Possible Selves: Applications for Career Counseling

Abstract

Possible selves is a future-oriented, personalized, affect-laden, motivating form of self-knowledge, which provides a link between one's self-concept and incentives for future behavior, an interpretive framework for an individual's current views of self, and a way to link present behaviors with future outcomes. This article explores the usefulness of thinking about one's occupational future in the context of possible selves. Beneficial aspects of doing so include a personalization of career-related choices including their affective components, incentives to be planful, and an explicit focus on the future. Ideas are presented for applying possible selves to a career-counseling focus for racial/ethnic minorities and women. Cautions related to the construct and directions for research are explored.