Ever wonder how to find a career area that is best for you? In my opinion, this is not just knowing your interests, but also knowing your work style and personality type. Everything combined makes up who you are and what you like or don’t like to do. From the clients I help I am witnessing the desire for this balance more and more. I’m seeing this is not something people simply want - it is something they expect.

To explore career areas, look to yourself to get clarity on what it is you like to do most. Do not confuse what would be good as a career with what it is you like doing as a hobby. It is also a key step to understand how you function in the workplace. This includes how you interact with people, how you take in information, make decisions, and how organized or structured you need the work environment to be. In addition, you need to have an action plan and you need to eliminate the negative thoughts that are stopping you from moving in the direction you want to go.

Putting these things in place will help you overcome career dissatisfaction. It will help put you in a workplace that is a better fit for you. Most people don’t realize it, but the average person will spend 10,000 days of their life “on the job”, and my opinion is that those days need to be rewarding and fulfilling.

Best paying careers? WHO CARES!

Building your “dream career” is not all about having the best paying careers or the most prestigious job - it’s about having a career where your work is exciting for you. This leads to being highly enthused and motivated about doing daily work that doesn’t feel like a job – you become fulfilled and satisfied within the working world. And yes, that does in fact have a tremendous impact on your level of energy in every day life.

“The Confused, Undecided, Frustrated, Stressed-out Career and College Destroyer” – that’s what the fictional, yet powerful, “career virus” has rightfully been named. This make-believe virus affects the way the mind processes critical career decisions - sometimes it numbs the thinking so severely that it’s just not possible to make a confident career decision at all.

Yes, “the virus” is all made-up stuff, but this scenario plays itself out in the minds of thousands of people around the world on a daily basis. It affects everyone ranging from a high school or college student lost in the maze of career decisions, college majors, and university choices to working adults who have that “knot in the stomach” feeling on Sunday evenings.

This is a HUGE problem! Career confusion and indecision leads to frustration and stress that then leads to students dropping out of college and adults living in a world of work they dislike. This doesn’t paint a very inspiring picture, but this is a part of real life reality that needs to be highlighted and reversed.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a question we hear all the time. We even hear fifty year old adults personally trying to answer the question.

“What are you passionate about?” is the real question that needs to be answered. The best paying careers are not automatically going to give meaning to your work life.

Three key mistakes made by college / college-bound students that contribute to going in the wrong direction and college dropout are:

Not discovering personal interests / not having a long-term career goal.
Choosing a mismatched college major.
Selecting the wrong university.

Three major errors made by adult workers that contribute to the lack of work inspiration and satisfaction:

Settling for what you get and not going after what you deserve.
Not discovering personal interests.
Not having a Motivational Action Plan (M.A.P.).

Can you see how these critical career miscues can nose-dive a person’s emotion, desire, and drive into an out-of-control spiral?! Do people want this? Of course not! When will this change? It needs to change sooner than later!

Wake up the sleeping passions within you, forget about the best paying careers, and take control of your career path! You’re doing yourself a disservice if you simply go through the motions on the surface.

What Do I Want To Be?

If we had a penny for every time that question is asked, none of us would need to wonder about what our future occupation or profession would be, because we would all have enough pennies to retire at a very early age. The reality – even though this question is repeated often by children, teenagers and working adults – is that we don’t get a penny every time, and so we all need to plan on making some extremely important career decisions to steer us toward the most satisfying and inspirational career possible.

At a very early age, little Johnny wants to be a policeman, and tiny Suzy wants to be a ballet dancer – but let’s face it – that will change significantly between age seven and the mid-teen years when college planning starts kicking in. Preparing for college is when “what do I want to be” stops being cute and starts having real life meaning to “when I grow up”. If taken lightly, the education received during the college years can be misdirected away from a person’s true interests. This can create additional costs for more studies or even lead to a working adult career that is unfulfilling.

College-bound students are faced with the decision of what career path they want to pursue. Most times a career path is chosen based on career popularity or salary potential because many individuals have a difficult time mapping something of personal interest into a career or occupational option. The college major chosen will begin to shape the next four years of college and begin the long-term personal and financial investment based on a specific career target.

Statistics show that more than 75% of college graduates do not work in a career field associated with their major area of college study; More than 60% of college students change their major two to four times; The average American changes careers at least three to five times during their life. These numbers indicate the importance of choosing the most suitable career path and college major as part of the college enrollment process. Entering college as “exploratory” runs the risk of extending the number of years required to graduate – all tying back to not having a clear career goal and declaring a specific major area of study.

Spending a little bit of time and a small amount of money on a career interest assessment, before deciding on a career path and college major, can pay off in more ways than one. It can position you to graduate on time saving significant time and money. For working adults who are already in a career you do not like, you should consider a career interest assessment to help identify career change options.