The common (often bad) career advice is to follow your passion. While following your passion/interests can certainly be a good place to start, many people don’t even know where to begin in identifying their interests or what matters to them. Here is a bit of career coaching on how to begin the process.
Career coaches often recommend a few different ways to identify your core interests/passions. They include:
- Think about what you wanted to do/be when you were a child
- Think about what you spend your free time doing
- Look at your bookshelf for clues as to what you enjoy reading
- Ask peers what you seem passionate about
Let’s say you’re not working with a career coach and you’ve already tried all of the above, another potential solution is sentence completion exercises. Sentence completion exercises can frequently provide us with insights into who we are and how we might like to change.
Developed by psychologist Nathaniel Brandon, the objective is to complete the sentence stems as rapidly as possible. The completions may be contradictory to each other, or be somewhat illogical, which is fine. The objective is to complete the stems, and then reflect on their likely meaning.
Try completing the following sentences (with at least 10 answers for each):
If I were totally happy in my career…
If I were willing to say “yes” when I want to and “no” when I want to…
If I didn’t need to earn my current salary…
If I didn’t care what my family/friends/colleagues thought about my career…
If I could start my career over I would…
Here is an example:
If I were totally happy in my career…
…I would earn $300,000 a year
…I would be able to unplug from email at 7pm
…I would have more control over my day
…I would have more consistency in my day
…I would not worry about losing my job
…I would spend more time outdoors
…I would make a difference in people’s lives
…my spouse would understand what I do
…I would buy fewer things to make me happy
…I would feel more comfortable at networking events
You get the idea. The point is to jot down as many sentences as you can quickly and then afterwards go back and look for the big themes and the meaning behind them.
With a bit of introspection, you might get a few clues as to where you might best focus your career.
If you need more guidance on your career and/or are considering a change in your career, schedule a complimentary career coaching conversation with me here.