From outside-in to inside-out: Engaging bodily insights in career decision-making activities
Dr. Njoke Thomas
Abstract
Career decisions are among the most consequential choices that can be made. Each one holds the potential of lasting impact, for good or for ill, on the decider’s futures trajectory. The stakes are often high, with implications for financial outlook, experienced work meaningfulness, and subsequent career opportunities. Various perspectives on the career decision-making process seem to privilege cognition, as evidenced in a focus on rationality, indecisiveness, and dysfunctional beliefs (Gati & Asher, 2001, Moore, Gunz & Hall, 2007). The apparent disregard for embodied aspects of the decision-making process reflects the persistent legacy of Cartesian dualism (i.e., the primary identification of the individual with the mind as separate from the body; see Michel 2011; Michel, 2015).