You may as well go ahead and face it. To get what you want out of life you will have to work for it. Such is the way of the world. We have many choices to make about the kind of life we want, but never a road map to get there. It certainly helps to get anywhere if you'll at least know where you are when you get there. Perhaps you are slated to graduate from secondary school with many questions about what awaits you in the working world, or perhaps you are an adult with children who graduated from high school years ago and are unsatisfied with your line of work. Identifying and then pursuing a career is and forever will be a daunting endeavor if you haven't given it any thought or are otherwise unprepared. It doesn't have to be that way. You can find out what you want to do, where you want to go, what it will be like, and how to get started.

Very few people just fall into a career (and at that, even fewer fall into one they end up loving). Identifying a career takes some work – some research. Deciding on a career requires some initiative. Pursuing that career requires some dedication.

I graduated from high school in 2005, and during my senior year, I had to complete an array of assignments having to do with fields of study, career paths, etc. These research papers and essays ended up being some of the most important I've ever written. Many students enter community colleges or universities without having a clue what they want to do, let alone what they wish to study. Often, these students will change majors, take classes that go off in tangents, and end up wasting a lot of time and effort. Some students go so far as to graduate with a degree, and after they've graduated, the only thing they've learned is what they don't want to do. What a waste of time. (Not to mention, money!) I on the other hand, knew exactly what I was interested in doing even since my senior year in high school, and I have not deviated from it since. I've never taken a class I didn't need, I've never dropped a class, and I've never changed majors or shifted my objectives. I've been able to stay on track because I had already done the "figuring out" part before jumping into higher education and starting towards my career. What's more is that I am ultimately extremely happy with the choices I made and the career I am pursuing. I couldn't ask for more from my experiences than that.

I wasn't one of those students who had to struggle with finding my passion and identifying my career path – and you don't have to be either. If you already are, then stop what you're doing, follow my advice, and get this research out of the way so you don't waste another minute or another dime.

You're going to have to do some solid research if you want to figure out what line of work you would like to enter, and what you'll need to do in order to succeed in it.

The following is a list of immediate questions you should answer as you begin researching potential career paths and making career decisions:

  1. What are your most prominent interests? Consider how you spend most of your time versus how you would like to spend most of your time. A career that you love and enjoy will capitalize on the things you love doing and curtail the things you hate doing.
  2. When do you want to work? Are you a morning person, afternoon person, or night person? What hours do you wish to work, and how many of them per week?
  3. Do you want to be your own boss? Do you enjoy working for others? Do you enjoy working as a team with others?
  4. What are the working conditions of the career path you're considering?
  5. How much do you want to earn in a year and what kinds of salaries are prevalent in the career path you're thinking about?
  6. What are the growth prospects for the field you're thinking of – how healthy is the employment for that industry or line of work?
  7. Are you creative? Do you want a line of work in which you can express your creativity?
  8. Might you enjoy helping others? Perhaps a health career is right up your alley – health jobs are often consistently in high demand and can be quite lucrative.
  9. What are the levels of education and certification that commonly coincide with the line of work you're looking into?

The following are some extremely helpful resources for finding information as you do your research on career paths:

  • CareerPath.com – Free Career Tests
    Take some of the free career tests at CareerPath.com to try and figure out what you might be interested in and what you might be good at. Please note that the results you receive from such quizzes are not definitive – rather, they're just suggestions. You might be really good at something even though it didn't show on an aptitude or preference quiz. However, if you are truly in the dark about what interests you and how you can match up your interests with real-world work, these types of quizzes can be very valuable to you. CareerPath.com has some nice ones, but it isn't the only one. Feel free to Google for others, maybe even take a personality assessment quiz and see what types of careers might be in alignment with your personality.
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics – Occupational Outlook Handbook
    The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) is one of the most valuable resources for information on nature of the work, working conditions, earnings, education and training qualifications, opportunities for advancement, employment figures, job outlook, and other such information about a given career type, such as a Financial Analyst or Engineer.
  • Salary.com - Salary Wizard
    All kinds of information on salaries (based on job title and geographical location) is available at Salary.com for free. Take a look at the average earnings for various careers in your area or elsewhere.
  • LinkedIn.com – Professional Networking Site
    LinkedIn is a very cool site, perhaps one of the best professional social networking sites around. It consists of various profiles that focus on what people do, where they work, where they've gone to school – you know, professional info. There is also a very valuable Question and Answer feature on the site (akin to Yahoo! Answers, but without all the silliness). Engage in Q&A discussions – you never know when you might learn something new and interesting from an executive or other professional who participates in the same Q&A discussions as you. You might even find a surprising response of gratitude from some of them if you teach them something they didn't know. I've met some really awesome people on LinkedIn, some of which I've helped with projects or consulted with on questions they had about things that I know well. LinkedIn is a great resource – use it – even if you're not out of high school, and even if you're not in the professional working world yet.

Furthermore, when in doubt – just ask someone else! Meet your parents' friends and co-workers, talk to them or ask them questions about what they do and what all is involved, and see who they know in various fields – they will likely be interested in helping to connect you with someone who is capable of offering you some advice. Networking is key – it is now, it will be during higher education, and it will continue to be once you've entered the professional world.