# How to Choose A Career You Won’t Regret

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moQnoSYPMmY

[00:00] there are two common assumptions that most people have about choosing careers that are not only unnecessarily false but also increases your chances of regretting the choice you make these assumptions are actually the reason why it is so confusing and stressful to choose a career but there is a way of thinking about careers that makes it much easier gives you more clarity and is supported by research but first what even is an ideal career
[00:24] 15-year-old me would have said that it was becoming a doctor but once I became a doctor I realized it wasn't for me and so between 15year old me and 25 year-old me that quit medicine what I realized was that a perfect career isn't just about passion or even about purpose it's also about personality and this is where Frameworks like iy guy are useful
[00:48] now many of you will be familiar with iy guy it's a very common framework for thinking about careers and jobs II is a Japanese word it means a reason for being and it look
[01:00] like this there's what you love what you are good at what you can be paid for and what the world needs and the intersect of all four of these things is iy guy and that's really where we want to be that's like our Dream career and the really interesting part is when different parts of it intersect like if what you love intersects with what you are good at then you have passion uh but if what you love intersects with uh what the world needs you have Mission this is often also called purpose or what you're good at inter with what you can be paid for that is profession or what the world needs and what you can be paid for that is vocation but it's really interesting uh in the Gap so for example if you have what you love and it is what the world needs and what you are good at but it is not what you can be paid for then you have delight and fullness but no wealth uh if you have what you are good at and what you love and what you can be paid for but it is not what the world needs then the satisfaction but the feeling of uselessness or purposelessness and then if you've got about what you can be paid for what
[02:02] you're good at and what the world needs.
[02:04] uh but you do not have what you love.
[02:05] then it is comfort with a feeling of emptiness.
[02:08] and then finally if you have what the world needs and you're doing what you love and you can be paid for it but you are not good at it then there is excitement and complacency but a sense of uncertainty.
[02:18] and what's great about this framework is that it makes it explicit why some people may be dissatisfied and what we are really looking for instead of just saying follow your passions or follow your dreams or you know find a job that just makes money it's like actually we need to be looking for the intersect of all of those things and it's not necessarily easy but having a framework like this can help.
[02:40] now what's important to note here is that what you love does not mean just what you enjoy uh enjoyment is something that is pretty transient but what you love especially in the form of what iy guy talks about is actually something that's influenced also by your values and also by your personality and actually you can think about what you love like you might think about a human to human relationship uh where we use
[03:04] the word love for example you might meet someone and you may like them in the moment.
[03:09] but as you get to know them a little bit more and explore a little bit more about their life and their beliefs and their dreams and their values and you see whether you are aligned or not.
[03:17] and there are some parts that you may not like and understanding all of that is really what forms the love.
[03:21] it's not enough just to have watched a season of Grace's Anatomy or house and say I love the show therefore I want to be a doctor for example.
[03:32] I had a lot of students that used to come up to me and say I love the idea of becoming a doctor uh because one time they were a patient in a hospital and then like this doctor had a really nice interaction with them and they thought I would love to be in that person's position.
[03:43] that is not what it means to be a doctor.
[03:46] that interaction is a very very small snippet of the entire career that's not enough to say that you love it.
[03:54] so as you can see with questions like this iy guy is great but it can also be really confusing to follow because how do we figure out what our passion is how do we see what a mission
[04:04] or purpose that we resonate with this.
[04:06] how do we know what professions there are out there that we can be paid for.
[04:11] guy tells us that in order for us to find the ideal career we need to first know what we love what the world needs what we can be paid for and what we are good at.
[04:24] this is not correct the reason is because of those two common assumptions that I metion mentioned earlier.
[04:30] there's an area of research called employability.
[04:32] it's the study of how people get jobs that are a great fit for them and then thrive in that career path long term.
[04:38] it's actually something that I have researched published on and lectured on briefly myself and two of the core understandings from this research are that number one careers are not fixed paths and number two you are not a fixed object.
[04:53] and these are the assumptions that make career choice much harder than it needs to be.
[04:58] 15 year old me thought I need to find my perfect career I need to be passionate and once I find it I'm
[05:06] going to live a life of fulfillment and so I thought about what am I passionate about and therefore what is a good career path for me but that thinking is wrong because by the time I had left medicine 10 years later I was a different person I had different thoughts different beliefs different passions different values even I knew more about myself as I had more experiences and each of those experiences shaped me and you probably know this like have you ever thought about yourself from years ago and then cringed well that's because you now are different to who you were back then and just like how different careers can suit different people the right career changes as we change so let's look at the iy guy again and you'll see where the problems are back when I was 15 medicine for me is something that I thought I loved that I was very passionate about I was pretty good at the those subjects in school I knew I could be paid for it and it was clearly something that the world needs and so for me medicine should have being my
[06:08] reason for being my icky guy but it turns out that it wasn't as I had those experiences I learned more about myself.
[06:17] but now think about what I do for work now in educational entrepreneurship which I feel is perfect for me that's the icky guy for me right now.
[06:23] but in the beginning I had no idea if it would pay well.
[06:25] in fact for the first four or five years of running my nonprofit I didn't pay myself at all and the concept of a learning coach was like not even a profession.
[06:36] so for 15-year-old me pursuing medicine really was the right decision.
[06:39] it was the iy guy for me back then but for 25-year-old me it was the right thing to leave because it was iy guy no more.
[06:49] and this type of career journey is not unique to me there are lots of people that have had similar journeys.
[06:55] Jeff Bezos for example used to be a Trader on Wall Street before founding Amazon.
[06:58] Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be a just bodybuilder before he became an actor and then now got into politics.
[07:04] JK Rowling the author of Harry Potter she used to be a secretary so
[07:09] what does this all mean for you in choosing your career?
[07:11] it means the perfect career does not exist, at least not in the way we normally think about it.
[07:20] a dream career isn't something you find like bury treasure.
[07:22] a dream career is something that you craft, that you mold over time.
[07:27] your dream career career is a reflection of what you love, what you are good at, what you can get paid for, and what the world needs at each stage of your life.
[07:36] but the only reason I managed to mold my dream career is because I kept searching for that alignment.
[07:41] I have so many classmates who hated medicine way more than I did, and they are still stuck there because they don't know what the alternatives are.
[07:51] they haven't explored what's important.
[07:52] is not that you know what your dream career is going to be right now.
[07:57] it's not even that you know what you love, what you're good at, what you what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.
[08:04] what's important is that you're constantly trying to figure it out.
[08:06] what's important is that you have a
[08:10] range of diverse experiences and you challenge yourself through those experiences because challenges are where you learn the most about yourself and you reflect on what you love what your personality is what your values are where you find meaning and fulfillment and eventually also what Financial opportunities you want to pursue.
[08:32] you don't need to have the answers because there is no right answer what you need to do is just actively try to create alignment.
[08:40] it is a journey that will last as long as your life and that Journey will become your life.
[08:45] at this point you might have some questions around what skills You' need to do any of this or what else you need to be thinking about and if so check out this video here I think it will help you.
[08:55] thank you so much for watching I'll see you next time.
[09:02] [Music]