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For most of my life I have wondered what career suits me. I’ve taken a lot of different personality tests and some that were mandated by my school. They were all designed with the basis to help find out which career is right for you. They all took into account my learning style as well as future salary considerations. However, they could never answer where would I be happy? That was a totally different question and answer. It wasn’t just about finding a job that I was good at. It was about finding a job that I could stay in and work at for a very long time.
If you’re wondering this sometimes it’s best to just go with the simplest answer. There are certain things that we are innately drawn to. The easiest way to do this is to really think of what you were interested in as a child. Of course, this isn’t always practical. However, sometimes we really shed these dreams as we grow older. I think the current economy really shows that sometimes being the most practical doesn’t necessarily bring you the most money. It definitely doesn’t make you the happiest. Of course, we do need to be reasonable about this. When I was younger I wanted to be a princess and that has been very difficult to translate into a career. You might not have the skills or means necessary to be an astronaut. However, it will really give you an idea of the basic fields that you might want to try out or look into further.
I have a funny story about what jobs suits me. When I was a little kid I really wanted to be a writer. However, the older I got, the more I kind of steered away from this. I knew that I needed to major in something practical. I knew that writers didn’t make a lot of money. I knew that it is very difficult and almost impossible to make a day-to-day living in that field.
RF License Picture from Photo Express Artist T.Tulic
However, my fibromyalgia got so bad that working in an office setting would have been impossible. I had to work from home and when I went looking for jobs I found out that being a writer was one of the best paying ones out there; although considerably lower than what you might expect. It was like life had kind of forced me into my destiny. Sure, there are still aspects of my job that I don’t like or that are stressful to me. I still have my “grown up” days where I have to do what is supposed to be done because I need the money to pay my bills.
When you want to know what job best suits me it’s important to branch out from your basic personality test. To me, it’s really easy to answer multiple choice questions and then really come up with a list of 200 answers. However, how are you supposed to narrow those down? I would probably just look at whatever was in the fields that you love the most, such as thinking back to your childhood. Then I would apprentice or do an internship. Oftentimes our ideals and the careers that we’ve always wanted come a lot from just TV or movies where things look glamorous or dramatic. However, in the real world, it’s a totally different situation and might involve a lot of paperwork and there may not be concrete answers the way there would be on a TV show that needs to wrap everything up in an hour or two. Remember when asking “What career suits me beset?” It’s about finding balance as well as