What Should I Do For A Career - Life-Changing Advice For Students (Important!)
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What Should I Do For A Career? – The Best Advice

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

This is the ultimate post to determine, “What should I do for a career?” Utilize this article to determine and formulate a career path!

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure here.

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What-Should-I-Do-For-A-Career
What-Should-I-Do-For-A-Career

Use this article for career guidance for students to help you to determine what you actually want — and how to create not just general, unrealistic goals but rather concrete, tangible goals that you can work towards.

You Need A Plan, Babe

Look — a lot of people are going to tell you that choosing a career path is a decision that requires either going one way or the other…

Either you decide on a career based on what it can do for you in terms of advancement or satisfaction.

And this can be based on whatever metric you choose…

  • Income
  • Influence
  • Rank
  • Benefits
  • Upward Mobility
  • Satisfaction – either personal or perceived

… etc.

But we live in a world of ANDs.

You can earn a high income AND reach personal satisfaction.

You can achieve multiple things at once — even if there is seemingly very little cross-over. This can be because this career path typically doesn’t involve one of them — such as a high income or personal satisfaction.

A lot of people even view those particular metrics as mutually exclusive.

So how can we achieve this?

Frankly … planning. As obvious and possibly boring as that sounds it really does involve consistent planning.

A lot of people view career paths as rigid — especially college students. And not to their fault, as they simply haven’t experienced it yet.

Careers are long and winding, and opportunities come and go. Companies and people change.

Therefore, you have to focus on what you control.

Here’s an analogy I think will help… look at it like an ocean and you’re a ship. The ocean is constantly changing and moving. Sometimes the seas are calm and sometimes they aren’t. It’s your responsibility to hold steady and stay on course the best you can. You do this by charting your course in advance … not while the sea is churning.

Essentially, you need to plan your career path before you enter the workforce — and of course, adapt as you grow and when things change.

Your morals, principles, and general goals should stay the same. You have to decide on what you want, what you like, and what is meaningful to you.

You might be wondering — but how can I decide on what I want when I’m in college and haven’t experienced the working world yet?

That’s where I come in — and I am here to help!

Let’s begin :)))

What Do You ACTUALLY Want?

A lot of people might assume that means something like:

“I want to graduate, go to law school, graduate and pass the bar, go work for a large firm, and make “partner.”

That’s a great goal — but I want to challenge you to go BIGGER. That can be your goal — but I want you to focus on something a bit more simplistic …

Focus on an ideal day. Any day. Focus on how you want to feel on that day.

For example … It’s a Monday, 15 years from now. I’m 35 years old. I am living in my first home and have dropped the kids off at daycare, went to a workout class, and now I’m about to start my work day. Now I have some consultations in the afternoon, but otherwise, I just have some admin work to do. Finally, after years of work, I now work for myself and have for 5 years when I finally left the corporate world and had saved up enough to start out on my own.

Notice how it’s not career-specific? — It’s more feeling-focused.

Why is this important?

Because this is a guide to several factors unrelated to a degree, but rather to an ideal. It’s more literal and therefore feels more real.

This ideal day tells you:

  • You want to eventually become an entrepreneur
  • Do you like working from home
  • You enjoy being a source of information
  • You enjoy risk-taking, but structure
  • You want a job that requires a high income so you can pay for things like workout classes, daycare, a house, and startup capital for your business.

These factors are important to recognize. A lot of people think that the only important factors are things like making a lot of money or having a high-ranking position, but what you really want is also just as important.

Not to say that you should be unrealistic or impractical. And not to say that this can simply happen for you just because you want it — and not to say that you can just check all those boxes right away … but recognize that your end goals for your career might not be “standard answers.”

Maybe you want to take time off to be with your kids for a bit.

Perhaps you want to pursue an advanced degree later in life.

Or maybe you don’t care much about a high income but care deeply about having a flexible schedule with more vacation time so you can travel a lot.

Those factors are very important and should therefore be factored in too 🙂

What Are You Good At?

Now, a lot of people might be nervous about this one. Maybe you have struggled with school your whole life. You might suffer from a learning disability. Perhaps it’s really just that you struggle with math and that factor has prevented you from pursuing things in a field you’re interested in — like S.T.E.M.

This is not to freak you out! I think a lot of people focus only on what they can’t do rather than what they can.

What often gets lost in that same vein are transferable skills.

Transferable skills are skills that you carry across a variety of roles and companies because they aren’t exclusively established.

Here are some examples of transferrable skills:

  • Leadership / Ownership
  • Communication / Communicative
  • Detail Oriented
  • Time Management

Transferable Skills – Focusing On Your Strengths

Transferable skills are often overlooked, but they are extremely important to hone to succeed in the working world.

Focusing on your strengths, even when you’re not established yet — such as a college student. If you’re good at organization determine how that can translate.

Maybe you’re not very creative. You enjoy the idea of a career that has creativity in it, but you’re nervous that you won’t succeed because there are so many people who are.

Just because you aren’t creative in a traditional sense — such as being a painter or poet, doesn’t mean you’re not creative.

Maybe you’re a good writer — meaning you really understand how language works and flows. Having a transferrable skill like that can be just as valuable and can definitely solidify you in a creative position.

And franking — it takes people years of practice to get “good” at being creative anyway. Creativity is a skill just like anything else.

What I’m trying to say is that many people believe that you should pursue only what you’re naturally good at.

I’m saying that you should use those as a guide — and in areas where you are lacking, rely on what you’re good at and focus on those skills to get you where you want to go.

ROI: Where Passion Meets Practicality

Life is a neverending series of choices.

The big one it often boils down to is unfortunately money or happiness.

There’s no perfect answer — so typically with those types of questions I like to give the very annoying answer of “well… both”.

You can have money and be satisfied in your career. But you have to FIND that middle line in where it meets and essentially ride in all the way down. Use it as a faint directional line pointing you toward what you should be doing.

So for example, if you go to school and all you’re concerned with is finding a career that makes you a lot of money — but neglect to concern yourself with whether or not it will actually make you happy … well, let’s just say that could lead to a lot of unhappiness and frustration.

Here are some examples:

Ex. I went into sales at one point in my life and I was so miserable I didn’t know what to do. It was a terrible time for me. I thought that chasing something I was good at and could make good money in was enough for me. It wasn’t.

The reverse is also true. If you only pursue interests without recognizing their value in society, specifically, financially — even if it’s unfair, even if it’s not how it should be you could also be setting yourself up for a lot of unhappiness.

Ex. A lot of people I knew in school pursued degrees with very little monetary utility, simply because they thought it was interesting to learn about. When they graduated and struggled to find a job later on it was really difficult and stressful and they had to make a lot of sacrifices.

Why? Because life is expensive and being constantly worried about money is a terrible position to be in. Worry about if you can pay rent, buy groceries, move out, participate in fun life events, etc.

Ex. Your friend is getting married and you can’t afford to be in the wedding because you’re concerned about making rent.

You have to find something that checks both boxes. I’m not saying it’s fair. I’m not saying I like it. I am saying that you have to ride that middle line, making sacrifices and concessions when needed.

Summary

This blog post is all about answering the age-old question: “What should I do for a career?”. Whether you’re in school, early in your career, or have years of experience under your belt everyone can benefit from truly understanding what you want, and what you’re good at, and finding the perfect in-between of passion and earning.

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