Hello.
This is Jonathan with cpacareercoach.com.
And I just wanted to share a quick video explaining to you some of the
factors that you need to consider in choosing a career.
So here we are in the online whiteboard, and I've drawn three circles as a way to represent
three different areas that you need to consider in choosing a career.
And this can apply to all ages, it doesn't really matter if you are 18 and
just entering college and you're really trying to think through this idea of
what major to go after, or whether you're in your 40s and 50s and looking
to make a mid-career shift into doing something a little bit different
that kind of aligns with your passions a little bit more.
Regardless of what age, these principles apply.
So the first circle we're going to talk about is called your natural
strengths.
And oftentimes your natural strengths are things that are under
the radar, you don't see them always right away.
These are the things that come easy to you that when you do them you
get lost in the flow.
And you just can effortlessly work on these type of
activities for hours at a time and still have plenty of energy.
One of the ways that you can identify whether you're not working in your natural
strengths is when you're constantly tired or frustrated or drained
or worn out with your work.
That's a good indicator that you're working in an area that's not your
strength, so it's taking a lot of mental, physical energy from you.
If you want to really understand and discover your natural strengths, then
ask somebody who knows you well to tell you what it is that you do well.
And it might surprise you.
You might oftentimes be surprised with the answer that you're given because you may have
thought that that certain task or that certain strength was something
that inherently was good for anybody and everybody and that everybody just
has that strength and that's just easy for everybody.
But that's not always true.
So it's important to understand your natural strengths.
Number two.
It's important to understand your personality type.
This is where oftentimes in America, we often get
this wrong because we follow after money.
We think this will be a good stable job, it will provide lots
of money for my family and all we see is the lifestyle that we want to
create.
And so we kind of fake it until we make it.
We force ourselves to do the best we can at maximizing our strengths
and try to do our best to even do better with our weaknesses and concentrate
on them.
But what happens is we end up frustrated because we're
trying to become something that we're really not.
And then, the last circle represents our passions or interest.
Now oftentimes people make this idea of finding
their passion too heavy, or they put too much pressure on themselves.
But the truth is your passions really are where your natural interests are.
So I often use the illustration of think about walking into a
bookstore, Barnes and Noble for example, and you walk into Barnes and Noble
what section or area of Barnes and Noble do you gravitate towards?
What books do you like to read through?
Those can be an indication of your passion or your interest.
So if you are gravitating toward the computer tutorials,
then computers are information technology, the real detailed type of work
might be something that fits you really well.
Now here's how you put all this together.
When you take your natural strengths, personality type, passions and
interests into play, then you'll find your sweet spot.
So your sweet spot is where all three of these intersect.
And this is where it can become powerful for you because you
have found your sweet spot, it's something that you're energized about, you
can work for hours at a time, it's an area of interest.
It's also an area of natural strength, it's something that you
enjoy doing and it's just something you're excited about waking up and
going to work about.
So for more tips, go to cpacareercoach.com.