Expert: Christine Fader - 4/19/2010

Question
I am confuse as to what are my calling in life when it comes to my career can you help me

Answer
Hi Sheryl,

Trying to figure out what to do with one's life is often not easy.  To get started, you might want to head to the library, track down the section on careers and read books like, "What Colour is Your Parachute" by Richard Bolles and "Career Cupid:  Your Guide to Landing and Loving Your Dream Job" (okay, I confess, I wrote that one!)

You could also check out some online interests tests that allow you to answer questions and give you some ideas about what careers might be a good fit.

There is little that can replace the process of self-reflection though.  Start paying attention to what you pay attention to every day.  What TV programs do you always watch?  What do you notice in them?  What are your favourite parts?  What do you spend your money and free time on?  What subjects interest you?  What elements of past jobs have been the most fun?  Collecting information about what you love to do is a helpful starting point for brainstorming a list of career options.  What you want to do is find workplaces that will pay you to do what you're already doing!  

For example, "Sandeep" loved travelling, history (especially stories about people), and learning medical terminology.  Her favourite shows were "The Office" and home decorating shows.  She loved to visit Ripley's Believe it or Not Museums and she was a whiz at Trivial Pursuit.  When talking, we discovered that her focus of interest was "unusual facts".  In fact people often said to her, "Say something unusual" because she knew so many unusual things!  But she had never realized this before as an underlying pattern/focus and was distracted by all the different things she seemed to be interested in.  In fact, unusual facts were the things that attracted her to all these disparate activities.  When she travelled, she wanted to know all the interesting tidbits about a place.  She loved knowing that there are 92 kinds of barbed wire (learned at a Ripley's museum).  When we brainstormed possible occupations that would value her interests in "unusual facts" we came up with:

- historian
- reporter/journalist
- biographer
- designer
- interpreter
- fact checker for novelists
- librarian
- researcher
- hospital administrator (she loved medical terminology, remember?)
- doctor/nurse/other clinical profession
etc. (to name just a few)

Most people need a little help with this so you may also want to consider making an appt with a local career counsellor to get some focus and to get some direction on this.  After you have some ideas about possible options, then it's about researching and talking to people who do those jobs to see what their advice is, what the market prospects are and what kinds of skills/education you might need to connect with those jobs.

The other thing I say to people is:  WORK.  Work at something -- even if it's not your dream job.  From that, you can find out more about what you DO like to do -- usually there are small things in every job that are pleasant.  Look for work that has more of that stuff -- the stuff you like-- and less of the stuff you don't like.  Evolve your career that way and it will keep changing as you change.  

Best of luck!

Christine
-------------------
Christine Fader
Career Counsellor
www.careercupid.com