Before you can decide which career path is suited to you, you must first understand your personality type, strength, weaknesses, skills, and what you want out of a job.
What is your personality type?
Firstly, in self discovery it is important to understand your personality type, so that you can work to understand your strengths and weaknesses. Try this personality test:
|
|
What do you enjoy?
To understand what it is you really like to do, it is useful to split your life into the sections, such as: career, studies, family, skills, and leisure. Consider and make note of the following questions.
Career
Studies
Skills
Leisure
Career
- Think about what you wanted to do 5, 10, and 15 years ago.
- What do you want to do now?
- Why has it changed?
Studies
- What is it about your chosen subjects that you enjoy studying?
- Which skills are you best at? e.g. writing analytically, problem solving, computing skills.
Skills
- What skills do you already have?
- Which skills did you enjoy developing the most?
Leisure
- What do you like to do for fun? What is it about your hobbies you enjoy?
What are your strengths?
Understanding your strengths is more than just understanding what it is you like to do, you need to consider what you enjoy and where that overlaps with what you are good at.
- Firstly, consider your talents. Think about things you are good at, even if you don't want to pursue them, try to understand what underlying skills you use for this activity.
- Ask your friends and family to tell you what they think that you are best and worst at. Encourage them to be specific about a time when they think you were at your best/ worst. Note patterns in what people consistently tell you your are good at.
- Think about when the last time was you felt you were at your best. What was it in that situation that you were doing right?
How do you measure success?
Before you can pick a career path, you should think about what it is you value and really want out of life. To try and understand what your dream career pathway is, think about these questions:
- What do you value?
- What excites you? During which activities do you feel most engaged and energised?
- What do you prioritise in what you want out of life? E.g. improving the life of your family, helping develop the community etc.
- Think about the people that you respect; what do you want people to say about you?
- If money wasn't a barrier, what would you do?