4 Steps to Finding Your Career Passion
Whether you’re a recent grad who’s just starting your career or a seasoned professional who’s been working for decades, you’ve likely heard the advice “just follow your passion” at least once.
Of course, following your passion is easier said than done, especially when you’re not totally sure where your passions lie.
If you don’t know how to align your passions with your career or what your passions are, you’re not alone. A whopping 60% of workers feel unfulfilled by their careers and are looking for a new career path that excites them. Only 20% of workers reported being passionate about their jobs, which indicates that most of the workforce has yet to find their true career passion.
No matter who you are or where you are in your career, it’s not too late to discover your passions and find ways to align them with what you do for a living.
Read on for tips on uncovering your career passion!
1. Determine the high points of your day and week
Take time to think over your typical day and week. Are there certain events you look forward to, like a particular work assignment or a favorite college class?
As you think over the highlights of your day and week, take note of both significant and seemingly insignificant tasks and events. You may find that some of your day-to-day or weekly highlights occur outside of work or school. They may occur during the time you spend alone or with your friends and family.
After you’ve identified your highlights, write them down along with a brief description of why you enjoy them.
2. Identify your strengths
After you’ve determined the highlights of each day and week, identify your strengths and list them.
Include your hard skills, like technical writing, data analysis, marketing, project management, or any other specific skills you’ve acquired. Be sure to include your soft skills, like teamwork, communication, and problem-solving, too
3. Take a closer look
Once you’ve identified your highlights and your skills, take a closer look at what it is that you love about your day-to-day and weekly highlights. For example, if you enjoy volunteering at a daycare center, your answers may include:
Teaching
Working with children
Helping others
After you’ve figured out why you love what you’re passionate about, think of ways that your skills intersect with what you enjoy about your day-to-day and weekly highlights. If you love volunteering at a daycare center, your answers may include:
Communicating with the daycare center’s staff and other volunteers
Leading children during activities
Writing the daycare’s newsletter
4. Explore career paths
Once you’ve narrowed down what exactly you enjoy about your passions and how your skills intersect with your passions, start exploring career paths that give you the chance to combine your passions and skills.
For example, if you enjoy volunteering at a daycare because you love working with children, you may be interested in teaching, running a daycare center, becoming a recreation coordinator, or child psychiatrist.
If you thought of a few possible jobs while connecting your skills with what you enjoy doing, read job descriptions for those jobs and pay attention to whether they spark your interest or not. Jot down the jobs that intrigue you and keep them all in a list.
If you’re not sure what kind of jobs you’d like to explore, you can take a career aptitude test to get a clearer idea of the career paths you might like. Additionally, you can search for jobs that align with what you like online. For example, you can search “jobs working with children,” “jobs that involve writing,” “jobs that involve traveling,” and other types of jobs depending on your interests.
After you get your career aptitude test results or complete your online searches, look at job descriptions for the jobs that pique your interest and see if the job descriptions add to your excitement about those jobs or detract from them. Then, add the jobs you’re truly excited about to your list of potential career paths.
After you’ve built your list and decided on a few jobs you’d like to apply to, start networking, update your professional documents, and begin applying to jobs.
Wrapping Up
By following these steps, you’ll be able to identify your passions and begin building a career that aligns with your passions.
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