I believe that many of us had ideals about what social work would be like when we entered the field. We could have imagined ourselves doing selfless advocacy work, greatly empowering others or miraculously saving our clients from addiction, crime, abuse, poverty etc. Then when we got into the field we realised that there may not be as many opportunities to truly help others as we had imagined. Or maybe it has occurred to us that we might not be the best at multitasking, handling crises or completing paperwork in an accurate and timely manner.
Of course there is a learning curve when you are new but you might reach a point after several months or years that there are aspects of social work that plays to your weaknesses. Maybe you just never could get a handle on writing twenty page reports and find the administrative part of social work drab and annoying. Then an alternate may be a social work position which means spending more time with clients. Or you could feel that spending a majority of your time with clients gives you less time to focus on aspects of social work which you really enjoy such as policy.
Oftentimes we don't know what our strengths are until we start our careers as social workers. Our family, school advisers or other mentors may push us in one direction when we feel that our strengths lie in another. Maybe we dreamt of having a very prestigious social work position but when we got there it occurred to us that we did not feel completely comfortable in that role.
Social work is great in that it affords us many opportunities to work in fields such as child welfare, hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, schools and so on. Yet it can also be a hinder when you have to search through each area to find your fit.
After some self discovery you might come to accept that to you success does not mean a lot of money, but of working in an environment where you feel like you can greatly contribute with all the social work talents that you possess.
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