Understanding your preferences as well as your unique skills and abilities can help guide you to the best fit for source of livelihood, increasing your odds of success, satisfaction and contentment. Utilizing your skills combined with interest and passion helps you fulfill your potential and contribute more to society and to the wellbeing of you and your loved ones. Because most of us spend so much time in our work, it is an important decision to make regarding how you want to invest your time and energy. It is certainly worth spending time exploring the possibilities that fit your particular combination of personality characteristics, mental and physical capacities, interests or curiosities, emotional drivers, and life goals and desires. Certainly you will have interests and abilities that go beyond what is utilized in your work or career. Having outside interests and hobbies is a great way to express your freedom and creativity and to simply energize yourself for the necessary tasks of economic productivity. Still, if you can find the right fit in your work life, you will be able to maximize your productivity, enjoyment and sense of accomplishment. Honest self assessment is required to make the most of this process. You must be realistic about your own abilities, but also must be confident in the ability to learn, grow and build skills that you do not currently possess.
Try to discover where your strengths and weaknesses are in your mental capacities. Are you good with numbers, calculations, probabilities and proportions? Do you have a knack for logical analysis, spatial relationships, or deductive reasoning? Are you good with language and written or verbal communication? Do you have natural social skills and ability to connect with people and make them feel comfortable? Are you artistic or otherwise creative? Are you particularly intuitive or at ease with emotional context and feeling? Do you have unusual athletic or musical talent? Do you have a remarkable memory or ability to classify and categorize? Alternatively, are you particularly strong physically or gifted with dexterity and coordination? Do you have a knack for mechanical systems, building, repairing or installing? Do you understand electrical systems, engines, motors or electronics? Are you particularly drawn to nature, animals or plants? Do you understand farming or agriculture? Are you good at conveying and explaining information?
Also analyze your emotional tendencies and primary needs and drivers. Do you thrive on human interaction or quiet contemplation of ideas? Are you naturally curious and drawn to novelty, change and excitement or do you prefer stability, security and routine? Do you crave recognition or do you prefer quiet accomplishment? Do you prefer to set the agenda or happily follow the lead of others? Think about the setting and context of where you might work as well. Do you prefer climate controlled comfort or variable outdoor conditions? Do you need to be on the move constantly or does the routine of a single work site appeal to you? Do you need to make your own schedule or do you prefer set hours? Do you prefer to work with many others, few others, or in solitude? Answering these and similar types of questions about yourself will help narrow your field of choices and focus on the factors that are most relevant, suited and important to you in your choice of work and career.
Next, take a few career aptitude tests. Many are available for free online. This will help further narrow down the list of potential choices. From this list, focus on the jobs that excite and challenge you. Pick a career path that feels like it will stretch the bounds of your capabilities and will keep you motivated on the path to accomplishing the tasks required to pursue that option. Learn about the job, both through reading and through exposure by talking to people in the field, or through volunteer or other direct observational opportunities. Find out the job requirements and the amount of education, training and experience required. Explore the costs and time necessary to pursue this field. Think about the choices and trade offs will you need to make with other alternative courses of action and whether it will be worth the sacrifice. You must also do a realistic evaluation of all of the barriers to achieving your target. Assess personal factors and limitations such as your gaps in skill, knowledge, temperament, motivation, or energy that hinder your success. Also assess outside factors such as availability of training and education, costs, competitive position, economic conditions and need for the job in the future. Look at potential opportunities to enter the field and to grow within the field.
Realize that this pursuit will give you valuable experience, regardless of where you ultimately end up. If you do not achieve the first goal in your initial pursuits, you will have gained further insight into yourself and your abilities and desires. Even if you are successful in your initial efforts, understand that where you land is likely to evolve and change, and that you will further refine your paths and directions as you grow and gain additional skills, knowledge and abilities. The point is that honest self assessment and insight will help guide your choices, increase odds of success, and help you enjoy the path to achievement of your self directed pursuits.