Confused on what to do with your life? Debating your next move but can’t even get started on the road to making a good decision?
Well, here’s a decision-making exercise you can do that may help clear your muddled mind. Trick is you have to be completely honest with your answers.
So, let’s say you don’t know whether you want to be a sherpa guiding hikers in the Himalayas, a priest, a stock broker or an astronaut. Lots of similarities there, so the confusion is understandable.
So open your spreadsheet program or grab and pencil and paper and do this. In the left column, jot down in each row all the important points that should be considered. Here, I’ve entered if I can make money doing it, are there jobs available, can I do it locally (so I don’t have to move) and is the career challenging.
Then, in each column I’ve entered the career path I’m considering. If I can make a bunch of money, I gave it a 10. If not, I entered a lower score. Ditto for everything else.
Now, tally up your scores and see what you have told yourself you want to be.
Take a look at my tally:
Looks like I won’t be a sherpa anytime soon.
So you can see that a career as a Sherpa really isn’t that financially enticing, and being a priest means getting a job, but not for much of a salary either. So, those two are disqualified.
Looks like being a stock broker or astronaut should be considered. Being an astronaut would be more interesting, but not much going on in that job market right now. Plus, my skills as a space-time navigator are a bit lacking.
So even though I personally consider being a stock broker sort of a weird, uninteresting job, I’d actually probably do pretty good at it and make money.
Well, wasn’t that easy? Try it sometime when you’re stuck making a decision and see how it works for you.
See you on Wall Street.