Finding the dream job

About finding your dream job

You probably don’t know that, so let me start saying that I am no specialist: I’m not a psychologist, I am no coach or what so ever. I’m a Brazilian architecture and urban planning student. But, as you may have notice (reading other posts as “it could have been anything” and “what comes next” or even “clueless” and “I belong everywhere”), I have a hard time making choices, mostly because I identify myself with too many things, so it is hard for me to focus on just one. I decided to write about all that I found out about choosing a career and things related to that.

I have listen to a bunch of TedTalks, PodCasts, Youtube videos; I also read some blog posts and, most of all, I have talked to a looooot of people about it. I’ll try to recover all of them (I didn’t really, I later decided to just summarize this post), but I may not found all the links, and I may not remember all the names of friends, collegues, mentors, that I have talked to.

Still on the contextualizing part of this post, I want to reinforce how my personality is all about possibilities; I (deeply) identify myself with ENFP profile. (It is from 16 personalities, you can take a test to see witch profile better represents you; here is the link that describes how my profile deals with work: https://www.16personalities.com/enfp-careers).

Closed the introduction, here some highlights:

1. You have to know yourself. If you don’t know who you are, what are your needs, the things that will slowly kill you and things that bring you the purest joy, you won’t be able to find a vocation.
2. Liking something is very different from being good at this thing and wanting to work with that thing (examples: you can love your smartphones and not love “programming” one; you may love food and be really bad at cooking)
3. Patience is important. For me it is also about managing expectations.
4. Keep on trying: try new things to see how you like them, keep on trying to get the job you believe is the best one for you, prepare yourself and don’t stop.

They might seem simplistic or obvious, but they are conclusions based on some months thinking (and, somehow, researching) about it. Each point could become another text, so I guess that’s what I’m gonna do: I will end this one with a list of references, so you can figure out more about it.

The List:

Visit https://www.16personalities.com, it can help you to know yourself better and learn what works for you career wise.

TedTalks: There is one called Stop searching for your passion  by Terri Trespicio; its to help you to be free of the pressure of having ONE dream, ONE passion, ONE mission. You may not have a perfect dream job and you can have more than one. (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MBaFL7sCb8). Close to that, there are some others: To find work you love, don’t follow your passion by Benjamin Todd (link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKlx1DLa9EA); Don’t find a job, find a mission by Celeste Headlee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVx6ntr5OqI) and Three Questions to unlock your authentic career by Ashley Stahl ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMiSf7LpFQE). Celeste’s talk helps you to not lost opportunities over a job title but to see the bigger picture; Ashley’s can also do that, and encourage you to change, even if you were fixated about something else. One more at career change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUtx-wC5mqA How to Change Careers when You’re Lost, by Felicia Ricci.

This other one is more to encourage you to find something you are passionate about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpe-LKn-4gM; it seems to be a little divergent from the others, but you can take them as complementary, this one brings some tips/steps to figure out a job that you will love.  Revisiting those talks many others with similar topics appeared, so lets keep on watching them…

A dear friend of mine has a podcast/Youtube channel; all theirs videos can be helpful, but I chose this one, the interviewee was recently graduated so I believe it reignites with a lot of us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIkm5x6d9bw How bad do you want it? Work harder on yourself! w/ Anousone Bounket. This one is not too focused on career and it is a little bit longer.

If you’re a Brazilian too (or a Portuguese speaker) there is 99jobs, a platform to help you to find your dream job. Carol Nalon has 3 introduction videos that are very very helpful and I plan to write specifically about it later ( https://99jobs.com/pages/welcome). There is also a sermon on making choices that helped me a lot too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTAOjWTHkrI).

I heard some podcasts about carrears too, the show is called How I built this so far I listened to the story of AirBnB, Starbucks, Instagram, Eileen Fisher and South West airlines. All great episodes.

Talk to your family, talk to your psychologist. Ask your friends, family, people around you about your skills, how they would describe you, what they think is a job that suits you and other questions like that. It is not decisive, but it is helpful. Listen to them, but don’t let anyone convince you’re not good enough to do something (not even yourself); you can acquire abilities, you can learn and insist, so let them show you things you haven’t notice about yourself, lighten up a new path and not block the roads to your dream.

It feels like a weird post this one, but I’m hoping it is helpful. It was a big collection of references and tips, so take your time and give us a chance to help. Also, don’t be shy! Comment if you also have trouble making career decisions or whatever you want say (em português ou em inglês, como você preferir).

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