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All sorts of unexpected things can happen in careers.

Some are good, some are appalling, and some can be quite traumatic. Most of the time on these sorts of blogs, we talk about what happens to people, what’s done to them.

A bad boss, a workplace restructure, working with people who are no good - but we also know that people can make terrible mistakes in their career. Indeed, everyone makes some mistakes.

The idea is to learn when you stuff up. As my later father always told me, if you don’t make mistakes, you don’t make anything. All sorts of unexpected things can happen in careers.

Some are good, some are appalling, and some can be quite traumatic. Blogger and consultant Michael Wade has listed his career mistakes. Reading through the list, many of us would have done at least one of them.

According to Wade, big mistakes include staying too long in certain jobs (no matter how comfortable it gets, you should always move on every few years to get more experience, different insights and to refresh the batteries), failing to seize available opportunities, like for example, mentoring or taking up new projects, expecting your career will be a direct path, like a rocket on a trajectory, and not being able to tell the difference between networking and sucking up to the wrong people.

All these are common mistakes. But there are more. Careers consultant Randall Hansen has seen the mistakes on his list time and time again. Changing careers purely for the money is pretty bad because the loot will not compensate if you have to go in every day feeling miserable.

You might be suffering in comfort but it’s not a good space to be in because most of us want careers with some meaning and purpose.

Changing your career because you hate your job is not a good idea either, unless of course, you are switching across to something more interesting and rewarding.

Remember one thing: your boss might control your job but you own your career. Other mistakes listed here include thinking your boss, or worse still, the HR department is your friend.

And whatever you do, don’t expect free career support and never share too much information. It will come back to haunt you. I would add a few more to these lists.

One of the worst things I’ve noticed is that people do not network enough outside their company. That’s a mistake because everyone needs support networks, and no job is secure.

You don’t have the time? You make time, pure and simple. Another mistake is not making the most out of your training opportunities which, incidentally, are good for networking.

Many people also equate their career with the meaning of their life. Your career is not your life, it’s something you do and something you work on to improve but there’s more to your life than that.

You need to keep your career in perspective and ensure that it remains in balance.

Again, all these mistakes are not uncommon but then that’s the only way we learn.