How To Spot Your Hidden Skills And Career
How I went from working to be an accountant to becoming a writer
After spending a good portion of my 20s in business administration, I finally obtained my degree in bachelors of business administration, accounting major.
I moved from an old chapter in my life that started since I was 16 and was ready to move on to the next.
In most situations, people would feel happier and excited. Especially after devoting seven years to studying the subject.
But the only kind of emotion I felt was emptiness.
I didn’t see it back then as a huge progress in my life. Rather, this life was more forced on me and I didn’t bother turning around or doing something different.
That moment of lack of excitement and accomplishment was the final sign that something needed to change in my life and that I needed to pursue something different.
The only problem was that I was such a lazy ass, it took me a while to figure where I wanted to go. Not to mention I was easily distracted by everything along the way like network marketing opportunities, other jobs, video games, and so on.
In the end, I settled for writing. Not because I was forced into it, but due to a coming of understanding of myself. Deep down, I figured this was my true calling all along.
And I’ve been pursuing it in my life ever since.
While at the time I saw getting into the writing world as something I stumbled into, I’ve grown a deeper understanding of the sequence of events that lead me down this path. I can say with confidence that picking out my talent for writing was not a mere coincidence or something that fell into my lap and that I went along with.
As such, if you or someone you know is stuck in life, here is my method for identifying skills and even using that information to form your own career path moving forward.
This is crucial as millennials — my generation — is a generation that’s filled with clueless individuals. One study estimates that 50 percent of students entering college will declare a major and 75 percent of students will change majors at least once.
And with the world evolving and changing every single day, I can imagine younger generations will run into similar issues. Especially if there is no change in our education system. Not to mention most people will be cycling through jobs quickly overall.
Here is how I did it.
First, Look At Your Existing Skills
One of the reasons I got into accounting was primarily due to high school classes. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to pursue and my parents provided me with an option that appealed to me.
Even though I didn’t have any skills, I knew accounting involved basic math which I enjoyed. Math was one of my favourite subjects at school.
When I took accounting classes, I felt at home and my skills were able to flourish somewhat in the classroom. This proved helpful when I first went to college since the first few months was content I was very familiar with.
While you do want to be looking at existing skills, you can take liberties in stretching these skills into other areas giving you options. The whole point of this is to look at the various skills that you have developed over the years and seeing if they can be improved upon in some way.
For this, pay attention to the skills that you use on a regular basis. Prolonged use of a skill suggests that you have a passion or an interest in that skill. All of this means you can make a career out of it.
But you don’t want to be too hasty with your decision. This is what happened to me and it was a trap. For now, focus on gathering up possible career paths.
Second, Look For Common Trends In Your Life
This step is one of the most crucial steps in my own life. It’s what pushed me into writing in the first place. It’s also a step that’s not so easy to do.
For this, you want to be recalling events where certain skills were emphasized in one way or another. All in order to create common threads between everything.
It was through practicing this method where I realized that the decisions that you make as a child and as a teenager will impact you later as an adult in some way.
This step is long and arduous because it prompts you to look at actions that happened at least a decade or so ago and looking at specific details. Details such as:
- Times where you were complimented about a certain skill.
- Times where people made suggestions to you.
- Hobbies that you picked up and have stopped doing.
- Hobbies that you are passionate about right now.
- Looking at your previous work experience and noting general themes (how long did you work at certain jobs? Why did you work that long? What sort of skills did you develop there?)
- Thinking about the classes that you took and what you were really engaged in or not.
All of this helps in building out your list of possible opportunities but also what won’t work for you in the future or right now.
Third, Look At Your Current Life And How That Path Will Fit
The final step is to be looking at your life and seeing what sort of career will help you out right now. While some people’s situations may not be dire, others may not have the luxury of living with their parents or have the opportunity to go to school.
You want to take time now to look at your problem and come up with a simple solution to help fix it. While you have no idea whether it’ll work or not or where it’ll take you, it’s part of life. You won’t know until you try it out.
Paired up with your skills, you’ll have a general sense of what sort of role you can fill and that you’d be invested in filling. This can also apply to skills that you’d be willing to pick up and try out too.
I don’t know if I’ll ever stop writing from this point forward. No doubt, I’ll have other clients to write for and I’ll explore other avenues too of course.
The key to a successful career is something that you’re invested in and can point to many reasons for that investment. You want to be looking for skills that you’ve honed that’ll enhance a career that’ll give you purpose and meaning.
While careers shouldn’t be the sole reason you exist, it does form the basis of purpose and meaning to your life. Lean into that and build yourself up in that area before figuring out more of your life.
