Choosing a Career

Choosing a Career A career can be defined as the employment you prepare for during the first quarter of your life, engage in during the best years of your life, and reap the rewards from when you are least able to enjoy them. Behind the cynicism of this observation lies an important truth: choosing a life’s vocation is not a decision to be taken lightly. To justify the time and effort you will invest in your career, it should be stimulating, rewarding and productive. The better you know yourself, the more likely you are to choose a career you can live with happily. What would a stimulating career be like? Picture yourself getting up in the morning and looking forward to your day with eager anticipation. This may not be the popular image of most jobs, but it is one that can be achieved. Most people participate in leisure activities that they find interesting and energizing. There’s no rule that says you can’t be as enthusiastic about your work as you are about your play. Many successful people have turned their interests into careers, thus getting paid for what they like to do. Many career professionals in the arts, for example, make their living by doing what they feel they were born to do whether it’s to write, act, paint, dance, play or compose music, sing, design, or sculpt. Max Ward loved to fly. From that passion grew his career as a bush pilot. Later in his life he founded one of Canada’s first charter airlines. Of course, it is not always possible to turn a passion into a career. To deny what excites you and relegate it to after-hours activities without trying to incorporate it into your working life, means you will spend most of your life wishing you were doing something else. If your career is stimulating, then chances are good that it can also be rewarding. A good career offers two kinds of rewards: financial and emotional. Rewarding work doesn’t just happen; it’s something that you need to plan for. The first and most important step is to know