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I have spent a great deal of time so far writing about different tools for self-discovery. But the question remains, "What are all of these for?" It comes down to this idea - the more we know ourselves, the better we can make fulfilling life decisions. Whether social, academic, or career decisions, knowing who we are and what works for us helps us to make better decisions.
Often, decision-making advice is shaded in terms of earning potential. "If I become a/an [insert career here], I'll make enough money." I am not fond of this path. This opinion is not a value statement on career success but on the healthiness and longevity of decisions made through the lens of monetary value. This viewpoint reminds me of the movie Office Space from 1999, where nearly every character hated their job and was unsatisfied with their lives. The moral was to live a life in line with who you are and want to be. Sure, everyone in that film was making money, but was anyone living a fulfilling life? Not from what I saw. Going through a complete decision-making process lessens the chances of our lives turning into another day in Office Space.
Going through a process also helps minimize losses. Whether lost time or lost money (just the time commitment and expense of college can give us pause), the cost of decisions can add up quickly. Our goal is to make an informed decision early on to lessen the costs of time and money later in life.
The Personality-Advice Mismatch
Before I get into the process, let's talk about the most common experience of everyone when they make a life-changing decision - seeking advice. Now, advice is not bad. Advice can give us perspective and ideas. However, where advice falls short is in its understanding of your situation. Most advice is well-intentioned - people want to help. But no one completely understands your situation. No explanation you give could put that person in your shoes enough to provide adequate advice.
We can see this running some simple math. Let's start with the idea from Robin Dunbar that we can realistically only maintain 150 connections at any time. From those 150 connections, we only have 3 to 5 close friends - people who understand who we are at a deep level. Let us be optimistic and take the number of 150. If we take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which has 16 personalities and focuses on how we perceive the world and make decisions, and if each personality type were perfectly equal in society, you would have a 6.25% chance of meeting someone with an identical personality type. All of this means that, out of those 150 connections, nine people would be like you. But it is not equal across society. If you are lucky/unlucky enough to be an ENTJ, that percentage drops to ~1.8%, or ~2 people! This percentage means finding someone who processes the world as you do is rare and made even more challenging when we realize that we only have a deep connection with 3 to 5 people. Let's use me as an example. I am an ENTJ. I have met very few other ENTJs in my life. Because I love personality things, I know the MBTI of my three closest connections. I ended up with 2 ISFJs and 1 ISTJ. They know me well, but they do not experience the world the same way as me.
But this is just one aspect of our personality. If we add the Enneagram into our knowledge, which looks at one's personality through behavioral and motivational patterns, the possibility of receiving accurate advice drops even further. When we multiply the 16 MBTI personality types by the 9 Enneagram personality types, we end up with 144 possible combinations! Out of 155 connections, we have a little better than a 1% chance of meeting someone like us. Again, this is not true of the real world. For example, rough estimates are that ENTJ combined with Enneagram 7's make up 0.12% of the population - they have a 1 in 1000 chance of meeting someone like me! This percentage does not account for other aspects of our personality not measured by MBTI or Enneagram - interest, passion, personal values, work characteristics, character strengths, etc. Once all of this comes into play, we see that finding someone to give us the advice we need and can use is almost impossible.
Tricky Questions Disguised As Advice
Even if we are lucky to find someone exactly like us, sometimes the advice does not work. Often, this weak advice comes in the form of a question. There are three popular questions that we get when we seek career advice. They are not bad, but they are usually given in isolation and can be more disabling than helpful. These questions are some of the last we should consider in our decision-making processes, not the first.
The First: "What Interests You?"
First, interest does matter, but it is not great. Let's take this - I'm interested in math. Okay, that narrows things down a little. But what kind of math? Practical or theoretical math? Calculus or algebra? Physics? Engineering? Computer Science? Bookkeeping? Accounting? Tax Preparation? Actuary? We may have an interest, but we do not have an answer to our career question.
The Second: "What Are You Good At?"
We all have something we are good at, but this does not mean we would find it fulfilling. I am a good teacher - with enough preparation time, I could teach anything. I am also good at writing. I would hate teaching writing. We often find this advice popping up, especially with people who know us but not at a great depth. "You are so good at [insert subject here]! Why don't you pursue a career in that!" Yes, it is true that if we do not have at least some competence in a field, we are unlikely to find fulfillment in it. But competence is not everything. We all have competence in something we do not enjoy. Use it, but save it for the end of your decision-making process.
The Third: "What Are You Passionate About?"
Passion matters. It is a part of the career decision model we will discuss later. But passion is such a broad word that it is almost unhelpful in this process. As an example, let's take my passions. I have a passion for learning and playing tabletop games with friends. These passions may tell me what makes me happy, but it is not great advice for selecting a career. I enjoy playing games, but I have no interest in designing any aspect of them or selling them. Keep your passions and make them a part of your life, but starting with them will muddy the waters.
Let me reiterate this from the first paragraph. These three questions can be helpful, but they are often introduced too early! Save them for the end to really narrow things down.
Seek Self-Knowledge More Than Advice
Now, advice matters. Some people know how the world works. If you try to be an engineer without talking to an engineer, it will probably turn out poorly. If you are new to a situation, talking to someone with experience is much better than guessing the whole time. Even picking up a book is a great way to learn how others have tried the world and what has worked. But, when it is time to make a career decision, self-knowledge matters more than advice.
Over the years, I have looked into several career decision models. My favorite that I have found so far is from Dr. Justin Sung. If anyone knows the challenge of making career decisions, it is Dr. Sung. Dr. Sung went through the training to become a medical doctor and then decided not to become one. He went through years of training, challenge, and sacrifice only to finish and say, "Nope, never mind." Instead, he dove fully into education. He is now a YouTuber and Learning Coach with a master's degree in education and spends his time and energy teaching the world how to learn efficiently and effectively. He also has a video that discusses his philosophy behind making career decisions, which I love! This video is the basis of much of my work.
So what is this model? It all comes down to self-knowledge. The more we know ourselves, the better we can make decisions. This model uses three aspects of ourselves - Personality, Purpose, and Passion. Where these three aspects overlap is our work.
Here is what each of these means.
Personality: Who are you? How does your mind work? How do you interact with others? How do you make decisions? It is necessary to look at your personality from every angle. Knowing your personality tendencies can narrow down careers very quickly. For example, xNTP or xSTP types will struggle in highly structured environments. It is also good to know that xSxJ types do not do well in unstructured environments. People with an "F" in their personality type prefer to work in an environment that values everyone's feelings and values. From another angle, Enneagram types 4 and 7 do not like being told how to act or perform, so too much structure may stifle them. Enneagram Type 1's have a strong desire for perfection, so a loose work environment that allows for several mistakes would be a poor fit. In my own life, others told me I would be great in sales because I am an extrovert, despite the fact I do not enjoy selling things. The summary of all of this? Know your personality to know your direction.
Purpose: What aligns with your core beliefs and values? What aspects do you live for, no matter the situation? Values can be a tricky thing to discuss. Everyone has values, but not everyone shares the same values. And, even if they do, each value holds a different level of importance depending on the person. For example, my top two values are excellence and uniqueness. I want to do everything at a high level, and I need the people I surround myself with to pursue excellence. I also want them to embrace their uniqueness as well as my uniqueness. At the end of the day, though, I will default to excellence before uniqueness. Knowing your core beliefs and values helps you to find work that aligns with you. For example, if your top value is compassion, but you are in a career focused on wealth accumulation, you may find it challenging to continue that work (like the difference between being a Hospice Caregiver and a Mutual Fund Manager).
Passion: I mentioned before that, taken in isolation, passion is not a great question, but it is core to your identity and how you live your life. Passion is what excites us and gives us energy. Not all passions become careers, but a good match overlaps with at least one of your passions.
Purpose vs. Passion: There is an overlap in purpose and passion. My definition of purpose is what gives you fulfillment. It energizes you and makes you feel better about yourself. Your passion is more about interest. For example, my purpose is to help people. My passion is in self-discovery. Some ideas belong to both categories, but how these ideas serve you makes a difference.
The beauty of this model is that it suggests that finding a career where the three "P's" overlap increases the chance of finding meaningful work. But how do we discover our Personality, Purpose, and Passion?
The Process of Self-Discovery
Knowing this basic model is just the first step. The challenge is how you discover your Personality, Purpose, and Passion. That is where the triangle below comes into play.
The process of self-discovery is the more time-intensive part. But it is the part that most people try to skip over and go straight to the decision-making point. This part is where we find long-term misalignment with our career decisions: we do not have a solid understanding of ourselves before making a final decision. Here is our breakdown of each element.
Values: To understand our Purpose and Passion, we need to understand our values. We can also see these as our priorities. For example, if spending time with family is a priority and a value, we will want to pick a career that allows for this. It is hard to be at a child's soccer game if you work 12-hour days (the plot of Hook anyone?). Understanding your values and priorities is the first step to making a career decision. And these are your values based on honest self-reflection, not what you think others believe your values should be. Be honest with yourself - what matters to you!
Reflection: Take the time to reflect on who you are. Sit with the results of your personality assessments. What matches up? What does not? Journal on it. Talk it over with those closest to you (who are your top 3 to 5 connections?). As you reflect, you can identify your purpose and personality traits, and these will lead you to better career decisions.
Experience: This is the most time-intensive part of the process. You can not rush experience. You have to go through it. There are no shortcuts here. For example, if you like helping others, leadership, and music, being a high school or college music teacher may be a great fit! But you will not know until you experience it in some way. The more you get out there and experience, the more you will find what matches your personality and passions. All of this process is like a science experiment. Everything leading up to experience is the hypothesis. Experience is where we test our hypothesis in the real world. We can not only rely on our values and reflection - we need to experience the real world. There is no shortcut here, but it is the most skipped part of the process.
The Ah-Ha Moment!
Okay, there is no such thing as an "ah-ha" moment. What looks like a sudden epiphany of realization is the culmination of the work when everything finally slots into place. Einstein did not one day think up the General Theory of Relativity from nothing (he finished it at 36 and included nine years of work improving on special relativity). Beethoven did not compose his Symphony No. 5 out of nowhere (he was 34 when he started it, and it took him four years to finish). Steve Jobs did not begin by revolutionizing the computing world with the iPhone (he was 52 when the iPhone launched and had several other accomplishments leading up to this moment). The process of finding a suitable career follows the same approach. While it will feel like an epiphany, it will actually be the culmination of the work we put into discovering ourselves and aligning our world with our Personality, Purpose, and Passion.
Are you ready to put this career decision model into practice? Reach out today, and we will get started moving you from overwhelm and uncertainty to clarity and direction.
Tom Chapman, TruePath Discovery Coaching
P.S. If you want to watch Dr. Sung's original video, Don't Choose Careers Based on PASSION," you can watch it below!