When you discover your ideal career, it can feel fun and exciting. However, if you sit with the problem of “how do I discover my ideal career?” for too long, your brain can feel overwhelmed. These 10 steps can guide you from considering your ideal career to taking action. Discovery is in action.

Discover Your Ideal Career

1. Define Ideal for You

What does an ideal career look like for you? How does it fit in with your life right now? Think about the feelings and emotions that you want to feel. Our emotions have a powerful influence on directing our actions. The more you can go into detail on the feelings you want to feel to know that you have reached your “ideal career” the more your brain can direct you towards that goal.

2. Visualise Your Ideal Career

Now that you know what an ideal career looks like for you, take the time regularly to visualise you within that role and those feelings. There is a reason why successful people, such as athletes and winners of awards often mention visualisation. It is a great tool for getting your beliefs lined up with where you want to be in your career.

3. Use a System

Discovering your ideal career does not just happen at random. Psychologists Gati and Asher (2001) recommend using a systematic approach to choose a new career. Their system, the PIC model, helps you to use a research-backed logical process for collecting information and sorting it according to what is most important to you. For more information about this process visit the course page here > Career Choice Psychology: 3 Steps to Choose a New Career.

4. Research

Research is vital for discovering your ideal career. Start broad, with career databases (e.g. O*Net Online in the USA, National Careers Service in the UK). When you have narrowed your choices down you can use more unstructured information (e.g. websites, blogs, podcasts, interviews etc.). As you narrow down your choices further, you can start to make connections and gain relevant experience.

5. Plan

Plan how you would make your top 7 or less careers reality for you. You can find out the requirements for different professions from career databases (as mentioned above) or from job advertisements. Use more than one source of information to check that it is reliable and current information. Then consider what you need to do to get from where you are now to where you need to be to enter that industry or role. What extra education, training, qualifications or experience do you need? Are there alternative routes into that job?

For support in organising your career planning, get instant access to online editable worksheets here > Career Planning Sheets.

6. Connect

If you are an introvert like me, you may feel a bit nervous about this one. So far, the steps have mainly been in your head or on a screen. The point of a career is to be useful in society. We provide something of value, and gain something of value (usually money) in return. That does not happen alone. People are the source of the information you need to discover your ideal career, and your link in. Whether that involves applying for roles, going through interviews, or setting up your own business, people are the connection to your achievement of an ideal career. You can network in person, or online. Be genuinely curious about the roles, and how you can be valuable.

7. Gain Experience

There are several reasons why gaining experience is an important step to discover your ideal career:

• Getting experience takes you out of your comfort zone, and gets you closer to your ideal career.

• Experience helps you to get a realistic idea of roles you are considering.

• The reality of a role may be very different to your expectations. Better to find out before going through the application process.

• It helps you to make more relevant connections.

• It supports your application, as many companies ask for relevant experience.

• You can learn skills and gain training.

8. Learn

What do you need to learn now to give you the best chance possible of making that ideal career real? This may be relevant skills or qualifications that you need for the job. It may be the skills of writing a successful cover letter, CV/resume, or application. You may need to prepare and practice for interviews. You may need support with business planning, marketing and funding. Now is a great time to grow and develop for the role.

9. Listen to Your Gut

Psychologists recommend a combination of logic and intuition when discovering your ideal career. This links back to your first step, where you considered the feelings you wanted. Is your emotional response telling you that you are on the right path? This can be a bit tricky, because a lot of aspects of discovering a new career bring on feelings of anxiety, nervousness and fear. Putting yourself out there, doing interviews and presentations, applying for new roles.

There is a lot of uncertainty and fear of rejection, which is a natural part of your evolution, and a remnant of feelings that kept your ancestors safe in the past. It used to be incredibly risky to venture outside of familiar surroundings and the known social group. In our modern world, taking these risks is usually not disastrous, and often leads to success.

Try to focus on your visualisation from step 2, and do your preparation to avoid those feelings of anxiety and fear.

10. Take Action

With such a big decision as discovering your ideal career, it can be easy to get stuck in the thinking and preparation stage. Discovery only really comes with taking action. Consider it as an experiment. You try something. See if it works. If not, try something else. Does it feel how you wanted it to feel when you set your definition of an ideal career? Do you need to adjust what you consider as an ideal career? Trial and error will tell you so much more than all of the research and planning.

How are you defining your ideal career? Which of these steps are you excited to try? Let us know in the comments below 🙂

Thanks for reading!

References:

Gati, I., & Asher, I. (2001). The PIC model for career decision making: Prescreening, in-depth exploration, and choice. In F. T. L. Leong & A. Barak (Eds.), Contemporary models in vocational psychology: A Vol. in honor of Samuel H. Osipow (pp. 7–54). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.