Career counseling: hope is not enough, volition is needed

Many clients have pervasive decision-making difficulties when facing the challenge of career choice or transition. Finding the relevant information needed for making a career decision, societal or organizational barriers, and the current detrimental context of economic crises of our globalized late modern society are obstacles on the route of career goals (intentions) that cannot be overcome only by motivation conceptualized in a hedonistic perspective. When hope is weak, the initiation and pursuit of actions toward the goal of managing a career and sub-goals such as career exploration, self-exploration, and environmental exploration need volition, that is self-regulatory processes determining which motivational tendencies are actually implemented, at which opportunity, and in what manner. This presentation briefly examines how conceptual distinctions between both constructs (motivation and volition) applied to career decision-making in the context of goal-directed action could bring a fresh view on decision making in vocational theory and counseling.