Blog Post 3

When I read Krumboltz's four factors that influence career decision making, I really connected with how they built upon one another starting with genetic endowment and special abilities. This made me think of how my life long dream was to become a profession dancer, however, when you are four foot nine, it is difficult to fit the mold and the body type of a profession dancer. Instead, this passion and dream has become a hobby through exercise. I go to Zumba twice a week and enjoy relieving stress and tension through something I love to do. The second factor Krumboltz's discusses is environmental conditions and events. This factor connected me with the fact that spirituality could also be a negative hinderance on someone who is trying to make a career decision that does not follow their families or their individual spiritual views. This makes it difficult these conditions and events that are out of the client's control might be a road block for a client's decision in the career development process.
The third factor that Krumboltz's identifies as an influence is learning experiences. He breaks it down into two different types of learning instrumental learning experiences and associative learning experiences. Each types of learning can influence career decision making. The fourth and final factor that Krumboltz's identifies as an influence is task approach skills. An individual uses their standards and values to make a decisions. These tasks can alter and modify what decision is made.

When reading about these four factors, I have connected with the order of these factors and how each of them influences a person and the way they make decisions. This theory is extremely realistic with the idea that life never changes and these factors change with it. The first factor of Krumboltz's  theory, genetic endowment and special abilities and the fourth factor, task approach skills, connect to the spirituality piece that was discussed this week during our discussion posts. Genetic endowment makes me think of the concept of having a calling in the area of career development, that an individual was put on this Earth to fulfill a specific destiny. The last factor, task approach skills, connects with the definition of spirituality developed by Adams and Csiernik (as cited in Duffy, 2006): “workplace spirituality involves positively sharing, valuing, caring, respecting, acknowledging, and connecting the talents and energies of people in meaningful goal-directed behavior that enables them to belong, be creative, be personally fulfilled, and take ownership in their combined destiny." Spirituality is more than just religion and that values and standards are influences on career decision making. 



Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development (10^th ed.). New York: Pearson.

Duffy, R. (n.d.). Spirituality, religion, and career development: Current status and future directions. The Career Development Quarterly, 52-63.