Developing a vision of what the career of your dreams looks like seems like it would be relatively easy, but in my experience, it’s not.

Since you were very young, you have been receiving messages about what career you should pursue. Your parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, bosses, and even the media all have opinions about what a bright woman like you should want. Your father tells you that the best job for you is as an accountant in a big accounting firm, with a stable income, an excellent 401(k), and regular promotions. Your mother says that being a lawyer is too demanding a job to combine with motherhood. Your roommate cautions you that her sister, who works in tech, hates it because it’s such a boy’s club. The articles you read tell you that you should want to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or the founder of a tech start-up. Your favorite TV show paints a picture of the unmarried female doctor as miserable and lonely.

A study by KPMG, a global tax, audit, and advisory services firm, asked 3,000 college-aged and professional women what messages they received growing up. The four most common answers were:

• Be nice to others (86 percent)
• Be a good student (86 percent)
• Be respectful of authority figures or elders (85 percent)
• Be helpful (77 percent)

At the bottom of the list?

• Share your point of view (34 percent)
• Be a good leader (44 percent)

Messages like these are certainly not consistent with being a successful business executive!

The well-intentioned advice from others may be right in the abstract, but it may not be right for you. They don’t know what your big, unspoken dreams are. They don’t know what excites you and what you find boring. They don’t know what you are doing when time flies and what you are doing when you can’t stop watching the clock. And most importantly, they don’t have to live with the consequences of the decisions you make.

Reflect on the messages you received growing up about what your career aspirations should be. Which of these messages serve you well when envisioning the career of your dreams? Which of these messages don’t? Tune out those voices that do not serve you well and develop your own picture of what success means for you. Only you can make the choice about the right career path for you.