If you are considering getting a degree in counseling or a career in mental health, this is your sign to go for it. Counseling is a profession that is fulfilling and passion-driven. A counselor has a keen desire to pull people out of their misery and find a way to help them solve their problems and bravely face their adversities.
A counselor helps individuals, families, and even communities to come out on top of their life’s challenges. This field of work is not only rewarding and meaningful on a personal level for a counselor, but the world also needs good counselors right now, so it’s a win for society as well.
In this article, we state four reasons why you should become a counselor.
- Work In A Wide Range Of Settings:
When you become a counselor, you get to work in different settings. You are not bound to work in a particular sector or field. For example, you can provide counseling services in different settings like social service agencies, educational institutes like schools, colleges, and universities, medical facilities like hospitals and clinics, nonprofit organizations, veterans’ organizations, etc. Or you can also start your private practice. Counselors mostly engage in talk therapy sessions to help out their clients. Along with different settings to work in, counselors can also select a particular specialty to practice in, such as health, addiction, marriage, or family counseling.
The educational and training requirements for counselors vary from state to state and depend on the type of work they want to do and their preferred specialization. Typically, a bachelor’s or master’s degree in counseling is required. Nowadays, many reputable institutions offer online counseling degrees so you can easily get the required educational qualification. To become a licensed counselor, you must complete a certain number of supervised counseling hours and get through a state licensing board.
- Achieve Work-Life Balance:
When you are choosing a career, the thing that is more important than even job prospects and salary is the work-life balance that you can achieve. If you choose a career where you cannot leave behind your work in the office, you will exhaust yourself to the point of burnout. That is why a career in counseling is a good choice, as it offers a perfect work-life balance. Being a counselor, you will have autonomy in making your work-related decisions. You get to decide the time of appointments with the patients; you can take as many patients as you like and not more than your capacity.
You can also decide the appointment duration as you like. This way, you can adjust your working hours according to your routine. For example, mental health counselors work only 40 hours a week on average. Also, with the advancement in technology, more people are booking online appointments with counselors. This means if you have to relocate or can’t leave your house for some reason, you can still take a session online without having to travel to your office. This makes work easy to manage with other duties, and you don’t feel overburdened.
- Positive Career Outlook:
Counseling is a career that has a very positive future growth rate. Nowadays, the demand for counselors has been witnessing an immense surge. As the population is aging and growing, there are more and more people who need help and concrete guidance to face their ever-increasing issues. This means the excess demand for counselors. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be increased growth of 22% in positions for substance abuse counselors, behavioral disorders counselors, and mental health counselors by 2031. This growth rate is much higher than growth rates in other fields.
With the increasing demand for counselors, rest assured that there will always be job opportunities for those with a degree in counseling. Not only will there be more counseling jobs in the future, but the jobs in this field also pay well. The yearly average pay for mental health professionals is approximately $52,834.
- Meaningful Work:
If you want to do work in life that is meaningful and want to leave a positive mark in this world, then a career in counseling is the best choice for you. When you counsel others, you pull them out of their life’s darkest moments. You get to save people’s lives. There is no work more meaningful than that. Many people who have established careers often switch to counseling as they did not find their previous work meaningful enough. Hence, if you are a purpose-driven and passion-driven person, you must go for a career in counseling. You get to improve the world when you work in this field.
Many troubled individuals tend to self-harm or harm others; if you can provide them with assistance and help them turn their life around, you will be saving not only that person’s life but the lives of many other people too. When you do meaningful work, you feel satisfied, and when you are content and happy in the work that you are doing, it makes you more enthusiastic about helping even more people.
Conclusion:
If you have not yet decided on the career you want to pursue, this article is here to guide you. If you love helping others and want to bring a positive change to this world, then a career in counseling will be the best option for you. A career in counseling also comes with high-paying jobs in a variety of different settings and also provides a perfect work-life balance that many other professions lack. Go through these four reasons and learn why becoming a counselor is right for you.
