By Stan Mack Updated April 19, 2022
Your self-concept is your perception of who you are and what you can handle, and it can affect all aspects of your life from your relationships to your personal development. In terms of your career, your self-concept might revolve around your work identity and whatever you believe you're capable of doing.
Understanding Self-Concept
Self-concepts can be either positive or negative. A positive self-concept means you have a strong sense of identity and believe you're capable of rising to whatever challenges that come. As Very Well Mind reports, you believe you make valuable contributions to your field and that you have the knowledge, talent and potential necessary for success.
A negative self-concept, on the other hand, means you don’t identify with your work and are pessimistic about your potential. For example, you might hate what you do for a living and believe you lack the education, training and experience to pursue better opportunities.
Effect on Career Choices
Positive and negative self-concepts can influence career decisions. For example, if you believe in yourself, you’ll pursue more opportunities for growth. You’ll also take more chances and handle inevitable rejections better, which increases your chances of career success.
A person with a poor self-concept would, on the other hand, feel as if their potential was limited, an idea that can be self-perpetuating. In other words, if you believe you're incapable of improving your career, you won’t chase down opportunities. That means you’ll miss opportunities for growth and so remain where you are.
Effect on Others
If your self-concept is apparent to others, it can have an influence on how they perceive you. For example, if you're confident and eager for new challenges, your supervisor might respond to your positive self-concept by offering you more responsibilities and a promotion. But if your body language and choices reveal that you don’t believe in yourself, your negative self-concept will cause others to doubt you as well.
This again raises the problem of a self-confirming negative self-concept: your doubts about your potential limit your opportunities by convincing others to underestimate your capabilities.
Loss of Identity
Sometimes circ*mstances dictate abandoning a career, undermining your self-concept. For example, an article on LinkedIn suggests that immigrant workers who abandon vocations in their home countries might experience negative feelings and a diminished self-concept if they are forced to take a 'lesser' job in the new country. Similar feelings might affect professionals forced to abandon professions due to health, personal or economic reasons.
Self-esteem can be developed through career guidance or counseling, changing your self-concept and improving your career prospects. Choose a professional counselor or psychologist and ask for help defining yourself in positive ways. After that, improve your career prospects by clearly defining your goals and working steadily to achieve them.
