It’s been said that people spend more time planning their vacations than their careers. Vacations are “special.” Shouldn’t your career be special too? Since a big part of your life is what you do for a living, career planning is something everyone should do.
Most people are confronted with the “What do you want to be when you grow up” question sometime in their teenage years, and if you ask a teen that question, you’ll most likely hear, “I don’t know.”
In this article we’re going to explain why it’s okay not to know what you want to do with your career at such a young age, as well as put forth some suggestions for helping you figure that all-important question out.
First of all, you can’t possibly be expected to know what you want to do with the rest of your life when you’re a teenager. There are plenty of 30-year olds out there who can’t answer that question, as well as fifty year olds too! There are also no hard and fast rules for how many times in your life you can change careers. So how do you go about choosing the right career for you?
Experts say the best place to start is by thinking about and even making a list of the things you like to do. If you like to take things apart to see how things work, you may want to be an engineer or a mechanic. If you like to write you can be a journalist or a sports reporter or a documentation specialist. If you enjoy working with people you might consider teaching or nursing. If you want to be outside, you might look at landscape architecture or working as a forester or park ranger.
Think about what you like to do, make a list, and be honest with yourself.
Too many people make the mistake of deciding on a career path based on the anticipated salary level. For example you choose “doctor” because you think you can make a good living, but in reality you may struggle with science or even faint at the sight of blood. Choose your career based on the things you like to do, not the salary you think you want to make.
“Do what you love and the money will follow.” This adage has a grain of truth to it when it comes to choosing the right career. If you are happy doing what you’re doing, you most likely will be good at it, and when you’re good at something, you have a good chance of making money doing it. More importantly, you’ll be happy.
Another major “wrong reason” to go into a career field is because your best friend is doing it or a boy you like is doing it. Choosing what your parents do because you think you should rather than because you want to is also a bad idea. If you go to work doing something you really don’t want to do, or if you do it to make someone else happy, you’re liable to be very unhappy with your choice.
What you do every day for a living should give you more than just a paycheck. The luckiest people in the world are those who can earn a living doing something they enjoy doing. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does pay the bills, which brings up an additional point:
Once you have determined what it is you enjoy doing, it’s time to do some research into career opportunities that require those skills. Every year the news and magazines are full of “hot jobs,” often in new fields that may be emerging. A good way to get a sense of careers that are available is to look through the Sunday classifieds. This may seem like an old fashioned, low tech way to think about a career, but it’s a good indication of what fields are hiring and where you might find viable employment once you finish the required training for your chosen profession.
You can do the same thing by logging on to Monster.com or Career Finder.com and doing a job search. On these sites you can search by key words like “sports” or “medicine” and find job listings that will give you a sense of the range of professions and positions that are out there.
The third thing to consider when choosing a career is the type of education or training required. A wise man once said, “Never let a lack of education stop you from doing what you want to do.” This applies to the career field in a big way. Just because your parents didn’t go to college or just because you don’t have thousands of dollars lying around for job training doesn’t mean you should forget about becoming a chef or auto mechanic or nurse. If you want to do something, there is a way to get the financial aide you need to do it.
Many kids begin seriously looking at their career alternatives around the age of 16, when they start to drive or get their first job.
Deciding what you want to do at a young age can help you to focus your attention on taking the right classes, getting the right grades, and completing the paperwork and application procedures necessary to get into the right schools or to apply for scholarships and financial aide.
Millions of dollars in financial aide and scholarships go unclaimed each year because students simply don’t take the time to apply. If you have career aspirations, find out early what the education requirements are, then start applying for financial aide and saving your money to make sure you can do it.
Many communities hold job fairs and many school districts host career days. Attend these events and learn everything you can about jobs that are of interest to you. If you can talk to people who work in the field and ask them specific questions about their jobs, you can make a more informed decision about whether or not it’s something you might like to do.
If you do enroll in college or trade school with the goal of pursuing a particular career path, pay attention to how you feel about the classes you take. If you’ve gone to school to study accounting, and you find you hate numbers, don’t be afraid to switch gears. The worst thing you could do in your life is stick with a bad career choice that doesn’t fit your personality or challenge your mind.
In summary, approach your career planning in a systematic fashion: 1. What do you like do? 2. What jobs allow me to do that/what type of jobs are available? 3. What do I need to do to prepare for this job? 4. Talk to people who do the job. 5. Get the training you need, and 6. Don’t be afraid to change your mind.
If you follow this process when choosing the right career, you’ll be less likely to end up feeling like you went on a really long, bad vacation, and you might just end up somewhere that you really, truly like.
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