Quit Saying “I Don’t Know What Career I Want.” Do This Instead.

“I don’t know what career I want.”

You’ve probably said this in your head more times than you can count and it’s likely led to feelings of frustration.

I know, because I used to feel the same way.

That’s why I’m sharing my step-by-step process to find not only a good career but the right career for you. My hope is that by the end of this post, you’ll no longer say, “I don’t know what career I want,” but instead, “I can’t wait to get started!”

But first, let’s break down common mental roadblocks and learn how to overcome them.

 

These things are holding you back from the career you want

You already know what you want to do with your life (at least on some level) if you remove one word from the equation:

Fear.

People reach out to me often about what they want to do for their careers and lives because I’ve created my own custom career. I run my own business. They see me creating content, making money online, building a personal brand, and doing all the cool things they’d like to do, so they feel comfortable confiding in me.

And it’s interesting. When people tell me about their dreams, they seem to have great clarity. They know what they want. 

The problem, and why they confide in me privately instead of making a bold, public declaration, is they’re afraid. Making a career pivot requires taking a risk.

Ask yourself: If you knew your career plan would work with 100% certainty, what would you do?

When you remove the possibility of:

• Failure
• Rejection
• Embarrassment
• Uncertainty

All of a sudden, you know what you want.

Beyond fear, here are some other challenges I faced (and you’ll likely face, too):

 

The resistance is real

I work with a lot of people who have traditional 9-to-5 jobs and have spent a lot of time building 10-year credibility. They stand out among their friends, family, and community for what they currently do. But to make a career change or try something new, they will have to lose status.

I wrote about this to my email list the other day—about the sort of questions people ask when you’re starting a new business or pivoting to a new career:

• “Hey, how’s that little business thing going?”
• “Are you still doing that online thing?”
• “Are you still trying to switch to a new career?”

And they often say it with an almost snarky and condescending tone.

Why? Because the minute you start doing something different in your career or life, you take two steps back in order to take ten steps forward.

You have to lose some status to gain it back tenfold. Accept this upfront and deal with it.

Status won’t be the only thing you give up. It’s time to let go of any preconceived notions, because…

 

Society wants you to follow the script

You can face a lot of pressure, especially when you’re starting out. 

Let’s say you’re a brand new college graduate deciding what career you want. Subconscious or not, most people don’t only factor in personal preferences—it’s hard to ignore everyone around you.

And they’ve got opinions.

Parental pressure and expectations are very real for a lot of folks.

I’m Nigerian, and it’s common in African families to feel these expectations. Parents want you to go into specific fields like law, engineering, medicine, or IT.

Then there are your peers and other family members. It’s hard not to compare yourself when “everyone” is working these seemingly prestigious jobs at well-known corporations. They have the outside appearance of making good money. In a good position. By choosing a pre-prescribed career path that is proven and approved of by their peers and society. 

It’s easy to feel like:

• Your desired career path is too different
• You will be ostracized for choosing a non-traditional career
• Everyone is ahead of you (FOMO!)

But the truth is, a traditional career is not synonymous with a better career. Forget the comparisons because there’s no perfect plan for finding a job you love.

 

People hesitate to invest this required resource

The last mental roadblock we’ll cover (before getting to the practical tips) is time. 

People are afraid to make a commitment to a certain career path because they’re afraid they won’t be successful—and they’re going to waste time in the process.

This is a fallacy, though, because if you find yourself in constant hesitation, indecision, and procrastination, that means you’re likely floating around from job to job. Not finding anything you really love. You’re treating everything as stepping stones or placeholders, not moving forward with what you really want to do. 

The next thing you know, you’ve lost five, 10, 15, or even 20 years of your life. All because you decided to settle for whatever careers were at hand instead of taking the time to figure out and pursue the ones that you really wanted.

It’s faster to create a hypothesis for the type of career that you’d like to have, test it out, and experience how it feels. Even if it doesn’t work out, at least the experience will give you the clarity to move forward and try the next thing…and the next thing.

My biggest mindset tip to overcome the fear of wasting time?

You need courage.

To move forward without having all the information available to you. 

To construct your life based on what you want and what you care about vs. what other people think. 

And to have faith that if you move forward and trust your intuition, amazing things will happen even though the details might be foggy now.

Considering a non-traditional path? Check out these posts:

 

The career discovery process

Let’s get into the practical tips to figure out what career you want. It’s more important to focus on competence than passion because competence creates passion. When you get good at something, you will naturally become more passionate about it.

The way you get close to having a career that “helps you find your passion” is to find things you’re drawn to and are naturally good at (or can pick up quickly).

 

Start with your strengths

This is why I often suggest people take strengths tests like:

• CareerExplorer
• Strengths Finder (rebranded to CliftonStrengths)
• Big Five personality test
• Enneagram test

Not all of these tests are scientifically proven to help you figure out your personality and strengths, but they’re accurate enough to help you make informed decisions.

I took a Strengths Finder test years ago when I was trying to make a pivot and build a better life. 

The results suggested a career that focuses on ideation and coming up with concepts. It identified that I had skills for writing, reading, and synthesizing information. I took all of those recommendations and used them to make (very good) money online.

 

Look for natural talents and interests

Charlie Munger has a saying:

Play games that you can win.

That means you want to find a game that you are predisposed to win because you already have a natural talent for it.

To find your strengths, you can use tests, yes—but you can also think back to times you have excelled in your life. Ask yourself questions like:

For an example of combining skill + interest + opportunity, let me tell you about my good friend. He’s an amazing basketball player. One of the top players in the country, actually, but he didn’t make it into the NBA.

Since playing basketball as a career was no longer was an option, he took what he loved to do and created a basketball training company. He teaches high school and grade school students how to improve their basketball skills so that they can get into Division 1 colleges and even the NBA.

He created the best of both worlds, taking what he enjoyed and turning it into a practical career based on his circumstances.

Now he gets paid quite a bit of money to teach and play basketball. I see him all the time. He’s constantly in the gym doing what he loves—playing basketball daily, doing runs against others in the gym, or training kids.

His enthusiasm shows. He can talk about it all day and train people all day, engaging in the thing he loves to do most.

 

5 Practical steps to finding the career you want

Step 1: Brain dump

Do a brain dump of every single possible career option that you might like to have moving forward. No idea is too ridiculous, nothing is too crazy. Just go with your gut.

Then:

• Take a day off and sleep on it
• Cross out all the obvious “nos”
• Sleep on it and let it breathe
• Narrow it down to your final three options

 

Step 2: Research

After that, it’s time to look at your top three choices with a critical eye. Look up blog posts, videos, YouTube content, and LinkedIn articles about what the career requires:

• Degrees you might need
• Potential certifications
• Hours you’ll have to invest
• The network you must build
• Primary skills needed

 

Step 3: Score your options

Rate each option from 1 to 10 based on these factors:

1. How passionate you are about the topic or career
2. The level of natural talent or ability you have
3. Financial compensation and profit potential

Take the career choice that has the highest score among all variables. You want something that you enjoy, but you’re also good at, and that also makes good money.

 

Step 4: Create your action plan

Put everything into the plan.

Example:  If you hypothesize that you want to become a data analyst, map out the necessary steps:

• Take a coding boot camp
• Get certifications
• Revamp your LinkedIn profile
• Build a portfolio
• Create content to showcase your understanding
• Network with senior professionals
• Define your ideal position
• Develop required skills
• Begin the application process

 

Step 5: Test and iterate

Give yourself 12 to 24 months to let it sink in. It’s going to take a couple of years in this field to decide what you want. 

After you give it a go, you can judge the result of your career experiment.

• Did it go as well as you anticipated?
• Did it give you everything that you thought it would?
• Do you feel a sense of passion and competence?

The key is to take action, test, and iterate.

Sitting still isn’t the key to success. The story I’ll share next shows you what the process looks like in practice.

 

The power of iteration: Robert Greene’s story

Robert Greene kind of sort of always knew he wanted to be a writer, so he took lots of odd jobs that involved writing, along with a bunch of other random jobs along the way. He worked as a:

• Journalist
• Screenwriter in Hollywood
• Freelance writer

There was a persistent theme of writing in his life. He kept testing different forms of writing until he landed on book writing.

Robert had jobs where he worked under very successful and authoritative people. And he worked in areas like Hollywood where a lot of power games were played.

All of this past work experience coalesced into what would become “The 48 Laws of Power.” 

The publisher loved the idea and essentially paid for Robert to live while writing the book—and the rest is history.

It became a classic, he became extremely famous, and he got what he wanted: his dream career.

Watch his TED talk and use his story as a blueprint for how to implement what I taught you in the real world.

“I don’t know what career I want” is a lie

You already know what you want.

It’s…

The thing you would do if you couldn’t fail.

The thing that lights you up but you’re a little bit scared to try.

The thing you know you want to do, but you’re worried about what your friends and family might think.

The thing that temporarily lowers your status.

The thing that makes you confront who you really are—the positives and negatives, your confidence and insecurities.

That’s what you’re supposed to be doing. You know that. Now go do it.