One of the questions all of us hear since our childhood is “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. For some, the question is easy to answer while for others it is the most difficult question they face in life and possibly the most annoying one (“When will you get married?” probably trumps in terms of annoyance). Choosing the right career for yourself is one of the most important tasks in your life. People choose their careers depending on a lot of variables like parent’s demands, financial conditions, interests, etc. Choosing the right career for yourself seems to be more of an art than a science and that need not be the case. With the help of some standard steps, you can correctly choose what you want to be in your life just like Psychological Hacks.
Take Psychological Assessments
Psychological Hacks can be a great tool in making important decisions at different junctions in your life. If done right, a standardized assessment can give out an accurate picture of your personality, interests, and aptitude. Here are a few examples of tests you can take to assess the three, i.e, personality, interest, and aptitude.
Personality- Myers- Briggs Types Indicator is probably the most popular personality test which can be taken online for free. Interest- The Hollands code career test (which can be found for free online as well) classifies you in categories such as investigative, artistic, enterprising, etc, and gives you a broad description of your interests.
Aptitude | Psychological Hacks
Something, that a lot of people fail to look into when choosing a career, is whether they even have the aptitude for a particular profession or not. These types of assessments are often profession-specific. There are a variety of sites that suggest jobs based on the results of personality tests. Introspect about the results of these assessments and (re)think about what you really want to do.
Do What You Love
Or probably not. “Do what you love” is probably the most common career advice you will ever receive. Easier said than done. People are waking up to the realization that this may not be the best piece of career advice. Has this ever happened to you? You wanted something badly, you got it and then you realized the thing that you wanted so badly did not make you as happy as you thought it would, you probably don’t even want it anymore.
You see, we human beings are irrational beings and researchers say, a bad predictor of what we actually want. If possible, try your hands at a profession you think you want through internships. So many of my friends realized they did not want to continue with a career they had been aspiring for after actually trying it. Ask people working in the field what the reality of the industry is, what working conditions are like. Read as much as you can, why a career is a good option as well as a bad one. Take all this into account for making a smart career choice.
Be Open
Sometimes the best things in life come unplanned. Try out different opportunities that come across your way. Don’t keep yourself restricted to one field. Sometimes the right career opportunity may come to you in the form of a hobby, sometimes as an internship, you casually took up. Let life serve you with the best career option, just make sure you are open and flexible enough to welcome them. Hope this article helps you inaptly answering the question “What after College?”. Don’t forget to subscribe for more updates.
