It is only natural we would want to choose a career that suits our personality, as we are most content when our mind is occupied doing something we are good at and enjoy. So, the question is, ‘What do you love to do?’.
Whether you are a student considering your first career, or a seasoned professional looking to change direction, the key to job satisfaction is building your career around the type of work that complements your preferences and strengths. Self-discovery will help you make an informed decision on an occupation that is a good fit, and greatly increase your chances of success
1. Know difference between your interest and passion.
While you can have several areas of interest at a time but Passion is one. Interest is something which fades away with time or when you get a relatively more interesting thing.
Here are few differences between passion and interest:
Playing Cricket is my interest but I wanna be the next Sachin Tendulkar is my passion.
I want to work for "Government of India" is my interest but I ought to be an IPS officer is my passion.
If you are Passionate about something or someone then you'll try to make time for that thing or that person no matter how busy you are.
On the other hand your Interest are the things you do when you have free time, they are more of a hobby you can say.
2. Know what you are passionate about and follow your passion.
Identify your passion and the careers which match those passion.
For example, if your passion is art, you will be much happier in a career that focuses on art instead of a career in banking. Even if you are not an artist, you could do things like teach art, or write about art.
Passion keeps your dopamine and adrenaline rushing through you spasmodically and consistently. Passion makes you a monomaniac.
Taking into account your natural inclination will ensure you stay motivated and lead to greater career success.
People often gets bored or starts hating there work because they are not passionate about it. If we can make our passion our profession then we can probably live a happy life, but only some gets to do that I guess.
So if you base your career or business on your passion, you’re likely to win big time because you are unstoppable.
3. Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. Choose career options which utilize your strength and rarely depends on your weakness.
No one is great at everything, and its perfectly fine. Recognize the things that other people acknowledge you for doing well, and the things they don't. Note down when you feel like you are succeeding in a task, and when you are struggling. This will start building your awareness of your own particular talents and abilities.
When you know what these are, you can use that knowledge to choose the carrier improve your weaknesses or play to your strengths.
4. Understand your personality to find a rewarding career which in turn makes you successful.
Having the right personality for the job can help enormously. Finding an occupation that 'fits' your personality sound like it should be easy, except when we consider that 'personality' is a very complex thing to measure!
There are many personality theories, and some have been adapted for use to guide occupational choice. In general, personality self assessments are probabily better for personal understanding than for occupation selection, yet they can provide added depth of information from which to refine your choices.
5. Assess your skills to find careers where you can advance.
Central to career success is to understand your skills. It’s also important to recognise ‘burn out skills’, the skills you are competent at, but no longer enjoy using as you may wish to avoid jobs that require them. Are there any skills you would like to improve or learn? Developing these skills could take you in an entirely different direction.
6. Know your career values and what is important to you.
It might sound rather vague but knowing your career values is crucial to understanding the way you prefer to work. Your ‘values’ are what you value most in your life and the aspects of your job that are important to you.
Someone who is an entrepreneur might value working autonomously while others might seek a setting which places importance on collaborating with co-workers. To take another example, if one of your career values is honesty and integrity, but your work demands you do things you consider unethical, you won’t be happy in that job and you probably won’t be successful there. Once you have narrowed down some possible career options, ask yourself how congruent are your values with the occupations you are considering?
7. Create a career action plan to keep moving forward.
Gather information and first-hand knowledge of the occupations that are of interest to further pare down your list. Having decided on an occupation you want to pursue, ascertain whether you need to undergo training and create a career action plan to keep moving forward with your short-term and long-term goals.
Embarking on a new career often involves a lot of experimentation and can be a longer and more demanding process than most people anticipate. See this period of your life as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and what you can offer the world, so you can best align who you are with what you do.