How To Figure Out What To Do With Your Life

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I found myself in a tough spot back in 2015

 

Back in early 2015, I walked into my manager’s office at my job on a typical Wednesday afternoon thinking that we were going to be a having a typical end of the day meeting where we caught up on the activity for the day. Little did I know that I was about to be laid off from the job I had been at for a little over a year.

It was a small company, and I was brought on to be the business development manager to bring on new accounts due to my background in the construction and engineering industry. They had decided to reorganize the company, and I found myself on the chopping block.

Not cool.

I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out that I didn’t even like that job, and this was the best possible thing to happen to me. Funny how it works sometimes.

How I spent the next few days and weeks turned out to be incredibly important to my future. One option would be that I could’ve desperately found any job that would take me because I wanted a paycheck and to not seem like a failure. The other option would be to take my time to figure out what I wanted to do and not rush into anything that would make me miserable.

I chose option two.

While I figured out what I wanted to do, I still needed to make money. This led me to capitalize on my strengths to make extra some money, and also I became very good at budgeting to make the little money made go a lot further. I started doing contract work as a tutor for Varsity Tutors as a way to make a few hundred dollars a week, which gave me more time to find a career path that felt right.

But most importantly, I took time to reflect and figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. The company that laid me off was already the third job I had held since graduating from college, so it seemed time to point myself in a more specific direction.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really know where to start. I felt like I needed to have a set career path in my mind (work in a corporate position and get an MBA) or know a specific job I wanted to do (structural engineer, technical sales consultant), not just aimlessly bounce from job to job and see what felt right.

I was feeling lost. So what do I do when I feel lost?

I read a lot of books and made lists…

 

What I did when I felt lost

 

During all of the new found free time that I was having, I read a lot of books such as The 4-Hour Workweek, Think and Grow Rich and others that would hopefully give me some inspiration on what my next steps should be. From these books, I came up with a bit of a strategy.

I realized that I didn’t need to pick a dream job or a career path and stick to it for the next 5-20 years. I just needed to take my previous experiences and figure out what I like and what I don’t like when it comes to work. My goal was to start as broad as possible and then hopefully use this knowledge about my likes/dislikes to figure out some specifics.

 

 

So I created a list just like the one in the picture above. I wrote out three columns. One each for my likes, dislikes and my skills/interests. In these columns I then wrote out what I like in a work environment, such as “being outside” and “working with smart people”, and I also wrote out what I don’t like such as “sitting in an office all day” and “corporate politics”. Then I wrote out some of my interests and what I’m good at, such as “renewable energy” and “problem-solving”.

Though this didn’t exactly scream out what my next career move should be, it certainly helped to point me in the right direction. It became pretty obvious that I probably shouldn’t take another job where I have to sit in an office all day, like my previous position. Though I have a degree in engineering, most engineering jobs involve sitting a computer, so I realized I probably would be a better fit for sales, which involves going around and meeting new customers. And this is what led me to my current job as a technical sales manager in the construction industry, which I’ve been doing now for 2.5 years. It’s not my dream job, but it’s getting me closer to my true life’s work.

So this simple list, if adhered to, really rules out a lot of career paths and can point you in the right direction of what would be a better fit.

 

Figuring out your life is a slow process, not an instant decision

 

Figuring out what you want to do with your life isn’t as simple as stating “I want to become an XYZ”. It’s a slow process that will likely involve a lot of trial and error. Unless you are one of the lucky ones who decided you wanted to be a doctor at age 16 and have stuck to that plan. If so, then lucky you. I’ve never been great with blood…

However, you can become mindful of how you progress through your career and become brutally honest with yourself about what you want.

If you have an accounting degree and are making six figures as a manager with a big four firm, but you hate wearing a suit everyday and crunching numbers at computer, then be honest with yourself that this career path probably isn’t for you. If you would rather do something creative then go give that a shot. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what that creative endeavor is, but you need to start somewhere.

If accounting is on your dislikes list, then stay away from that field. Follow your likes list.

Steve Jobs summed it up pretty well in this quote he made at his famous Stanford commencement address:

 

 

 

How to move point yourself in the right direction

 

You can start today if you want. Sit down right now and make the three column chart. Write out your likes, dislikes and skills/interests. Ask yourself “what are my non-negotiables?”. Just start throwing out career paths that fit the criteria of your chart.

Only you will see this so be as wild and crazy as you want. Do your likes and dislikes line up with you becoming a traveling artist? Or maybe a fashion writer?

Maybe you have always enjoyed fixing things around the house, but have never even considered being a home contractor. Maybe it’s what you really want to do, but you just never considered it because you’re currently an IT manager.

I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’m leaving my technical sales job at the end of May, and when I begin to look for full-time employment again come 2019 at the end of my mini-retirement, I know I’ll be sitting with this three column list when I decide where to go next….

 

Question for you: Do you still wonder what you want to do with your life’s work, but don’t really know where to start looking? Leave a comment or send me an email!

NYPFGuy