You’ll spend forty hours at work each week. And if you’ve chosen the wrong career, you’ll end up being frustrated. Some decisions are more critical than others and your career is one of them.

In order to find out what exactly you want to do with your life you have to ask yourself certain questions. What keeps you alive and motivated? What are the activities that get you amped up when you’re doing them? What could you do for the rest of your life that you’d still do even if you wouldn’t get paid?

Choosing the right career isn’t only important so you can make a living, it’s also essential for your well-being.

Bear in mind you may be doing this for the rest of your life, and it should excite you and bring you joy. When you get up each morning you should be excited to get to work.

Career test

If you’re completely confused about which path to take, you can take a career test which will give you an indication of the types of career you choose from. The test looks at all your personality traits and whether you are introverted or extroverted and what type of setting would suit you. Do you enjoy helping people? Do you like solving complex problems? Are you more creative and do you enjoy working with your hands? These are some of the questions you’ll come across that’ll help you gain insight into your likes and dislikes.

The test will help you discover more about yourself and what would most likely be the perfect setting for you. It helps you determine if you’ll do well working in an environment where you’ll be left on your own most of the time and work at your own pace. Or if you’re a person who is more flexible and thrives in an environment where you work with people and have to be more sociable. Some jobs are much more stressful than others and require personalities that can deal with pressure, and these tests will help you figure out which jobs work well with your personality.

Get an Internship

An internship will help you figure out if a certain career path is right for you. Many companies are now investing a lot of time and effort into equipping their interns with the skills that’ll help them in the long run. Internships have become more than just running around and getting coffee for everyone in the office. If you’re uncertain about what career path you want to take, an internship could be the perfect solution to help you decide what you want. Interning will also help you determine if that particular working environment is for you.

Job shadow

Find out if the company you’re interested in offers the opportunity to job shadow. You can follow someone for a few days to find out what the job entails and if it’s what you’d be interested in. They’ll introduce you to the working environment and help you apply what you’ve studied in a practical setting.

Ask around

Find people that are in that particular sector and chat to them. Ask them about the highs and lows of that job. This will  help you figure out if you’ll be able to cope or not. Ask them tons of questions and it’ll help you get honest feedback.

Sometimes certain careers seem more glamorous than they really are. And when you’re actually there, you realise that it’s not what you thought it would be. So take some time and research as much as you can on the career you’re considering.

Unconventional career

Of course, you don’t have to stick to the norm. You can take the path less travelled and start your own business. You can start your very own company where you provide a service to a certain industry. For example, you could target the mining sector and supply the miners with protective gear. Mining equipment can be quite expensive, so you could provide a service where you equip up-and-coming mining businesses with money to finance mining equipment. Or you could open a dance studio. Or bakery with unique and tasty treats. If you have entrepreneurial skills and great ideas, you can make a success of your business. The sky’s the limit and you don’t have to stick to a certain way of doing things just because your parents did.

Choose something that motivates you to wake up each morning. You don’t want to find yourself completely disgruntled because you’re unhappy at work. You have the power to shape your entire future by selecting a career path that’ll make you happy. The harder you work, the further you’ll go in life. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you value the most in life? And what gets you excited? These questions will bring you closer to your purpose and what you’re meant to do.