Are you ready to graduate from college or university?
And you're terrified only thinking about which career path to take, or even worse.
Maybe you're already in your first job and you wake up every morning thinking,
Oh my God, what have I done?
Well, I understand choosing the right career path for you can be daunting.
And while some people seem to know since their kids what is the right career
path for them, most of us don't really know.
It takes a little bit to figure out what you want to do.
So if you're in this situation, don't worry.
I'm here to help.
And in this video, I'm
going to share with you five questions that I believe will help
you figure out what kind of career path you should consider.
So by the end of this video, you will know exactly which way to go.
So just before starting to answer all of these five career questions,
remember that it takes people between eight and 12 weeks
to find a job, let alone make a lifelong decision.
So give yourself some time, cut yourself some slack,
and answer these questions in as long or as little time as you need.
So the first question to ask yourself is, Are you in the valley of despair
or are you on the plateau of sustainability?
Let me explain.
In reality, the first question
that you need to ask yourself is What are your skills and your strengths?
And in order to do that, you need to be very honest with yourself
and you need to evaluate them really, really fairly.
Because let's face it, if you are not able to really evaluate
your skills and your strengths, then how are you going to employ them
to get others to employ you?
So there is this model that I want to expose you to
and that I think will really open your eyes in terms of how
people's competence and confidence typically tend to evolve.
This is a model called the Dunning Kruger Effect,
and as you can see, usually over time people's competence tends to grow,
but their level of confidence tends to have a different trajectory.
And usually when people's competence is low,
their confidence all of a sudden becomes very, very high.
And this is called the peak of Mount Stupid.
This is not meant to offend anybody.
But usually what this means is that people tend to be overly confident
but not really competent, and oftentimes they tend to apply to jobs
and choose career paths that are really, really above their level.
Once they come to this point, they realize that actually their level of competence
is not as they thought because they face failure after failure.
So all of a sudden they find themselves in this valley of despair.
And if you're here, you tend to undervalue yourself.
You tend to believe that your competence is not great
because your level of confidence is so low.
But in reality, over here, your competence is better than it was
when you were up here.
From here, most people tend to grow and evolve in this steady pace,
and once they find themselves on the slope of enlightenment,
then they realize that there is a way to pure growth.
And when they hit this plateau of sustainability,
most often people are already in the right career.
So no matter where you are on this trajectory, I think it's important
for you to really assess yourself with honesty and in full fairness.
And in order to do that, my recommendation is that you sit down
and you truly take time to write down a whole list of all of your skills
and your strengths,
go back to your years of school, go back to all the projects that you worked on.
If you've done any kind of out of school work,
then think of what skills you've developed there as well.
Maybe look at your first job or internship that you've done
and all of the different jobs that you've had up to this point
and write down all of the skills that you've developed
now, when I mean skills, I actually refer to both your personal
and professional ones because obviously if you've done work as an accountant,
then you must have developed some accounting skills.
Or if you've done sales, then for sure your sales and negotiation
skills have developed.
But you also have some personal skills that you've developed over
time, like resilience, like communication skills, like presentation skills.
So make sure that you write all of those down.
And once you do that, try and evaluate yourself, try to figure out where you are
on this Dunning Kruger effect path because you will then be able
to truly understand where you want to maybe put a bit more time
to develop a certain skill, maybe go and get some additional experience
so that your level of competence increases or maybe your level of confidence
needs to grow.
Maybe you need to do some work that will give you
that confidence that your skills are at the right level.
Let's give some examples here because I think they will come in very handy.
So let's say you are very good at public speaking, maybe a career
path as a lawyer could be something that you would want to consider.
Or maybe you are very good at negotiation.
Well, maybe think about something to do in sales.
So once you write down all of those skills and your strengths and really the level
that you feel you're at, then you'll already start seeing some patterns.
You are already start seeing a direction that you might want to pursue.
All right.
Now that you have the list
of skills and strengths, it is time to move to the second question.
And that is, if money was no object, what would you do
for the rest of your life and still enjoy it every single day?
In other words, what are your interests and passions?
Because of course, you can have
a career that you put effort into and I'm sure you would be fantastic at it.
And many people do that.
But there is a reason why we have the saying Do what you love
and you'll never work a day in your life when you do something
that you're passionate about, that you're personally interested
in, you're much more likely to find that joy, that fulfillment in your career.
And unfortunately, most people don't do that.
We see in statistics related to job satisfaction
that less than 20% of people really, truly enjoy what they do.
Isn't that a pity?
But I know you can do better, because if you let yourself
be guided by your interests and your passions,
you will be much more likely to find a career path
that you will so deeply resonate with, that you will be happy with it
for much longer.
And now I'm not saying that you need to have the same career
path from your twenties to your sixties and beyond.
Of course, that path can change many, many times throughout your life.
But what I'm saying is that when you choose a career path
that you're not only good at but also passionate about,
then you are much more likely to be happy and stick with it for a longer.
And if you've heard of Ikigai, that is exactly what it talks about.
This is a Japanese term that talks about
how people should choose their path in life, their career path.
And basically what it says is that when you choose that path,
you should choose something that sits at the intersection of four big areas.
It needs to be something that you're very good at,
which is why we talked about the skills and the strengths
needs to be something
that you're passionate about, that you love,
which is why we're talking about this question.
It needs to be something that you can find demand in the market for.
So people need it and it needs to be something
that people are willing to pay for.
Once you've found something that sits at the intersection of all of these
four areas, you're much more likely to have found your dream career.
Now we need to go a little bit deeper, and this is because I see many people
making this mistake and jumping over this question,
which I think is so, so important nowadays.
And that is, what are your values?
What are those
needs that you need to have fulfilled when it comes to your career path?
Because if these needs, those values that are so important to you, clash
with those particular values of the career path that you choose, then you won't be
happy and you will find yourself having to switch again and again.
So let me explain when I talk about your values and your needs,
what I refer to is what brings the lifestyle that you will choose.
Having that career path into your life is it more flexibility or more structure?
Is it more autonomy or more authority?
Is it more teamwork or more independence?
Every kind of career path that you would
choose comes with a set of values incorporated.
You cannot be an entrepreneur and expect
to have a lot of certainty in your life because that's never the case.
Or if you want to have a life filled with excitement,
then maybe a typical corporate career is not for you.
So you see, it's very important that you really understand yourself and understand
what are your expectations, what are those values and needs
that you expect to have from your career path and make sure that whatever choice
you make does not clash with those deep needs and values that you already have.
And there are no correct answers here.
There is a lot of variety and you can be yourself.
You should just be honest and write down exactly how you feel.
And if you guys want me to make a video and go in more depth
about these values and needs, then let me know in the comments down below
and I will make sure to create a video where I explained to you in my opinion,
what are the six biggest needs or values
that one can have in their career and how to evaluate them?
And hopefully with that, you will be absolutely able to figure out
exactly what kind of expectations
you should have from whichever career path you choose.
The next very important question
that you need to ask yourself is What is your ideal work schedule?
Because we're no longer in the times where everybody has to work 9 to 5.
In fact, majority of us don't.
So it's very, very important that you look at your personal lifestyle
and your ideal lifestyle and you try and figure out
what is the kind of work schedule that you want to have,
and maybe you want the traditional 9 to 5
because you want to have evenings free, but that doesn't have to be the case.
Maybe you want to work only three days a week,
or maybe you want a flexible work schedule so you still work 8 hours a day,
but you can start later or you can end earlier.
That's up to you.
If you have some personal commitments that you need to have your job
or your work work around, then that is absolutely important
that you figure out, because nowadays there are opportunities that cater
for any kind of work schedule that you want to have, but it's really
important that you first decide that and then look for the kind of work
that caters to the particular needs that you have.
Now, this last question that I have for
you is one that most people don't think about.
But honestly, if you think about it from the beginning, it makes your work
finding the right career path and also finding jobs a lot easier.
And that is, are you willing to relocate?
Because think about this.
If you don't make this decision early on, then you'll be looking through
hundreds and hundreds of jobs and thinking about many career paths
that will require you to relocate and maybe you are
at a place in your life where you're not looking to do that well.
You've just wasted a lot of time.
On the other hand, if you do want to relocate,
then that opens up a whole set of new opportunities and possibilities.
So really this is a very important question that you need to consider
and make that a priority before you start going on this journey
of finding your right career path and maybe your next job.
If you're willing to relocate, then definitely put that on your list
and think about which are those locations where you would like to move,
because this way
you will be able to look for opportunities and paths that will take you there.
All right, you guys, that was it for today.
Thank you so, so much for watching.
Let me know in the comments down below
which of these five questions was most surprising to you
and which ones haven't you thought about so far?
And until next time, I suggest you go ahead
and watch this video over here, which is going to reveal to you
what are the industries that are in most demand nowadays.
Thank you again and I'll see you next time. Bye.