Career to Counseling: If you’re currently in a career where you do not feel fulfilled and tend to feel like you spend most days staring at the clock and watching time pass by, it might be time for a change into a more meaningful career where you have a clearer sense of purpose. If you want a career path that provides you with more flexibility, a greater work/life balance, and the ability to help others every day, getting into mental during counseling might be an ideal choice for you. There are several reasons to consider this career if you are the type of person who enjoys talking to and helping others.

You Want to Make a Difference:

Counselors are often the people that others will speak to when they are going through the toughest times of their lives with their mental health. Counselors help with all sorts of issues whether somebody is going through depression as a result of a recent situation in their life, to helping their patients with more serious and chronic mental health issues like bipolar disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder. In this role, you can make a positive difference to the lives of the people that you work with, in many ways. After taking an online master’s in counseling from Saint Bonaventure University, you will be able to work with patients to improve their understanding of their own mental health and guide them through coming up with healthier strategies and coping mechanisms to manage it.

You Enjoy Talking to Others:

Are you the type of person who enjoys giving advice? Maybe your friends will typically come to you when they have a problem as they know that you enjoy helping others and don’t mind talking it out with them if that’s the best support that they need right now. You know when others want you to offer practical help and when they simply need somebody to listen to them and make sure that they feel heard. Often as a mental health counselor, there will not be anything that you can do to improve your patient’s situation for them – all you will be able to do is provide them with a safe and caring space where they can rely on you to listen to what they have to say and validate their feelings, empowering them to tackle their issues and create the positive change that they need in their lives.

You Have a Lot of Empathy:

Do you have a lot of empathy for other people? Are you the type of person who is not quick to take things at face value, but often wonders what others are going through or what somebody must have been through to lead to the situation that they are currently in? Maybe when somebody is being rude to you, the first thing you consider is that they might have had a bad day, and it’s nothing personal. This level of empathy is necessary for a successful career as a mental health counselor since it allows you to put yourself in the patient’s shoes and dig deeper into certain situations.

You Want to Improve Mental Health Services:

If you are sad about the current state of mental healthcare and want to make a positive change, working as a mental health counselor is just one way that you can do that. While the world is certainly going in the right direction when it comes to how we view and handle mental health, there is still a lot of work to be done and a lot of stigma to be broken around certain mental health conditions until we are in an ideal position. Whether you have struggled to get mental health services yourself in the past or have watched somebody that you love struggle to get the help that they needed, working as a mental health counselor gives you the chance to do your part working towards these much-needed improvements.

You Want a Career With Flexibility:

A career as a mental health counselor can be as flexible as you want it to be. Once you are qualified, you can work in different settings or even become self-employed. Today, online counseling is on the rise and more and more mental health counselors are setting up as online therapists either on their own or through a service like BetterHelp. This makes counseling an ideal option for anybody who likes the idea of being able to be self-employed and is seeking the flexibility to take their career in the best direction for them.

You Like Building Relationships With Others:

If you enjoy meeting new people, finding out about them, and building strong relationships with them, a career as a mental health counselor might be an ideal role for you. In this career path, you will get more chances compared to most when it comes to building strong relationships with the people that you work with and finding out more about what makes them tick. If one of the main problems that you have with your current career is that you just don’t get enough time to get to know the people around you, mental health counseling will certainly be a career path that you will prefer.

You Have Life Experience You Want to Put to Use:

Mental health counselors come from all walks of life. Often, they are people with past life experiences that they can use to empathize with, understand and build relationships with their clients. Many mental health counselors have had their own mental health struggles in the past and know first-hand how it feels to seek help and learn to manage these problems in a healthy way. Many patients might feel more comfortable knowing that they are speaking with somebody who is already at the point that they want to reach, has successfully learned to manage their own mental health, and is now sharing that expertise with others.

Working in mental health counseling is an ideal career choice for any caring, empathetic person who wants to dedicate their career to helping others achieve their personal goals.