What to do when you’re feeling lost in your career journey – Rachel Nyambura

Fulfilment vs Skillset: Finding your ‘pulse of interest’ passion

Growing up, I could quickly identify what I wasn’t good at. Science was something that I always struggled with; instead, I realized I found happiness in helping people find solutions to their problems, helping businesses improve and do better and visible.

It took a lot of hands-on experience to find what made me happy and match it to my skills and talents. If you haven’t done so yet, I think you would find it incredibly insightful to conduct a reflective assessment of what brings you joy as well as your skills and talents. It is critical to assess if I’m doing work fulfilling and aligned to my talents, and you must do the same!

Here are some simple instructions if you’d like to do it yourself:

1. Think of what you spend time doing: hobbies, volunteer work, and paid jobs.
2. Jot them down on how they make you feel and how good you think you are at executing them. For example, working out, reading, sales make me super happy, but I’m not that good at it (yet at least). Therefore, remember you can always improve your skills and talents, but it’s important to note that this may make a significant effort.
3. Assess what outweighs most of your interests. I call this the “career sweet spot.” The activities that fall into this area will likely provide you with the best balance of passion, happiness, confidence, and enjoyment. Your PURPOSE

Passion & Interests = Paycheck? Assess the lifestyle you want and see if your career choice can realistically sustain that.

If anyone knows me well, they know I love selling, telling stories, solving problems, and having a bias for action; They might also know I enjoy coaching, training, and cooking. However, there comes the point where you have to assess whether these passions can serve as your vocation and allow you to achieve or sustain the lifestyle you desire.

Someone once told me that “Even though something is interesting, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should work in it.” This was a tough pill of advice to swallow as I’ve never received help like this before. I’m naturally drawn towards making decisions with my gut and emotions, and I tend to steer towards what feels right and pique my interest. However, seeking advice from someone more practical and logical is something that I appreciate.

So then, when do you decide to take a passion or hobby up as a full-time career? My best advice would be to ease into it and continue to pursue your desires on the side. Your true passions and interests will continue to draw you in outside of your 9–5 job. I wouldn’t suggest immediately quitting a job that provides a steady income simply because it doesn’t rank #1 on your list of enjoyable things.

If you’re feeling stuck, seek out new opportunities

This is a reminder to myself, which I hope also helps some of you who may feel the same way I do: you don’t have to have it all figured out right now, and not everything is laid out and straightforward. “WOO-SAH”, as I always like to repeat to myself (massive shout outs to those of you who get the Bad Boys reference).

A lot of my career-related stresses were self-inflicted. I put so much pressure on myself to be on the right path and have it all figured out, so I wasn’t wasting any time getting lost or trailing off in the wrong direction. However, I was only focused on following a previously paved path.

I learned quickly that there is usually a way to create new opportunities when the ones presented to you don’t take you to where you want to go.

“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.”- Chris Grosser

Maybe you’ve realized that the current path you’re on is not the one that will lead you to complete fulfilment. If you’ve decided to make a switch in your career, I’ve learned that it’s essential to adopt specific shifts in your mindset to best set yourself up for success.

I also found that taking a personality test helped me gain insights into myself, my leadership style, and my best-suited career.

I’d love to hear about your career search and sincerely wish each one of you the best in your journey!