Here is one way to explore the possible effects or influences of your family experiences on your career development. It might be painful so feel free to skip this exercise entirely if you have any reservations. If you do feel like experimenting, however, here is something you can try:

Imagine that you have landed what is for you the perfect job. Your career is going so well you can’t hardly imagine it going any better. You are happy; you are successful; you might even be on the verge of becoming well-known in your field. In a word, you are a success. Life is good.

Now, here is the interesting part. Imagine yourself talking to one of your family members about your new-found success. It doesn’t really matter which one, although it is probably best if you pick the one you felt most influenced by; probably one of your parents. Go ahead and imagine yourself having a complete conversation with this relative, in which you explain in great detail how thrilled you are to have achieved exactly the kind of career that you had hoped for. Include as much detail and as much excitement as possible.

The challenge here is to notice, in your imaginary conversation, the reactions on the part of the family member you are discussing all this with. Don’t try to censor or edit or in any way modify this reaction-just notice it. Notice in as much detail as you can exactly how this person reacts to your excitement and your story of success. Chances are the reaction you’re noticing here will be more or less representative of the kinds of reactions you received throughout your childhood — for better or for worse.

Now you can take it a step further. Notice your reaction to your family member’s reaction. This is probably the most important part of all, because your reaction is what influences your life choices. It is probably a cliché by now to point out that if we don’t believe something is really possible we are much less likely to attempt it — as the story about the four minute mile reminds us. This exercise, then, can give you a fairly good indication of the kinds of messages you are likely to have received while you are growing up. These messages probably influence your behavior and your decisions much more than you might suspect.

If this exercise indicates that you have received mostly positive messages and influences about your career possibilities, congratulations. Obviously you are the one who has to do the work but with a background of positive reinforcement there is one less kind of roadblock to worry about.

On the other hand, if you discovered some negative influences as a result of doing this exercise, all is not lost. It is probably true that you will have to work somewhat harder to overcome these influences, but I think you are much better off once you know that they exist. A very wise man once told me that the truth can never be your enemy. In this case, if the truth includes some negative influences on your career decision mechanism, you are certainly in a much better position to do something about this now that you know about it.