As you get to college, you face the inevitable issue: you need to figure out what you want to do with your life.
And now comes the stress. The soul searching. The Googling and interrogating and trying everything you can. And, naturally, that frustration when something doesn’t click with you.
That’s where I come in. I’ve been through the same process, and I want to share my tips with you before you need to stress like I did. In this article, I won’t give you easy answers. I won’t pretend that it’s easy and clean. Often, it felt like established adults gave me watered down, overly simplistic responses as to what’s out there. You can do anything you want. You just need to start somewhere. What about (insert career here)?
Bring on the stress.
For me, this would often only add to my stress. I felt that I was doing it wrong. If it was really that simplistic, why was I struggling that much? It felt as though all the possibilities that were once so bright when I was little had disappeared. I was stuck shifting through whatever remained. I’m a realist. I was acutely aware that it would be harder to find a job with an Arts and Letters degree. The kind of linear career path that engineers and accountants have isn’t usually for people in my field. At the same time, I didn’t want to have worked as hard as I did to only be a barista once I graduated.
So believe me when I say that I’ve been there. I won’t lie to you. I get how stressful it is to go through all of this. Every decision feels like a huge one, and it feels like any misstep could ruin the rest of your twenties. It’s a difficult time, and I don’t think people talk about that enough. That’s what this article is for–to actually help you figure out what you want to do with your life with nine different options. Before we begin, though, I want to introduce you to Ikigai.
An Introduction to Ikigai
I was first introduced to this Japanese concept in college. It essentially translates to your “reason for being.” Instead of just looking at one aspect (i.e., money), it looks at many. Originally, it was meant to help you find your bliss. Now, especially when used in America, it is used more in this sense, to figure out what you want to do with your life. It breaks the search down into four ideas: what you can make money doing, what you love, what the world needs, and what you’re good at. The thought is that when you find something that fits all four, you will have found your bliss.
It’s not perfect, but it certainly helps.
If you don’t find something that fits all of those, you will still have some overlap. For example, if you’re good at something and can be paid for it, that’s a profession. It doesn’t fill you with happiness or fulfillment, but it achieves half of the matrix. On the other hand, if you’re doing something you love and you’re good at, that’s a passion. However, it doesn’t make money, and maybe it doesn’t need it. Unsurprisingly, the goal is to find something that meets all four aspects. Once you do that, you will be the most fulfilled and have the most meaning.
This concept is helpful to take a look at because it gives you a starting point. While you’re still in college or coming right out of it, what are you looking for? Do you just need a profession, or do you want a vocation? Maybe you want to shoot for all four and achieve ikigai. Deciding your goals and considering these aspects is helpful. You can also decide if you can find fulfillment in other areas or if you want all of that to be met within your career.
With that being said, here are nine ways to *hopefully* achieve your ikigai and figure out what you want to do with your life!
1. Take the Traditional Career Assessments
Career assessments range from very helpful to ridiculous. At the very least, they will introduce you to careers that you might not have thought of before or reaffirm things you might have been leaning toward. Most often, they help you to determine your values, skills, interests, or personality traits, and they then suggest careers that will match up with those.
On a university campus, career centers often offer these for a low cost or for free. At my university, SDSU, I was able to take the Strong Interest Inventory once for $10 and another time for free. A career counselor then walked me through my results. Similarly, I was able to take the Myers Briggs Assessment for free through my school! These two are probably the most popular career assessments, so I have outlined them here:
Strong Interest Inventory
The Strong Interest Inventory is a popular test. It essentially asks you how you’d feel about various types of work or duties. After you finish, it comes up with various careers based on how high you score in various interest areas (artistic, realistic, investigative, social, enterprising, and conventional). It generally suggests careers that include components of your top three interest areas. It then lists different careers and how likely you are to have an interest/knack for them.
When I took this, I found the results to be mildly helpful. I looked at the jobs on the results sheet, researched them more, and ruled out things I definitely did not want to do. Some occupations or duties piqued my interest, however, so I was able to research more about them and look for similar professions.
Myers Briggs/16 Personalities
The Myers Briggs (or 16 Personalities) test is another famous one. While your career center probably has someone certified to give Myers Briggs tests, you can also take the generic 16 Personalities one online (linked above). It isn’t the official one, but I got the same results for each.
With this test, you answer several questions to determine what your four letter combination is: Introverted or Extroverted, Intuitive or Sensing, Feeling or Thinking, and Judging or Perceiving. This then gives you insight into how someone with your personality type (ex: INFJ) might be in the workplace and what careers other people from that personality type take. It also has personality type strengths and weaknesses, how you might be as a parent and in relationships, and an overall summary. This one is more fun that Strong Interest Inventory, and even if you end up not agreeing with your results, it can get you thinking.
2. Go Through the Bureau of Labor Statistic Occupational Outlook Handbook
If you’re trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook is incredibly helpful. It’s a government database that tells you key facts about various jobs like average income, prerequisites (education, training, etc.), tenets of the job, and projected job growth. It also breaks down average income by geographical area, which is very helpful.
While I am absolutely a proponent of chasing your dreams (obviously, look at the title of the website), I am also someone who doesn’t want to be blindsided. Because of this, the OOH is super helpful. You can look through careers logically and ask yourself questions with each fact you read. For example, does your desired career have 11% growth, or does it have negative growth? In other words, how difficult will it be to find a job in this career path? How many jobs are offered in your area? Are you willing to do the prerequisite work? Is the pay enough to sustain you in your area?
So why should you use it?
This isn’t necessarily fun, but it is very helpful. If you realize early on that a potential career would be too stressful and not worth chasing, but you have another option that’s equally alluring, it helps you to make those decisions. Even if you decide to chase after a dream that’s an uphill battle, your eyes will be opened, and you can consider backup plans. For me, asking these questions helped me to gravitate toward careers that fit multiple needs (ikigai!), and I gained a clearer impression of others.
3. Ask Others Where They See You*
The insight of your inner circle (family, friends, coworkers, professors, colleagues) can be very helpful when you’re trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. These are the people who know you in different environments. They see your social side, your academic side, your professional side, and your stressed side.
This insight, taken holistically, can give you a great vantage point on how others see you, both in general and in certain circumstances. You can then determine personality/work discrepancies for yourself. For instance, if your coworkers see you as a great potential lawyer and your family members see you as more of an advocate of sorts because you hate confrontation, you can determine your own feelings and seek a middle ground.
This is useful, but use caution
Similar to career tests, this can give you an idea of what’s out there and what might fit. There’s an asterisk here because this can go either way. It’s important to look at this more in terms of getting ideas, not to have someone redirect your life or make you doubt your gut feelings. Everyone naturally has their own two cents, and it does take practice to sort through this. Many people want to make others (especially their parents) happy, and they feel inclined to test out different people’s approaches. This is why it’s so critical to get many different perspectives.
When it came to my own path, I had a bit of trouble with this. I took other people’s words too seriously. If they said they couldn’t see me in a career, I’d doubt myself. If they said I was probably destined for another career, I would be sure I just was missing something. Eventually, I ended up using the advice of friends and my gut feeling to figure out what I wanted to do, and I am happy with my decision.
While this can be extremely helpful, I would use this one with caution if you feel as though people in your life will take it as an excuse to push you toward one field. If you’re struggling, however, the insight about how people perceive you and what careers they consider can definitely help you to figure out what you want to do with your life.
4. Do a Values Inventory
Values inventories are incredibly underrated when you’re trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. They help you to determine your values and no-gos in a straightforward manner. Everyone has things that they hate and love. Some people are more tolerant, but others simply cannot be happy when so much of their life is spent doing something that might not align with their values. To decide what those values and no-gos are, you need to reflect with the following questions.
Values
- When working, what do you want to be doing?
- Are you after a fat paycheck, or do you want to be helping people?
- Do you want to be close to friends and family, or are you open to moving new places?
- Do you prefer working alone, or do you like working in groups?
- What makes you feel the most alive?
- How important is work-life balance to you?
- If you could only list five main values, what would they be?
These are all questions that you’ve probably seen in some career questionnaire, but they help to think about separately as well. From these, you can determine the importance of location, purpose, type of work, balance, and much more! For me, I derived that my key values in life are meaning, helping people, and achievement. This then helped me to narrow things down further and eventually find my job.
No-Gos
Just as important as values are your no-gos. These are things that you absolutely cannot take in a job. Some examples include:
- Which subjects in school have you hated?
- Which tasks do you despise?
- What kind of coworkers would you not be able to get along with?
- What would you feel morally wrong doing?
- Which environments would not be conducive to your success?
By answering these, you will inevitably help yourself to figure out what you want to do with your life by determining what you don’t want to do. Taken together, these two can be incredibly important.
5. Examine Past Experiences
This one really helped me, and it went hand in hand with #4. When you’re trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, you need to look backwards first. For me, I sat down and first thought about what I didn’t like about past jobs and internships. I realized that in the positions I hated most, I was working hours that were not ideal, I didn’t interact with customers and coworkers, and the work felt pointless. From that, I turned it on the flipside: what did I enjoy in past jobs?
Here, I realized that I really loved jobs where there was a fun culture, social interaction, and some sense of helping people. From this, I was able to get a clearer vision of my values. I saw that I needed meaningful work, work that was helping and interacting with other people, and something where I could see my achievements and encourage others to do the same. I took these and started to think about careers that fit each of these.
Note that you don’t necessarily have to look at jobs or internships. These can be volunteer experiences, extracurricular activities, hobbies, or anything that could give you insight into what you might like or dislike in a career. Your experience is the key to your future happiness, and you shouldn’t undervalue it!
6. Watch YouTube Videos
People LOVE to do “A Day in the Life.” If you really want to know what a job is like, there’s no better way than to hear it from the mouth of someone who lives it. Once you narrow your career options down, this is almost like an on-demand informational interview or virtual shadow. You can quickly learn about what goes into working in PR or advertising or whatever else you want to find. Most people do time lapses, too, so the videos are often fairly short and packed with information.
One thing I will caution you here is that everyone has a bias. Many people aren’t going to publicly speak out about the negatives of their current job. You aren’t going to get the same honesty that you would in a private informational interview. Also, with “A Day in the Life” videos, you are only getting one edited day. It doesn’t necessarily reveal the big picture. Many jobs are incredibly different day to day, and that is why informational interviews are a very helpful supplement. Even still, it can be very helpful to get a little glimpse into a career without having to get out of bed.
7. Do Informational Interviews
Informational interviews are key to learning about a position and networking, and they can definitely help you figure out what you want to do with your life. An informational interview is essentially asking someone questions about their job and career journey. They usually take about 15-20 minutes, and you can get so much fantastic insight that you wouldn’t by just Googling! You also make connections, which is incredibly important as you go to look for a job.
While it can initially be scary to reach out to a stranger and ask them prepared questions, it can be very helpful. You hear from them exactly what their job entails, how to get there, and how to succeed. I have done this with people from various career fields, and each time, it has given me fantastic insight. When I decided I wanted to go into education, I contacted many current teachers, a principal, and academic advisors. I often reached out to them through email (found on employer websites), LinkedIn, or a mutual connection. Mutual connections are the most effective way to make new contacts because they feel inclined to help you!
How is this helpful?
If you’re in the beginning part of your college career and a certain career sounds interesting, you can learn from your interviewee’s experience and set yourself up with extracurriculars to build your resume. If you’re toward the tail end of college, you can narrow careers down further and start networking more within that field. You will also now have this person as a contact, and they may even reach out to you with news of a job opening or a position somewhere.
If this is something that seems intimidating to you, just remember what one of my mentors always told me: “people want to help people.” It makes them feel good. For most of us, it feeds into our ikigai. And because of that, you can rest assured that most people will want nothing more than to assist you if time permits.
8. Shadowing
Like with informational interviews, this is a great potential way to network and gain insight into a career. Shadowing is essentially following a professional around their job for a day. You get to see what an average eight(ish) hours looks like in their shoes, from hanging out in the break room to communicating with clients. They will also likely explain certain aspects of their position to you as you follow them around.
Similar to informational interviews, this can be intimidating to arrange. However, university career centers often are more than willing to assist students with arranging these. Networking can assist you as well. Once more, people want to help people! By simply reaching out and asking for even four hours of a quiet shadow, you will likely get excellent results and be able to determine if something is or is not for you.
9. Internships
If you’ve read my article on internships here, you’ll undoubtedly know that I’m a huge proponent of them. They’re a fantastic way to figure out what you want to do with your life. They’re low risk ways to get a taste or a particular career, make connections, and maybe even get paid. For me, internships first taught me what I did not want to do, and later what I did want to do. I also built up my resume in the process and subsequently received job/volunteer positions because of those skills. Even though I might not have gone into that type of job (i.e., politics), I ultimately realized which aspects I wanted to delve further into (i.e., communications). Because of this, my internship experiences were invaluable.
I would encourage anyone who wants to figure out what to do with their life to do this. Even if you know it’s not the exact career field you want to go into, it could be helpful. You could surprise yourself!
A Final Word
While this isn’t an all inclusive list of things you can try to figure out what you want to do with your life, it should help you to get on the right track. Sometimes, by stepping back and letting things take their natural course, you find inspiration in strange places. However, it never hurts to go in prepared! Try at least one of these tips out and consider starting a “Career Finding Journal” where you can track your progress. Let me know how it works in the comments below!
