Pick a career based on what you enjoy, not just your strengths.
Your work is going to fill up a large
part of your life, and the only
way to be truly satisfied is to do
what you believe is great work.
And the only way to do great
work is to love what you do.
~ Steve Jobs
When I was in high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do for a career. What I did know, with absolute conviction, was that I didn’t want to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer of any sort.
I had a great interest in fashion and I talked a lot in class (as every report card indicated). They were mere hobbies and interests, not exactly brilliant goals in life.
Fashion to girls are like cars to boys, both are pretty much a universal interest. What I liked weren’t something unique or exclusive, it was generic. The safest thing to do would be to pursue a fail-proof degree that proves to potential employers that I am smart.
The biggest problem that I have with ‘safe’, is that it is hardly ever interesting.
“Interesting? Bah!” some would dismiss. “You can’t make money from interesting. You make money from intelligence.”
Just in case you hadn’t notice, Angry Birds was a combination of interesting and genius.
Being interesting doesn’t mean being stupid, just like how having an intelligent-sounding degree doesn’t make you smart.
I pursued a degree that was in line with my interests, and it made classes much more enjoyable.
Have you ever felt a twinge of guilt when you are thoroughly enjoying something?
From a very young age, we have a predisposed notion that most things enjoyable aren’t to be taken too seriously, or that they can’t be healthy for us to indulge in.
When you like a certain food, it’s usually bad for health. Your hobbies are usually a distraction from your studies, which earn you no favours in school or at home.
Our education in the country does not encourage interesting or enjoyment, it rallies behind seriousness and uniformity.
That’s far from being a bad thing, but what it does is that it confuses people. We become torn between doing what we think is right and what just feels right.
When I give talks and workshops to high school or university students, I’d ask them what their career ambitions are and many would be unsure of what they wanted to do after school.
Yet, they usually have a very good idea of what they don’t want to do, based purely on instincts.
When you’re thinking about career options, the one question I would avoid is “What would I be good at doing?”
When we go down this particular path, the likelihood of us choosing a career based on exam results is high. That is because we have tangible proof that we can be successful if we work hard. It is a reassuring feeling.
The more complicated question to consider is “What would I enjoy doing?”
There will be more than one answer, and they may be vague. Things like “eating, shopping, watching TV and playing video games” aren’t exactly inspiring and don’t convince our parents that we’re Einstein in the making.
It opens doors and raises more questions. What it also does is shine a light on our personality, habits and interests — things that we usually take for granted or ignore, simply because we do them naturally, without making much effort.
As absurd as it sounds, sometimes the best way to figure out your career is to base it on what you seem to do, on a daily basis, without effort.
That sounds contrary to what we learn in school, where we are shown that only through effort will we achieve outstanding results.
Here’s a well-known secret. When you choose to do something that is effortless to you, you will naturally put in more effort as you do it. It’s a strange human science that is driven by passion.
In university, I have a friend who doodled on my lecture notes at every opportunity. She had cute handwriting and had the biggest collection of pens I have ever seen, simply because she liked her notes to be written in different colours.
She was also one of the most brilliant students in our faculty, eventually majoring in Actuarial Science.
After graduation, she went on to work in a prestigious corporate company. Sometimes, during lunch hour, she goes shopping for clothes. Most of the time, she’d be at a yoga class and grabbing a quick bite after.
When she’s not working, she is either eating her way around town, taking scrapbook classes or making ice-cream from scratch at home.
It has been six years since we graduated from school, but never once have I heard her mention work or talk about it with any form of enthusiasm. If you didn’t know what she did for a living, you’d have taken her for a fashion buyer, artist or restaurant owner.
For many people, it is their work that gives them the financial capability to dabble and indulge in their passions. For some, they turn their interests and passion into moneymaking tools.
For the former, they live for lunch hours and weekends. The latter live for the days, hours and minutes. They wake up every Monday looking forward to a brand new week.
If not for fear, we’d all be in the former category.
The fear of failure could be too big an obstacle for some to overcome.
The fear of rejection could stop us from pursuing the unconventional.
The fear of financial instability could hold us back from stepping out of a career that does not interest or motivate us.
These are all well-founded fears. Even if we’re well-intentioned and determined, there will always be risks involved.
But then again, in all that we do in life, when aren’t there any risks involved?
When we go into a romantic relationship, we risk getting our heart broken. When we eat at a restaurant, we risk food poisoning. When we drive out on the road, we risk a type puncture or a snatch-thief incident.
The only thing we can do is to take precautions to hedge against these potential risks.
To minimise the risk of failure, you’ll have to be more disciplined than ever. Some of us blame fear when all we are is lazy.
Strange as it may sound, you’re going to have to work harder than ever if you are pursuing a career of passion, because you are measuring against your own expectations.
It doesn’t matter if your boss thinks you’re good if you haven’t tried your best. It won’t be enough that you have people praising your craft; you’ll always think you can be better at it.
If you feel that way about what you’re doing, then you’re definitely on the right track.
A paradox that is often overlooked is that we must do things we might not particularly enjoy while doing things that we do enjoy.
If you’re an artist and opening your own gallery, you’ll need to be involved in the business management aspect no matter how much you dislike it.
Don’t be mistaken. Enjoying what you do does not mean that you’re going to be very good at it.
What it does mean, is that you won’t mind the effort that goes into being good at it; and that, makes all the difference in the world.
Time passes so quickly; don’t wait for tomorrow to start enjoying what you do now.
No comments:
Post a Comment