FINDING A CAREER ~ Part 1: Getting Started, plus “Interests & Passions”
Getting Started
This is Part 1. of a 5 part series, FINDING A CAREER. Finding, or discovering, or creating a career, can be a matter of seeing what jobs are available in the newspaper want ads or online job sites, or finding a magazine article about the 10 hottest careers for the next five years. I think a wiser and more satisfying approach is to start with oneself, and take a look at who YOU are, what YOU love, and what YOU have to offer. What would YOU love to do? What is in your heart of hearts to do? What calls out to you with a joyful appeal? This more organic approach starts with YOU and what you are all about rather than looking for a spot to fill. Over the years I’ve developed an effective tool, THE 4 LISTS, to help you find a career by starting with yourself. The idea is to ask yourself some key questions, and to keep track of your answers on the appropriate lists.
Pages of THE 4 LISTS are titled:
#1. Interests and Passions
#2. Career Options
#3. Criteria for Choosing Career
#4. Gifts, Strengths, Talents, Assets, Skills
Keeping track of your own answers on these lists allows you to do the following:
~ generate career options from lists 1 and 4;
~ choose (from list 2) four or five options to explore;
~ evaluate (using information on list 3) what you are learning as you explore options;
~ choose your first or next career.
List #1. Interests and Passions
Today we’re going to look at List #1. Interests and Passions. Take a sheet of paper and write this bolded title at the top. Below it, write these questions for yourself: “What’s fun? What do I care deeply about? Like to do? Read about? What do I enjoy so much that I lose track of time when I’m doing it?” To get you started, know that a couple examples might be hiking, and Special Olympics. Just list YOUR interests and passions as you think of them on this page. If you come up with just five things today, fine. Keep this page (page 1 for List #1), and know that you will be creating pages 2, 3, and 4, and stapling them all together. And as you think of other interests and passions, add them to this page 1 list.
What do you do with this information?
Have a notebook for your FINDING A CAREER project. Label the first page, “Brainstorming Career Options from MY Interests and Passions.” And then pick out 2 items from List #1, (such as drawing pictures and bicycling) and ask yourself: “From just these 2 starting points, how many careers can I think of? What careers do they suggest?”
For example, you might think of these:
* doing illustrations for a cycling magazine,
* setting up a side business doing sketches of people on their bikes at cycling events,
* doing illustrations for t-shirts to sell at cycling events,
* writing a children’s book about bicycling and doing your own drawings for illustrations.
Just give yourself some time and many ideas will come to you. If they are far out, fine! At this point, simply capture them in your notebook. And then take a couple other items from List #1 and repeat the brainstorming process. You can do this with as many of the items as you choose. Perhaps you’d like to recruit a friend or two to help you brainstorm; everyone has different experiences on which to draw for ideas, so this can help you create more options quickly. Keep the flow going. Do not critique the ideas; just record them. Later you may be inspired to blend some of the options together.
So, for now, you’ve started your List #1, started a FINDING A CAREER notebook, and brainstormed some options. Well done. Stay tuned for Parts 2, 3, and 4 — and more. It’s all about YOU and your new career! Pay attention to the things that spark you, delight you. This is important; joy points the way!