Today i want to share with you 11 concepts and methods that can help you
to figure out what you want to do in terms of work and career
you might already know that you don't like your job or
that you feel completely bored at it but the problem is that you don't know what
you would want to do instead and if you've been at the same job for
years or even decades then it can be really hard to think outside of the box
number one is the lottery or miracle exercise in
the lottery exercise you imagine a situation where you've won the
lottery like this dude here who won 70 million dollars with money not being
an issue anymore for your entire life then what
would you do with this freedom after taking six months off to relax at
a beach perhaps bali binging on netflix and then buying any
imaginable gadget or bag that you want what would
you then want to do and stop your urge here to say oh it's
just a fantasy we're not trying to talk about what is
realistic here yet but what we're trying to do is to
get to the bottom of what you really want
number two try and think about the kind of person that you want to become
and change your self-image instead of thinking in terms of
what kind of job do i want or what kind of career do i want
try to think in terms of what is the type of person that i want to be
and then juxtapose that with the type of person who you think you are now
example someone sees himself as the type of person
who doesn't speak his mind because he wants to be polite
he might want to become the type of person who expresses his opinion
as long as he knows that that will better the situation and this
basic change in self-image can help him realize what he really wants to do in
terms of work for example if he wants to have a career where he expresses his
opinions and shares advice and tips he might want
to consider to become a consultant here you allow yourself to see yourself
in a different light number three work factors and work
condition analysis analyze all the facets of your current
job that you don't like and you can check out my video here to
find out about all the things that can make someone unsatisfied with their job
write down as many items as possible as detailed as possible
and then for each item write down the opposite
or the ideal situation for example someone could say
i don't like the idea of working with excel sheets the whole day
so the opposite or the ideal situation could be
i want to work in a job where i do more physical activities
or i'm bored working with the same five to six
people every single day of the year i want to work in a job where i can meet
new people and see new faces every day once you have this list rank them by
importance and then focus on the top three to
five things then as soon as you can move to a job that fulfills these three to
five criteria also be open to consider jobs that you
might not have considered before number four is the ikigai concept this
is an oversimplified explanation of the ikigai concept
here you try to find the intersection or overlap between your passion
mission vocation and profession what i like about this concept that it is
holistic and that it gives you an idea about how
these terms vocation passion mission profession work
together but it may or may not appeal to you
specifically depending on your thought process
and the great thing is that you don't have to choose between one concept or
method and the other they are not exclusive and
they can be used in combination use these as tools to explore different
angles and if you find that something doesn't
work for you then just move on by the way i'm considering to make
individual episodes for each of these methods and concepts so please let me
know in the comments below if you're particularly interested in any of these
so i can make a video on that number five is good old brainstorming
do you know what the real problem is that people face when they do
brainstorming and why they feel that they don't get anywhere
the challenge with brainstorming is that we tend to saying that we need to come
up with something really grand and
substantial before we even write something down
and therefore we censor ourselves before we even start the process
start from scratch and write down everything
every little single thing that you are even slightly interested in
the key here is not to censor yourself write down every single thing
that gives you the slightest positive emotion or excitement
including things that might sound rather unimportant at first such as
growing tomatoes and lettuce on the balcony
or commenting on celebrity outfits or installing a kitchen cabinet and so on
challenge yourself to come up with a hundred different things
yes you heard me right a hundred things and then
rank them according to different criteria the criteria could be for
example things that are most fun things that i
could start the fastest and things that cost the least money
number six is change your level of analysis many
people focus on finding their passion or finding out
what is fun and what they love to do and that is
great if you can find that then you will be in a very good position
but if this kind of search leads you specifically to nowhere
then consider expanding your search from passion to meaning
what are the things that are meaningful to me they are not necessarily things
that are at the top of my fun list but they are things that are deeply
important to me for example writing a blog about
underrated films or furnishing my whole apartment with
sustainable materials this thing that you come up with might
not be your biggest passion but because it is something that is
meaningful to you specifically it will drive you to action it might not
be a job at first but it can eventually lead you to a job
number seven is the mindset about finding the perfect
answer some people think that you can only take action
once you found the perfect answer once there is
zero doubt but this is rarely the case sometimes people experience
a eureka moment but more often change happens gradually
try and adopt a mindset that doing just anything
at all that leads to even just a one percent
improvement compared to where you are now will eventually lead you to where
you want to go and that you'll get there if you just
have the courage to follow the trail and here you need to become comfortable
with ambiguity number eight is go on a sabbatical or
what i call an adventure sometimes what you need to
get out of your mind and be able to see things in a different way
is a complete change of situation a sabbatical is an arrangement that you
make with your employer where you leave your job for a time
period of usually six months to a year or so which is unpaid and part
of that agreement is that after those six months
or one year is up you can go back to your job and continue your work
and during this time you can either study or
travel and explore a country or learn a new language or work on your personal
project you know that feeling when you're on
holiday and you're lying on a beach and suddenly you get all these different
ideas just because you're in this different
environment and don't underestimate the effect that a well-planned sabbatical
can have of course it has to be very well thought
through and there are a lot of considerations especially on the
financial side but in many cases a sabbatical will
really be worth it number nine is make your own internship
or personal project related to two or three things that you
are interested in even just slightly
interested in and the reason is that oftentimes in order to find out
what you want to do you just have to get out of your head
and get hands on for example if you have that idea of
furnishing your apartment with sustainable materials then go ahead and
make it into a project or internship and the activities here
could involve reading tons of blogs and books on this
exploring different materials and also trying out different carpentry
techniques exploring new skills trends in that area
and business opportunities and in this one month or so that you
really get hands-on and explore this thing
you will get valuable insights on whether or not this is something that
you want to explore further or not you could for example get the insight
that you want to become a painter or that you want to work in a
furniture store or that you want to explore or develop
sustainable building material and so on things that if you hadn't explored
intensively for a long enough amount of time you wouldn't know
that you would be interested in number 10 is personality tests try and
take personality tests that help you find out what kind of career might be
suitable for your personality for example the self-directed search
test or the myer briggs test and many others always take the results
with a grain of salt and i would even advise you to not just take one test
but try a variety of tests and see what kind of patterns emerge from
there also a note of caution when interpreting these personality tests
because the kind of jobs or careers that are suitable for your personality
are not necessarily the things that are meaningful to you
but at least it will give you something to work with because after you do these
personality tests you will be presented with a list of different jobs or careers
that could be suitable for you and you might get new insights from that list
number 11 is meta brainstorming this is for real and you have to do this because
the thing is that methods and concepts that might be
suitable for some people might not work for you because every
person has a different thought process i've given
you some methods and concepts of how you can find out
what you want to do but if it still doesn't work for you
what i would advise you to do is brainstorm other methods of
brainstorming that work for you specifically a few
important notes when implementing this number one is try different methods and
try to combine these and if you find that these don't work for you
then move on and try something else number two is to get
out of your comfort zone this means that if you happen to be someone who
is more on the analytical side try to get out of that mindset once in a while
and try concepts or methods which engage your more intuitive side
and number three vice versa if you are a more intuitive
person try to get out of that mindset and try more analytical approaches
and keep in mind that there is no single best way because there are methods and
concepts that appeal to people with more
analytical minds and then there are others that appeal to
people with more intuitive minds i challenge you if you really want to
find out what you want to do to just go through these until you find
something that clicks and that works for you this
channel is for all those of you out there who want to build a fulfilling and
meaningful career instead of just doing what everyone else
does or trying to fulfill someone else's expectations
so that you can live a life with the least regret
if this video was useful to you then please hit the like button
also don't forget to check out my other videos on how you can build
a fulfilling and meaningful career as always thank you so much for watching
and i hope to see you again soon
you