources it had to shake up the industry.

People are not so different. Years ago, when you started at the supermarket, you were on a bike making minimum wage. Today you make over triple your salary back then, with benefits. You are able to afford a car and make excess payments to your loans without worrying about putting food on the table. Your unhappiness with the state of events in 2009 is temporary. You still manage to find joy and make good out of what others could perceive as an unbeatable battle.

You are on the surface of some great things in your life. Your friends, when they are around are great sources of advice. Continue reaching out to strangers who really care, but don't annoy them. They can help you mold yourself into a much better you, if you can get past the fear and keep an open mind.

The choices you make this year, this month, this day will have a direct on your results down the road. Continue making the right ones, focusing on eliminating excess and planning for long-term growth. Don't rush to move out, but don't wait too long either. Love yourself and life in general.

My suggestion at 40 to you at 25 is to sharpen your skills, specialize in a few things, use those skills to connect more to the world. Follow through with your decision to get rid that Mac Pro on eBay, your greatest periods of growth happen when you can really connect to others. That's hard to do sitting alone in your room.

Last but not least, stop comparing yourself to other people or being fearful of what they think. Their life paths are different from yours and the time you spend trying to get others to like or be in awe of your achievements creates much noise in your life. Don't let the media control your outlook on life, they are paid to focus on the negative and control how you think. Stay Independent, take a stand based on facts, not others opinions. Just be who you are, make small improvements each day and remember that 2023 even though it seems like an eternity from now, you will still only be 40 years old. That's still young by 2009 standards and even younger in my time.

[elliot]

Present Self:
Update. Promoted from teller to head teller close to a year ago. Grossing in the high 30s. Falling in love with a guy that seems to understand how I think and not judgmental. Hoping to get $1500 for my desktop computer that I paid around $2400 for in late 06. Posted to a local car forum, but doubt anyone will reply. eBay is my next option. Still around 50k in debt, sometimes it seems like it never goes down. I however am paid up till January on my student loan and August on my car loan. In the meantime I'm saving some more cash to prepare for my moveout date. A ballpark time for the decision is September, give or take a few weeks.

Allowing to let myself become more comfortable with new people, instead of staying isolated. Makes me wonder why I didn't do this years ago. Haven't met anyone psychotic yet, think my subconscious does a good job of weeding them out.

The more I stay here, the more I think it's time to move. The writing is on the wall. Got my windows shot at randomly on Mother's Day. Been on numerous dates with people from the area and all ended up pretty much the same way. Feeling the same repetitiveness of my current job, even if the pay is better than what I've made before. Spoke to one of my friends in Houston involved with technology. He makes almost double what I make, not even factoring in the huge cost of living differences. I think he has a Bachelor's degree. He says I should apply for a position at his company, doing Sales. It is definitely tempting. Even a 20% raise would be huge at this stage of the game. My Long Island salary is the equivalent of about 20k in Houston. His salary would be equal 136k here. Talk about a gap.

I still have not gone on an outside interview for a job since 2005. My prospects of moving up with my current company are questionable at best. Even then, the starting salary for a manager is around 60k/yr. They would never hire me, since 95% of the managers have been there for over 5 years and have previous banking experience or hired from the outside. The next step up would be a more modest increase of around $5k/yr. I want big results, not small ones. I'm convinced I will lose my sanity if I stay with this company for another four years, not that I hate them. The feeling of being stuck and working so hard to settle is just not me. Live is too short to continually settle doing dead-end jobs.

[spirit4711]

What type of work fulfills you? What makes you passionate?

[Dot]

Elliot, your writing is excellent, BTW. Put that down on your skills list. : )

[elliot]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

Yes.

What is your suggestion? lol

[spirit4711]

Connect with your passion. What really makes you go?

This one I picked from another topic:

If all jobs in the world paid exactly the same, and all had a vacancy, which one would you choose?

[elliot]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

Connect with your passion. What really makes you go?

This one I picked from another topic:

If all jobs in the world paid exactly the same, and all had a vacancy, which one would you choose?

I did the StrengthsFinder 2.0 evaluation and my five themes were as follows:
Deliberative
Harmony
Futuristic
Relator
Ideation

That doesn't answer your question though.

I would choose work that gave me a sense of accomplishment. Consultant work, sales, product research / development.

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by elliot

...
That doesn't answer your question though.

It works better if you you make it your question...

Seriously, take some time to connect with what you really want. Steve wrote an article about it too.

I would choose work that gave me a sense of accomplishment. Consultant work, sales, product research / development.

Do you notice you stay rather vague? Do you really see yourself working as such? What would you do? Feel? Achieve? With whom? For whom?

Come on Eliot, do the work.

[elliot]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

It works better if you you make it your question...

Seriously, take some time to connect with what you really want. Steve wrote an article about it too.



Do you notice you stay rather vague? Do you really see yourself working as such? What would you do? Feel? Achieve? With whom? For whom?

Come on Eliot, do the work.

Over the years, I've been postponing taking massive action in many respects. Hence, it's my natural tendency to be vague / non-descript when asked what I really want. Ultimately I see myself working for others, but on my timetable. Working a 9-5 or 9-9 job for the rest of my life seems like a waste. What I will do exactly I really have no idea about. My work experiences if anything have shown me what I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing.

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by elliot

Over the years, I've been postponing taking massive action in many respects. Hence, it's my natural tendency to be vague / non-descript when asked what I really want.
...

How does that serve you? (Yes it serves you or you would stop doing it.)

And how does this limit you from getting / achieving what you want? How does that make you feel?

How would it be for you to be the opposite of vague? What would happen? How would others react?

[elliot]

I feel like I've been whining a lot which is why I haven't put much effort into replying. Sorry if that has done anyone a disservice here. I wrote this in my blog earlier..

"I've had many goals over the years, many of them did not come to light of day. Despite this, I continued to work at growing, at building myself as a person.

No matter what happens in life, everything is a learning experience. We can either let it destroy us, or change the way we think and act as a result. Although I will not go into specifics, I feel this is especially the case for me at the present time. Whatever the outcome, I will remain resilient. I've worked too hard to have it any other way.

More than anything else right now, I need to figure out what makes me happy. For some people it's money, for others its ability to help people, others prefer to just work on themselves. I have searched high and low, but I still know the answer to a very simple question. Materialistic possessions aren't all they're cracked up today. Whether it's the new car, college degrees, computer, etc. Their meaning wanes over time, but for a select few

At the very root of it, being happy is often the result of finding people that you resonate with and having the ability to grow with those people and enjoy the process. Often the people I've encountered seemed radically different from me, or I put up some kind of defensive boundary, to shield me from my fear of being rejected yet again...

It's kind of funny how social anxiety can take over a normally intelligent individual and transform them into a bit of a recluse. I know some of the stories I have aren't as bad as I makes them out to be, but the stronghold they have over my day to day activities is intense.

Below is a list of some of the behaviors that I have exhibited over the past few years when it comes to meeting people:
1. Rarely establishing direct eye contact with people.
2. When invited to some type of social gathering, almost always make up an excuse as to why I cannot be in attendance, as though my schedule is that jampacked.
3. Even one in the company of people I know, I feel uncomfortable when left alone or with people I do not know. I tend to look down or if I have something such as my computer, book, or a magazine I would much rather focus on that instead of talking to the person.
4. Being blank. Someone could share their entire life story with me over the course of several minutes and while I am paying attention to them, rarely do I feel like I have anything purposeful to say in response. Whether it's a matter of us being radically different or me not having anything to add based on my own experiences is yet to be determined.
5. Isolating myself from any kind of social activity whatsoever. There are some weeks that pass where I typically go to work, come home and take a nap, possibly go to the gym or get fast food, play on the computer some more then go to sleep.
6. Holding back how I actually feel. Many people refer to me as calm, or mellow, but I only come across this way due to not caring what they're talking about, or knowing that if I were to express my true thoughts on the situation it would create more tension.

Time is of the essence, much has been lost already in my situation. I desperately need to overcome the obstacles that limit me. I need to embrace the current moment and let my overreliance on the past fall by the wayside. Those who need help the most are generally the last to request it, I am no different. I feel so powerful, yet so helpless at the same time, it can be difficult to explain.

I do have some friends, but feel like they are few and far between.

Also there are times I feel like I have a brain fog, where I am physically present but mentally elsewhere. The more I research the phenomenon, the more of a hypochondriac I become, so I have sort of given up trying to find a solution. idk
Think I know what I need to do, but have been putting off the necessary actions far too long."

[elliot]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

How does that serve you? (Yes it serves you or you would stop doing it.)

And how does this limit you from getting / achieving what you want? How does that make you feel?

How would it be for you to be the opposite of vague? What would happen? How would others react?

Not taking actions minimized my chances of failing. In a world of crazy people, close to 10% unemployment rate in the US and my massive debt, it makes sense to do the 'safe / secure' instead of the risky. Like I could say oh I'm going to quit my job and move out on my own. Within months I'd probably be broke and unable to afford a place to live.

Postponing action makes me feel like my life is lacking meaning. I don't have kids to support or a partner that I'm trying to create a loving relationship with. It's just me alone, living in the same house for years and years, having social anxiety and in a living arrangement that discourages people coming over, not growing my skills, letting my degree and my base of knowledge become forgotten, undercultivated, or outdated. I think people who come home to people they enjoy supporting, are looking up to them, etc are better off than those who live a life of solitude. It makes me want to just curl in a ball and cry. Hopes and dreams of being more than I was in high school become faded memories as I fall victim to the same character flaws.

For as far bas as I can remember, I've never really been spot-on with what I wanted in life. Didn't know what I wanted to be when I 'grew up', didn't know what kind of friends I would have, never was able to communicate a feeling of certainty / extreme focus in a job interview. I think being sharp-minded would get me further than I have been today, but in what area. Further into a lifestyle that I don't enjoy? Or would a job that pays more with different types of stressors be beneficial to help a sheltered person grow.

[spirit4711]

Do yourself a big favour. Get a coach who kicks your ass from here to next week.

I mean it.

It saddens me to read what you write in this topic. You have lots of potential, yet you keep yourself small, which doesn't lead you to having the life you're worth living. It really doesn't have to be this way.

Get. A. Coach.

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by elliot

Well, I got my Bachelor's Degree and didn't know what I wanted to do in life.
Figured I might as well continue my education while still young and do whatever was necessary to give me an edge over the competition.

When you studied for your MBA, didn't you practice... "marketable skills"
like
You know showing up for an Interview with the attitude that you already HAVE the job , and you're there to start the process of how you can help them succeed, more...