How to Choose the Best Career

It is probably unnecessary to put emphasis on the importance of a person’s career as this is definitely a given. Your career can decide how your life will go from one point to another and will affect everything else that goes on in your life no matter what happens. This is why choosing the right career is one of the most critical decisions that you will ever make. Making the wrong or the right choice will be a factor that could possibly affect the rest of your life.

So how do you start deciding which career suits you best? Create a checklist that considers the following factors and come up with a list of possible choices:

• Your Passion – People would sometimes enter a career just because the income is good and the demand is high. However, one mistake that people often make in choosing a career is failing to think about the long-term effects of these kinds of decisions. Working on something you are passionate about will help you enjoy the work that you do, increasing productivity and allowing you to stay in the same industry longer than others. Doing something you don’t really enjoy will only result in early burnout and could affect your health in the long run.
• Your Skills – Your skill set will always be the primary basis of the kind of industry you can join. No matter how passionate you are about something if the skills that you have are not enough to allow you to practice a specific profession, nothing would happen. The good thing is that this is something you can control. If you find out early on what interests you, you can easily do something to train and acquire the skills that you need to take a certain career path.
• Your Personality – Your productivity will also rely on the kind of person that you are. It would be hard for someone who does not enjoy talking to people, for example, to go into a PR-based profession. Although personality is something that could be adjusted sometimes, there are just certain aspects about yourself that you can never change or take away.
• Your Preferences – It would not be realistic for someone who enjoys living a high-end lifestyle to enter a career that does not promise financial abundance unless you have a trust fund that could sustain it. Other things to consider are locations you prefer to work in and weather that you think would be suitable for you.

These factors should make it easier for you to at least narrow down your choices especially when you are just starting out. Remember that it is always best to make the right decisions as early as possible so that you can maximize the amount of time that you spend in building a name for yourself in the career you will choose.

Now that you have an idea of things that you could do, here are a few things that you have to remember before making your final decision:

• Trends come and go. Do not decide on a career just because everybody else is doing it. Always ask yourself first: Is this something that I would want to continue doing even if nobody else is doing it anymore? A lot of people end up in the wrong industry just because they followed the crowd. Don’t end up wasting a few years of your life just because everybody else thinks you should do it.
• Don’t get too excited. Always set realistic goals for yourself in choosing your career. Sometimes, the tendency to overshoot expectations could lead you to become too excited and settle for something that you are not meant to do. Hearing someone say that you could easily become an executive in a certain job for example, could have really happened, but you have to understand that a certain level of excellence goes with it as well.
• Don’t concentrate on the job title. A job title is just a label you will hold for a certain period of time. However, it will never define you as a professional. Focus more on what the job entails instead of how good it sounds. Some people get too blinded by an impressive position title and end up doing something they absolutely hate.
• Don’t just focus on the good things. As much as possible, find out what the downside is in every career you would consider. This would help you be more prepared to face the decision that you will eventually make. Do a lot of research and find out if you will be able to handle the bad things that come with a certain profession before deciding to enjoy the good things.

The bottom-line in building a career for yourself is this: Do something that would not only be good for you financially but would fulfill you emotionally and mentally on a long-term basis. Once you decide to follow this basic rule, then you can prepare yourself for a challenging career that would take you to places you have never imagined going.