There’s so much pressure from people we know, and people we don’t know, to find our career for life, but it’s not easy for everyone to figure out.

There’s also the need to earn a living doing something, if we want to have any kind of independence in life.

I went through several career options in my early professional life, and didn’t really figure it out until my late 30s.

Here’s some of the things I wish I knew earlier, to find my ideal career, even though the signs were already there many years before.

1. Identify Your Core Values:

Becoming aware of our core values can be helpful in so many ways, as it’s common to just go with the flow, being led by the values of whoever is taking the leadership role in a situation. So having a clear view of your own values can be very useful in becoming more independent and less likely to be led astray by others. There are many ways you can identify your core values, including self reflection or online questionnaires.

2. Evaluate Your Current Path:

Does your current job, and the business you work for reflect your core values that you’ve defined in the previous step? This is a great way to start seeing if you’re in the right place, whether that’s a company or the whole job role. This will also be helpful when looking for other opportunities, as you’ll know what you do and don’t want in your next move. This same perspective can be used for the people you hang around with on a regular basis. Maybe they don’t align close enough with your core values, so they could be leading you astray socially, which will affect the other people you’ll meet.

3. Set Value-Based Goals:

Once you’re clear on what your values are, it’s time to make sure that your goals align with these values. This might mean that you need to make some adjustments to your goals, or maybe completely removing them, and replacing them with something that’s more in alignment for what you believe is important. Begin with your long term goals, as these will inform what your medium term and short term goals should be.

4. Prioritise Decision-Making Criteria:

This might take a bit of time to figure out, but coming up with one or two basic value related questions for yourself when making decisions, could be a bit of a game changer. Something straightforward like “Will the outcome of this decision align with my values?” can help keep you moving in a solid direction towards what’s important. It can also highlight areas that may have previously been distractions, which have caused you to drift off your ideal path towards where you want to go. Keeping this question or questions in mind on a regular basis can keep you headed in the right direction for yourself most of the time. Nobody’s perfect, so we all will occasionally stray a bit off course, but if you can stay on track at least 80% of the time, then that’s not bad.

5. Seek Out Compatible Environments:

Depending on what you define as your core values, it might seem quite easy to see social circles, companies, and communities that align with what you’ve decided is most important to you. Although it might require a little bit of work to figure out where you can find like-minded people. Once you find the people and places where you’re all on the same page, or at least there or thereabouts, then you’ll be in a much better environment to make quality progress in any of your chosen endeavours.

6. Regularly Reassess and Reflect:

Over the course of time, things change and we change along with our new experiences. Therefore it’s always worth keeping in mind that the values we’ve previously defined at one point, as well as all the decisions and goals we’ve made on that basis, might need to be reviewed and adjusted to stay in line with the updated version of what’s important to us. It’s most likely that things won’t change too drastically, but sometimes life has a way of surprising us, so there’s nothing wrong with making substantial changes if that’s how the cards have been dealt. Although it’s important not to rush in on making too many changes if emotions have been heightened, as it’s better to wait until you can make a more reasoned and logical argument for any changes you’d like to make.

7. Learn to Say No:

Life can present so many tempting opportunities to us, for all sorts of reasons, but similar to what was mentioned in the previous point, our emotions can quickly cloud our judgement, so we need to get comfortable with saying “No”, or at least “Not yet”. Even though I’ll always encourage people to take opportunities that come their way, it’s not always a great idea if the likely outcome doesn’t align with your core values. This is where the questions defined in an earlier point would be extremely helpful. Both “Yes” and “No” can be powerful catalysts for change, so using our values as the compass to keep us on the right path, can make sure that we use that power responsibly.

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That’s a whole lot of points to take in and process, but you don’t have to do it all on your own. If you feel that you need to get your core values defined and aligned with all aspects of your life to move forward comfortably, then I can absolutely help you with that.