Question #33
“How do I figure out what I want in life?”
Dear CN,
I have some ideas for a few tools you can use to help you figure out what you want.
Surveys. Take a career survey to get an idea for what careers might best align with your skills and interests. Even a free online one can give you some insight into something you might not have considered before.
Informational Interviews. If there’s someone whose life seems really interesting to you, ask them if you can ask a few questions about their life and career journey. Hearing what others do and how they got there can be great for helping you determine your own path.
Explore. Try new things. It could be new projects at work, or new opportunities to engage in work extra-curriculars which might expose you to different sides of your current career. It could also be trying out new hobbies or passion projects, and following them wherever they may lead.
Ask those close to you. Reach out to close friends, colleagues and family members, and ask them what they see if you. What do they think are your skills and interests, and why? Sometimes others who know us well can see things in us that we have not yet seen in ourselves.
The thing is, there’s no right or wrong way to figure out what you want in life. There will be things you try and find out are not for you. You can walk away from those things. There’s no perfect set of decisions, which means there are also no wrong decisions, what we are all looking for is a life balanced in ways that matter to us.
