1.
Examine yourself.
What you enjoy doing and
what you value can be helpful indicators of how you’d like to spend your
working time. This doesn’t mean finding and following your passion—that
approach tends to be misleading and confusing. But it’s common to want to feel
energized and even excited about what you do. Think over the following
questions about your interests, values, and traits, and consider how you might
answer them:
Interest-based
questions:
- What do you
enjoy learning about?
- How do you like
to spend your time?
- Do you enjoy
manual labor or mental labor?
- Do you enjoy
working outside or inside?
Value-based questions:
- What is most
important in your life?
- What are your
priorities in life?
- Where do you
find meaning?
- What change
would you like to be a part of?
Trait-based questions:
- What does
success mean to you?
- What do you
want more of?
- Which of your
strengths do you enjoy the most?
- Which of your
skills are you most proud of?
Consider the sample
priorities list below. Think over what you’d include on your list and how you’d
organize your priorities.
- Salary
- Benefits
- Autonomy
- Work/life
balance
- Flexibility
- Career
growth
What does your most
perfect life look like? Make a list of your Long term career goals, both personal and professional,
to help you understand what it might take to reach them. For example: Do you
want to rise past the managerial ranks and advance to the C-suite of a company?
Do you want to own a house? Do you want to travel—and how often?
The list you put
together can also help you approach a job search more specifically. For
example, if you want to work in the same industry 10 years from now, research
which industries look to continue growing over the next decade and which you
may want to avoid due to increasing automation or other factors.
