How to Tell if Your Career is Right for You
When someone asks you what you do for a living, how do you respond?
I’m not asking for your job title. I’m asking how do you act when you tell someone your job title? Do you respond with eagerness and pride, or with reluctance and shame?
The way you act in response to this common inquiry makes it easy to tell if your career is right for you.
I recently remembered a bit of advice I received from someone years ago, during one of my routine stops as a computer professional. My boss, intent on making friends with his new neighbor, sent me to this gentleman’s house to resolve a personal computer problem.
Though don’t remember his name or what I did for him, I vividly remember how I left this man’s home that day having learned an important life lesson. I say this because during my visit, we talked about my life. After exhausting the subjects of school, work, and religion, he asked me if I had a girlfriend.
Apparently I shot him a huge smile before saying “Yes.” The next thing he said was unforgettable: “I think you must be in love, ’cause that’s the first time you smiled since you walked through my door.”
It’s true. My girlfriend made me so happy that even the slightest thought about her caused me to start grinning uncontrollably. I was clearly in love with her.
Why is this relevant? Because my job never made me smile. I was in that line of work for the wrong reasons and it wasn’t until recently that I understood the significance of what he told me: I wasn’t in love with my job.
It was a job I was working so I’d have something impressive to say when someone asked me what I did for a living. It was a job I was working to make my parents proud. It was a job I was working to pay the bills.
That was over three years ago. Since then, I’ve left the computer industry to pursue my dream career as a writer. Though there are times when it’s hard to tell if my new career is “right” for me, there are other times when the answer is crystal clear:
A few minutes into my trim at the local barber shop, the barber asked “So what do you do for a living?” Consequently, the most overwhelming deja vu of my life came over me as I began to grin uncontrollably.
“I’m a writer,” I explained through my expression.
“Oh really? Do you like it?”
With an abundance of certainty, I said — “I love it.”
And at that moment, I understood my career is right for me because I am in love with my career. Shouldn’t everyone be?
11 Responses to “How to Tell if Your Career is Right for You”
lol I think I have the opposite of your problem. I love my career but my love life is x_x. Well go on holding out for the perfect job and I’ll keep battling my mom’s attempts to marry me to a harvard educated doctor.
This post struck a bit of a chord with me. I am in the same boat, and it’s not the skill set of the job, of course, but the logistics. As a “programmer”, it is always grunt work, and rarely something fun. The more and more I think about it, the more I feel like this should be a hobby, and not a job.
The problem, as always, are these blasted things we call “bills”. The sneak in when I’m not looking and BAM they eat some of my valuable money!
So I ask you, Mr Boyd, how you would go about things? I read in one of your previous articles that you basically quit doing what you were doing, BUT had enough money saved to pay your own way for a year or so. Well, I don’t have that much saved. In fact, with rent in the picture, I would last 2 months tops.
So if you assume that a person was in the same situation as you, yet didn’t have the deep pockets, what path would you take?
Well stated sir. It is a realization that hopefully everybody will come to someday. What do I truly love - and what makes me smile. For me it is realizing that a life of coding is not how I want to live out my days.
This question always make me cringe. One of the reasons is that my current job title sucks, and it does not in any way describe what I really do in my job.
The title is understandable in terms of the organizational organogram but not in terms of the reality of the job. But then again, I do not want to ‘be’ my job title. Thank heavens I am more than my a descriptive phrase.
I think the reason it is a difficult question for most people is because the question “what do you do?” really means “what are you?” I normally try to worm myself out of it by saying “I work for… as a …” But it is never a satisfying compromise and no, it does not make me smile.
Gerhi Janse van Vuuren
@Aaron Griffin
You’re asking me if I would have made the same choices of leaving my job, moving out of state, and starting a new career from scratch if I had no savings. I’d like to imagine that yes, I would still make the decision to leave my job — but I admit that doing so would have been much more terrifying without an emergency funds safety net. It would add to the fear that I needed to overcome before taking the risk. If you haven’t done so already, I suggest you read Define and Conquer Your Fears, an article that encourages you to imagine the very worst that can happen as a result of taking a risk. Once you’ve defined where you might end up when everything goes wrong, it’s easier to figure out what could be done to get yourself back on your feet.
I came across your blog on digg one lazy afternoon, and I really enjoy your occasional dose of inspiration. I also took the frightening step of leaving the IT industry for a career that I am passionate about. I returned to school, and now I am beginning work on a doctorate in clinical psychology. So please keep up the great work! It is wonderful to read about others who are searching for satisfaction in life instead of compromising their happiness for a paycheck.
it’s sad to see so many IT professionls leaving this field to persue their “dream” careers. So IT is not a dream career for many, apparently they came in for money, and when the money didn’t come, they are leaving for that “really” wanted to do.
So I would like to extend the advise and say this. When deciding a career, do what you really want to do, don’t do whatever eeveryone else is doing, don’t go where the most monet is because 4 years later money might be somewhere else. If you are good at what you do, you will automatically get a job that will pay you well.
Umar,
“If you are good at what you do, you will automatically get a job that will pay you well.”
I am sorry but I can’t agree with that. Some types of jobs pay better than others. You might be the best widget herder there is but if the widget herder industry pays minimum wage you won’t be paid well.
You might not also get a job automatically because the widget herding industry might be oversubscribed by lots of really average herders that would gladly do the job for half the pay.
But then if you are the best widget herder there is, why can’t you get a job in training or consulting? Except that you are not a good widget herder consultant or trainer, or you don’t have enough industry related experience to be trusted so that you can demand good pay.
A job is not something that magically appear because you put in three parts of ‘being good at it’ into a pot of ‘really like doing this’ and stir it together with ‘a good dose of sweat’ and a ‘cheerful attitude’. Or maybe it is? Except for the magic part.
I’m with Shaun. A good job is what puts a smile on your face. If it pays well, great. If it does not, figure out a way to live on what it does pay. Money is not everything.
Gerhi
I am facing a career crisis myself and don’t even know were to start. I just finished getting my BA. I am teaching at a public high school right about now, but I don’t feel that the reward is good enough for me. There are a couple of options but nothing set in stone because I am so overwhelmed with so many choices. I always say do what you love, but I don’t even know what is it that I actually do love. I could go back to school for a master’s or professional degree but I need to make sure I know first. Any advice?
@Jenny
Being overwhelmed by choices is common, because choice creates confusion. Consequently, when you have an opportunity to choose between many options, you get confused about which option would be the best choice. I’ve known many people who — when faced with what you’re currently facing — have chosen to go back to school for their master’s degree. Personally, I believe they’re making a mistake by going back to school to “solve” the problem of not knowing what else to do. I believe this because I got a degree in a field that I was able to do well in, but I wasn’t all that passionate about. In hindsight, I feel that I made some bad choices. Of course, going back to school could be the right choice for some people, since education is never a bad thing.
What it boils down to is that everyone is unique, and everyone has their own take on things. Just remember that when you do nothing, nothing changes. With this in mind, I recommend that you assess your options, and then determine which path you’d be most happy with. Good luck.
I must be in the wrong career, because the end of that post almost made me cry.