There are many important questions you must ask yourself throughout your life, and one of those is certainly ‘which career is best for me?’ The average person spends just over 13 years of their life at work, and that’s not including all the unpaid overtime, or the leisure time that you spend thinking about work. If you’re going to dedicate so much of your time to something, you need to make sure it is something fulfilling.
Choosing a career is not something that can be done overnight, it takes careful consideration and time to explore the infinite opportunities that are out there. In this post we are going to help you look at how to undertake the journey of choosing a career, we are also going to look at some of the tools that are out there to help you get career you want, from online personality assessments to life coaching there are lots of options out there to make sure you don’t feel you have to undertake this mission alone.
Self-Reflection
Deciding what is the right career path for you is an important decision, and before making any important decision it is recommended to take time and space for self-reflection. In this time of self-reflection, it is important to consider some important questions relating to what you want out of a career. What makes you happy and what you want your life to look like are of vital importance when choosing a career as there is no such thing a ‘the right career’ just ‘the right career for you!’
Our recommendation is not to try and work all of this out at once, we recommend allowing yourself an hour each evening for a week and consider each of the following questions.
Write them down at the top of a sheet of paper and make notes, trying to stay focused just on one aspect each evening.
Day 1 – What am I naturally good at?
Day 2 – What am I interested in?
Day 3 – What are my key values?
Day 4 – What skills do I have?
Day 5 – What skills would I like to learn?
Day 6 – What do I want to get out of my work?
Day 7 – What are my deal breakers?
Hopefully by undertaking this exercise you will end the week with a deeper understanding of your own feelings about what careers you align with, what you want out of you work and will be able to quickly exclude any jobs you know would not be a good fit for you.
The document you create by carrying out this exercise will become your roadmap to a career which suits you. You can take this document and share with friends, family and maybe even a life coach in order to get their opinions.
It is also important to keep your answers to these questions in a safe place, as it may be useful to return to them as you progress along you career search journey.
Networking
It is difficult to do anything alone, and with something as important as choosing a career its always best to enlist help. While trying to make decisions around your career prospects make sure you talk to friends and family, especially people whose opinion you really value.
As well as taking advice from people close to you it is also a great idea to use online tools such as linkedin to network with people outside of your immediate social circle. Speaking to people who are already working in the area you are interested in can give you a better idea of what its really like to work in different industries. Who knows, if you end up connecting with the right person you could even get a job interview!
Recent surveys show that up 85% of jobs are filled by networking so make sure you put yourself out there and you never know what opportunities may arise for you.
Hire a life coach
While its possible to get great advice from friends and family sometimes you need a bit of professional advice. Somebody who can offer you unbiased opinions from an objective point of view. Hiring a life coach can be a great way to get impartial and professional advice.
A good life coach can help in any aspect of your life which you find yourself struggling in. Whether its personal relationships, anxiety and stress or career stagnation. A good life coach will help you assess your current life situation, build an actionable plan to move towards your goals and then mentor you along the way. A life coach will help you to stay focused and on track to reach your full potential.
You can bring in a life coach to help at any stage of your career search, it doesn’t matter if you are completely lost with no idea what you would like to do, or if you know what you would like to do but need guidance to help you get there. A life coach could help you identify what your strengths and weaknesses are, allowing you to get the very best out of your life.
Volunteer or Temp
Do you think you know what career you would like to get into, but you don’t have the experience or qualification to get a job in that field? Finding volunteer opportunities, internships or temporary work may be the solution for you. It makes sense that an employer may be reluctant to give you a job in a career you don’t have any experience in; just on your word that you would like to do something new. The onus is on you to put yourself out there and prove that you are committed to this new path.
But who doesn’t like somebody helping them out for free? While it may be difficult to find paid entry level jobs in your new chosen field, it may be possible to find volunteer positions with overlapping skills. While it may mean you have to pick up some additional hours on top of your current job for a few months the reward will be worth the effort.
Working with a company that inspires you can also be a great way of networking. If you work hard and make an impression that volunteer or temp role could turn into a permanent job! This could be either directly with the company you volunteer with or as you will meet people in the same line of work, they could recommend you for a different role.
Aside from helping you to gain experience there are also a wide range of additional benefits to volunteering. These include making new friends and bringing fulfilment to your life.
Be patient
If you are not happy with your current job, or you are struggling to get your career started it can really get you down, being unhappy at work is one of the leading causes of stress. This means that it can feel like you need to move quickly and make sweeping changes in order to feel better. However, a rushed decision or rash actions can sometimes make things worse. It is important to take you time and make smart choices not just fast ones.
With this in mind, our final tip is to be patient. Utilise the myriad of tools at your disposal to make sure you find the right career for you.
Work through our self-reflection exercise to get a clear picture of what career would suit you.
Reach out to those around you either friends and family or a wider network of people online and incorporate their opinions and suggestions into you thinking.
Consider enlisting professional help. If you had a toothache you would go to a dentist, so if you need career advice you should go to a life coach. It may be best to approach a life coach once you already have an idea of what you would like to achieve (this isn’t necessary but will give them more to work with) then they will be able to give you focused and unbiased advice and help you to access resources you didn’t know even existed.
Changing career may mean temporarily taking a pay cut, having to work different or additional hours, or using some of your free time in order to get new qualifications. It is important to ensure that you have things in place to allow you to dedicate this extra time without impacting other aspects of your life.
Make sure you discuss things with your partner as changing career may impact on them. If you have young children, you may need to make sure you have adequate childcare arrangements to cover a new working situation. All these things take time to implement, which is another reason not to rush into things.
Good luck on your career search from everyone at LifeSolvers Group.