Undecisive

by Jessyka
(Louisville KY, USA)

I am 24 years old, with no kids, and I still live at home with my dad. I work 2 jobs one full time and one part time. I have a career now as a cosmetologist in which I like but am not in love with. Working with people is fun and I can share my creativity with other people however, it is tearing my body up. I do not see my self doing this for the rest of my life but am doing it untill I find something else that will fit my personality, what I can do and prefered salary.

Not only do I want something new, I need something new but don’t want to waste my time and money again “so to speak” on something I am not going to like doing for the rest of my life or something that is going to effect my body.

I guess my question is, what should I do next? How do I know what career is right for me and because I get bored so easily with routine work how do I know I’m going to love what I am doing years into it? I want to make sure if I start something new that I am going to enjoy doing it for a long period of time and that it’s not going to cause damage to my body.

I am a person with many talents and I am not one to make “life changing” decisions for myself. I can do anything I put my mind to as long as it’s fun and helpful to myself and others. I have a lot of patience with other people but when it comes to myself I am so impatient! I just don’t know where to go next!

Comments for Undecisive
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 The Single Career Is Dead!

by: Cherry 

It seems that you are setting yourself up with an especially big challenge by thinking that you must find something that will be right for you for the rest of your life. How likely is it that something that is a good fit for you at 24 will be a good fit for you at 54?

Although I think your fundamental personality will not shift dramatically, you will still change as a person as you mature. You’ll develop new interests and your values and priorities will change too. As you say, you are a person with many talents so why not seek out opportunities to use them in different ways over time?

If you give yourself permission to have a series of careers rather than just one, it will give you the freedom to be playful and exploratory with your working life. You will probably have a lot more fun than those who tie themselves to a single career path as you will be able to flex and change as you grow and mature.

If you have many interests and talents and get bored easily, you may be what Barbara Sher described as a ‘scanner’. Try her book Refuse To Choose too.

I am also curious when you say ‘I am not one to make life changing decisions for myself’. If you don’t, who will? Who is running your life? Is it you or are you just taking directions from others? I wonder if you are thinking that if someone else tells you what to do then you can blame them if it goes wrong? It is precisely the life changing decisions that are your responsibility and no one else’s.

You ask how do I know I’m going to love what I am doing years into it? The answer is you can’t know and you may not like it in 10 years time. That’s because you’ll be a different person in 10 years. What matters more is that you regularly review how things are going for you in your work and that you are ready to make adjustments as you go along rather than staying stuck in a job you once enjoyed but which you have now outgrown.

So what should you do next?

Try the quick personality assessment on the HTCC website and think about what careers would (and would not) work for the kind of person you are. Identify your skills and interests. Explore possibilities that will allow you to be around people and be creative (these seem to be themes for you right now) and then acknowledge that what you do next does not have to be forever. If you enjoy it, stick with it for a while. If you don’t move on.

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