When it comes to making life-changing decisions, most people have a hard time not stressing over the matter years ahead and choosing a career path is no exception to that rule. Some have it a bit easier finding a passion that is professionally pursuable before their late teenage years, but others only make a final choice once they are in their mid-twenties or even later. 

Aside from your current personal situation, you might be reading this article to try and find some guidance for your own path. Therefore, I have gathered some key points from different sources of content, conversations with people already exercising professional careers, and personal experience as a college student into consideration. These are some of the recommendations I found might help you organize your thoughts on the topic.

Analyze your interests

Finding out what your interests are and therefore which ones you could pursue as your future career requires asking yourself quite a lot of questions. Though this point of the process might feel daunting, it is most certainly an important one; once you know what you enjoy doing, then you can decide whether you want to give it a try or not. 
Some of the questions you could start with are:

• What type of knowledge do you enjoy acquiring?
• How do you like to spend your time?
• Is there a specific change you would like to make?
• What is meaningful to you?
• Which ones of your skills get complimented the most? Are they something you take pride in?
• What are some of your strengths or characteristics that you consider useful no matter the job?

Once you have some answers to these and feel confident enough in them to align with one or more professional activities, then you may start figuring out how to initiate yourself in such ones.

Investigate deal-breakers for the profession

It is important to find out what aspects, responsibilities, and goals, among other facts, are considered deal-breakers by the community of your chosen occupation. For example, if you are thinking of working for a specific company, you may look up their values and commitments. You could also try reaching out to their employees and asking what they would let someone know if that person was trying to become a member of the team. In case you were considering a freelance job, then there are most probably other people already exercising it and therefore competing, to some extent at least. Knowing “the rules of the game” can be incredibly helpful to become successful and also gain recognition from your colleagues. 

Having figured out who you would like to become as a future professional, along with the context of said activity, you may start planning specific steps to the process of getting where you want to be.

Set long-term and short-term goals

For any occupation, whether academically based or not, the first step to start off is educating yourself on the matter. From going for a master’s degree to asking for tips & tricks from someone who works in the field, education is always functional to become knowledgeable in the practice. 

Once you have acquired enough information to feel confident in your capabilities, you can start planning some smaller or short-term goals. Some of them can be applying for a certain number of companies, assisting events where you might meet people interested in your work or anything else that you know could help you move forward toward your final objective. 

Hopefully, these points can be considered of service when it comes to figuring out how to choose a career path, remarking how intimidating and unsettling of a procedure it can be. Nevertheless, once you feel more certain about your options and personal goals, everything turns much clearer and it can even become incredibly exciting. 

Article by Manuela Marques Monteiro