85% of people on the planet hate their jobs
Tags: Education, Self Improvement, Careers, Jobs, Self Help

What career is right for you? What is something you have to accomplish before you die? If you read till the end, you get a BONUS tip as well!

According to a global poll conducted by Gallup, only 15% of workers are engaged in their work, around the world. That means that 85% of people either don’t like what they’re doing or unlucky circumstances led to their career decisions. What do you do to not fall into the majority of people who are unhappy with their job? Keep reading, probably.

Three things to consider when picking a career:

There are three things to consider when picking a career; do you love what you want to do? Does it fulfil your priorities in life? Also, would you pick the same career if you were to die the next day?

Let’s talk about priorities in your life. It could be the model life, a “9 to 5”, a family, a car, a house, and a vacation once a year. Or it could be something that makes an impact on society or leaves a mark. That does not mean having a 9 to 5 job means you’re a failure, it means you have different priorities in your life, and that’s completely ok. When trying to decide what you love to do, there is a little test. I’ve explained it in an older article as well, here. The test goes like this, what is something that you’ll do happily if I woke you up in the middle of the night and told you to do it(take money out of consideration)? It should take a while and I’m not talking about trivial things, I meant work. That work could be coding, cooking, art, photography, a sport etc. Another way of looking at it is, if money wasn’t involved, what job would you do for free for the rest of your life? This point is a little hypothetical and shouldn’t be taken too seriously or you should, whatever floats your boat. If tomorrow was the last 24 hours of your life, would you be happy with the life you’ve lived? Since our lives haven’t started yet, imagine that you’ve lived a full life with the career you’re thinking of choosing. Would you be happy with that life?

Salary:

Now, a lot of you are probably wondering about salary. From all the jobs I’ve searched from so far, the average beginner salary of a student with almost any bachelor’s degree is 3–5 Lac per annum, note when I say average.

The thing is, in the 21st century, it is foolish to believe that you can survive with just the money you earn from your day job. Building multiple income streams is the only way to ensure a safety net and retirement fund for the future.

Work because you want to work, don’t work for the money involved. It might sound easy for me to say but hear me out. Yes, money enables us to live the way we want to live; the keyword here is enable. That doesn’t mean your goal should be money; the end goal is happiness; financial freedom helps that. As Jawaharlal Nehru said, money is the silliest of all types of pride.

The Hedgehog Principle:

Now let’s talk about choosing a career with the Hedgehog Principle. The Hedgehog principle is a parable devised by the ancient Greeks; Now, people generally depict it with a Venn diagram.

The Hedgehog principle consists of three circles, what you love to do, what you’re good at, and what pays well.

I’ve already talked about doing what you love to do and I’ve also talked about money. What I haven’t talked about is doing what you’re good at.

Your strengths are what get you on that pedestal of wherever you want to be. I mean, I love music, I like listening to singing and violin, but I’m not good at either. Knowing what you’re good at and what you’re not good at is something that you’ll learn only with experience. Try everything; it’s the only way you’ll know if you’re any good at it.

Bonus Tip:

For the bonus tip, you’re going to have to think of the future. By 2030, it is estimated that the number of jobs that will be lost to automation is twenty million. Many jobs in manufacturing, farming, customer service, and middle management have already been automated. Even jobs such as music composition, driving, research and data entry, AND newspaper articles (yes, seriously, you may have already seen them without realising it) can be automated. Jobs in the future will require creativity and innovation, something that school have been late to provide, ahem ahem, but that is for another time.

Conclusion:

Alrighty, I hope I’ve been able to be of some help in choosing the right career for you. I also recommend doing career tests online, that may subliminally show you your interests if you’ve been ignoring them. It’s a great time to be alive but at the same time kinda stressful thinking of all the “competition” but it shouldn’t worry you, it’s usually in your head. Tl;dr, do what you want to do, people are focused more on themselves. That’s all for now.