Anxious and Uncertain About How to Choose a Career or How to Find Your Passion?

This is a topic that gets brought up A LOT by the high school juniors and seniors, college students, and people that are looking to make a career switch that I talk to in my practice.  They often feel sad, frustrated, ashamed, confused, and overwhelmed with this decision of choosing a career or finding their passion, and I bet if you are reading this, you do too!

 Know WHY?

It has long been my understanding that high schools often do a great job in the United States of being a pipeline for colleges, but not a great job of helping you to know what to do once you get there.  Many high schools, sadly, even fall short of that due to lack of funding or resources. 

My high school did a great job of educating students on the path to college. They showed you the path to taking the SAT’s, informed you of prep courses to take the SAT’s, provided you with lists of colleges to look into that you qualified for, showed you how to fill out applications, and how to apply for financial aid so that you could pay for college.  They showed you what courses you should enroll in throughout high school to build up your high school transcript to look good to potential colleges and universities. They were even there to help your parents understand the process too.  That is mostly what the Guidance Office was known for at my high school, and for many of you, the Guidance Department was likely known for that too in your high school. 

Now, over the past 15 years I have seen high school juniors and seniors from about 8 local high schools in my area, and I have lost count of how many different college students from different universities and colleges I talk to on a regular basis.  Even if they go to college hundreds or even thousands of miles away, they quite often come home to check in with me about some things they are going through during college breaks and summer vacations. One of the things they almost always bring up is this frustration with choosing a career path. Frustratingly enough, not one of those institutions that they attend has helped any of the young people I see with how to choose a career path or figure out how to find a passion that is right for them. 

What I tell my young people and people looking to change careers is that, chances are, NO ONE EVER TAUGHT YOU HOW TO FIGURE THIS OUT! So, it makes sense why you wouldn’t know how! It is in fact a skill and a process to finding out what you want to do in life.  Colleges are EXCELLENT BUSINESSES at recruiting their customers, and THAT IS YOU!  Their customers are in high schools, so who do they seek out to buy their expensive products? That’s right! They predominantly seek out high schools, high school students, and their parents who will pay for their products! 

(A side note that I am a BIG FAN of education! I love learning and I loved going to school, so I am not knocking college by any stretch of the imagination.)  That said, colleges have not fulfilled a big need of their customers (yes, that’s you!) in helping them to learn how to choose the best career path, so they choose the right degree or training program to follow their passion.    

High schools, colleges, and universities leave this daunting task up to you to figure out.  They provide a variety of pathways to a career, but NO PROCESS for picking the RIGHT ONE FOR YOU. 

To me, this makes NO SENSE!  It leaves you feeling lost, confused, and likely even leads to college drop-out rates being HIGHER. It leads many students to stop attending, because they feel aimless. They don’t want to have these outrageous student loans, and not even have a degree that they can use to make more money with it!  If this sounds like you, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

It actually makes poor business sense to me too. If colleges want to retain students for as long as possible to get their full tuition from students until they complete their degree program, then it would actually benefit them to ensure their customers are happy. It would make sense to ensure students are happy with what they are studying, and feel very clear on their path forward in their future, what they are passionate about, and ultimately their career AFTER college.

It also makes poor business sense to have colleges have their customers (or students) leave their institutions often unsatisfied customers with their product (a degree) that they don’t know how to use or maybe that they don’t want to use.  I have many college grads who come into my office complaining of this problem too.  They have a lot of student loan debt which they have to pay back and they aren’t even happy with the degree they are paying for—AND THEY ARE MAKING PAYMENTS FOR YEARS—SOMETIMES DECADES on those student loans!  Chances are, this may be you, OR you are looking to avoid this being you.      

I am here to tell you, that YOU ARE NOT ALONE in this difficulty with choosing a career path.  IT’S A BIG DECISION!

I am here to give you a few tips on beginning that process! 

First…..know that this can take a while.  Sometimes I work with students and people looking to make a career choice for several months and sometimes even up to a year or longer before they feel crystal clear on what they are meant to do.  So, if you are in a state of confusion……rest assured, that it is possible for that TO END.  If you are not sure what you want to do, then the time to explore what you DO want to do IS THE WORK!  

The next step I give to my young people is to simply think about what brings them JOY.  I know this sounds a bit too simplistic, but this is really a CRUCIAL STEP. You CANNOT find happiness and find out what you are passionate about from a place of frustration, anger, upset, sadness, and overwhelm. 

Start to write these things down when they come to you, day dream about them, and if you can, DO THEM. Engage in the things that bring you joy to help bring you more ideas about WHAT BRINGS YOU JOY. I talk a lot about dreaming in this space, and there is a GOOD REASON.  When you are in ALIGNMENT with what makes you happy, the career path and passion that you are meant to pursue will illuminate itself from there, FROM THAT PLACE.

No good ideas come from a sad, stressed out, overwhelmed place. Being in those emotional states shut down creativity in the brain, and thus, they shut down your creative, hopeful, and exploratory process for identifying what is RIGHT FOR YOU. 

SO, take that first step! Start a list in your phone, pull up a word document on your computer, journal about it, or pull out a good old-fashioned note book and start writing down the things that make you HAPPY and the things that YOU ENJOY! Don’t just stop at things you think you can do for work, go with LITERALLY ANYTHING that makes you happy.  Friends, coffee, candles, beauty, building things, decorating, cars, flowers, landscaping, kids, technology, teaching, listening, giving advice, fitness, food, going out to eat, travel, reading, books, movies, a good love story…….. get the idea?  There are careers in each of these things.  Do not write these things off because a career is not associated with these things right away, just let your mind wander….that is the next step after allowing yourself space to DO THE WORK. 

Next.... Follow me on Instagram, keep reading these blog posts, and keep an eye out! I just might have a special course on this subject coming your way to help you step by step through this process!!!

Until next time.  Have fun learning about all the amazing and wonderful parts of you! 

Shelby

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