How to decide our career

I won’t give you a clear solution to the question what career or business you should be in, but here are some important questions for asking yourself in order to better understand yourself and make better decisions.

1.What work do you think suits your personality?

Ask yourself what work suits your personality, nature and mindset. Make a list of your characteristics and then match it to a type of career.

For instance, if you are a sociable person, this hints an ideal career in interacting with others, whereas being an introverted person suits working in a quiet environment. If you are naturally a kind and helpful person, consider customer service type of jobs may seem most satisfying. If you like to take in charge and have leadership skills, then consider a management, supervisory or teaching role. If you are a deep, reflective or a curious person, a career that involves analysing and researching may be suitable.

These characteristic hints may not give a clear idea of your career but it does give you a general sense of what you are comfortable with.

2. What natural talent or skill set strength do you have?

Sometimes having a natural talent in a certain area does not reflect the career that you may be passionate about. However, knowing your strengths allow you to excel in certain career and furthermore being successful in a career will naturally being happiness and improve your quality of life.

Here are some examples of strength some people may have:

• Creative, generating ideas or finding new solutions: e.g. producers
• Creative artistic skills: e.g. artist, writers
• Logical & analytical:
• Understanding the mechanism and how things works: e.g. engineer or designing
• Problem solver:
• People’s skills: e.g. customer service or sales
• 360 thinker – those who has a strong understanding of the whole picture and how it is linked with each other and has both macro and micro perspective: e.g. CEO

You can also ask yourself what subjects were you good at in school? This also give a good indicator of your natural strengths.

However, know that sometimes despite our strength and success, it may not be a career we enjoy. So sometimes having a career we enjoy is passionate about is more important then a career we have a natural talent for.

3. What are we passionate about or what do we like?

A simple decision can be based on what we are passionate about. Despite the career indicated by our characteristics or talent, having a passion for a certain career is probably more important. Passion will help us to be persistent in our skills development which is likely to lead to eventual success.

If we are unable to find our passion, that is perfectly fine. Some of us are not passionate people and just finding a career we like is simply sufficient. Sometimes passion is something saved for our hobbies.

4. What is meaningful to us?

Sometimes what is important to some people is living a meaningful life and having a meaningful career.

5. What career suits the lifestyle we want?

Sometimes a certain lifestyle is more important to us and so a career we choose should complement it.

For example, certain values such as religious practice match a career involved has a positive charitable impact to the world and avoid negative or harmful livelihood. Sometimes we want to live a more free lifestyle that involves travelling so a career that involves mobility or working from home is ideal. There are also workaholics who are satisfied with a long hour committed career.

Also, be aware that sometimes it’s good to be aware whether the lifestyle we life is just a phase or something long term. This mean our career may change in time.

6. Is the career or business long-term and sustainable?

Be aware whether you want a temporary work or a long-term career. Ask yourself whether the business or career is sustainable for the long term. Are you likely to commit to it for over a long period of time? If not then perhaps it is not worth it and you should consider sometime more long term.

If it is just temporary work, then be clear that it is.

7. Follow your gut instinct

Sometimes we should listen to our gut instinct. Sometimes we intuivetly feel that it is the right thing to do. It’s important to put our ego and selfishness aside and really sense what we want deep inside.