How to find your dream career

At 25, I think I’d be forgiven for not having found my dream career, afterall your twenties are supposed to be a time for experimentation. Don’t get me wrong, I like my job, but is it my dream job? I’m not so sure.

We try multiple different relationships before we find ‘the one’ but we always seem to settle for jobs that leave us unfulfilled.

This is what first attracted me to the book The Radical Sabbatical: The Millennial Handbook to the Quarter Life Crisis by Emma Rosen. Emma gave up her secure job, that she didn’t enjoy to try out twenty five different careers in one year.

In the book Emma makes an excellent point, that we try multiple different relationships before we find ‘the one’ but we always seem to settle for jobs that leave us unfulfilled. For example, people will change their jobs but stay in the same sector of work. She challenges you to think about all the different careers you’d love to try out. It doesn’t matter what these careers are, just let your mind wander. 

I am a prime example of someone who has stuck to a certain career path that I decided upon when I was 16. I always wanted to work in media, I did A Levels and a degree in Broadcast Media Production, and now I work as a Video Producer for a local newspaper.

I had many part-time jobs in customer service, and I worked in France during the summer for two seasons, but I knew these weren’t career choices, they were interim jobs until I reached my ultimate goal. 

I have never tried out any other career path, but I am open to the prospect. Here is a list of jobs I think I’d like to try sometime in the future.

1.Full time singer and musician.

2. Clinical psychologist.

3. Television producer

4. Musical theatre performer

5. Teacher in a foreign country

6. Professional blogger

7. Travel writer

8. Social media marketing manager

9. Motivational speaker

10. Published author

Now it’s your turn – write a list of the jobs that you’d like to do if time, money and studying were no objects. 

Next look at that list and think about which of them you could practically do. For me, I think all of those jobs are achievable, although Clinical Psychologist might be a bit of a stretch!

Step three is to look at your current job and identify exactly what it is that you like and don’t like about it. Is it the people? The workload? The actual job itself? Once you have this sussed it will give you a clear vision for your future employment. 

Finally, write down what is important to what you’d like in an ideal world. So for me, it’s important that I work somewhere I can be creative. What I’d ideally like is to not work weekends, but it’s not important to me. Don’t budge on the things that are important to you, but you can be more flexible with your ‘ideal world’ list.

Hopefully these exercises have helped give you a clearer vision. I certainly felt more optimistic about the future when I allowed myself to imagine I was working in each of these jobs. I know it’s not realistic to take the ‘radical’ approach like Emma did, but you can certainly glean some wisdom from her adventure.

Let me know your dream careers list in the comments below.