51 - Do a career assessment . . . understand your natural strengths and passions!

Reason for this Goal:  In doing a career assessment and looking at your career aspirations, it’s important to understand who you are as a person and what your natural strengths and weaknesses are.  Your future depends on it. 

While everyone has the potential to grow into the person they need to become to achieve their goals, we all have different starting points, and we need to recognize where that is before we start planning our career.   

Questions that we need to ask (and answer) as part of a career assessment are:

• Do I know what my passions are?
• Am I an introvert or an extrovert?
• What income level do I want to attain?
• What level of responsibility do I seek?
• Do I like having a high level of interaction with people, or working by myself?
• Do I have good communication skills?
• Could I manage or lead other people?
• Am I an optimistic person?
• Do I have good intellectual skills for tacking problems and challenges?
• Am I entrepreneurial?
• How much authority do I want to command?
• Could I run my own business?
• Do I prefer to work with my hands and build or fix things?
• What prestige do I expect to gain from my work?

Answers to these questions will help guide you in to the career that is most suited for you.  

Which career assessment tool should I use?

There are many assessment tools that are available, which ask hundreds more questions and are designed to hone in on the type of career that is right for you.   

• Myers-Briggs – Finds your distinctive personality traits among 16 types
• MyPlan.com – Identifies what’s really important to you in your career
• Holland Code – Examines 6 occupational themes: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional 
• And more

Find one you connect with.

Top rated careers of wealthy individuals

For many of us, a key consideration is the amount of income that can be generated from our career.  There are certain career paths that are known to produce high incomes for those seeking high income potential:

1. Business Owners: Owning your own successful business can produce a wide range of income, with the potential for very high income.  Many businesses fail.  Some of the highest net worth individuals are people who own their own businesses.  The more people you are able to help through your product or service, the higher your income will be. 
   
   
2. Corporate Executives:  Top executives in a company such as the CEO, Vice Presidents, Senior Directors, Directors make high incomes.  The traditional path is to move up the ranks from employee to supervisor to manager to senior manager to director to vice president to senior Vice President and then to Chief Executive Officer (CEO).   This path can take 20+ years.   It is possible to start in an entry level position and work your way up if you are ambitious enough and have or develop great communication and leadership skills.
   
   
3. Medical Professionals:  Doctors, specialized physicians such as surgeons, dentists can earn significant incomes.   The tradeoff is the significant amount of time in school while you not earning income and accumulating education debt.
   
   
4. Finance professionals:  There are many jobs within the finance world such as banking, private equity, asset management, private wealth management, venture capital etc. which can pay extremely well. 
   
   
5. Lawyers:  There are many lawyers who earn significant income, especially those involved in corporate law or as a self employed lawyer.
   
   
6. Sales professionals:  People in the sales field can earn very high incomes which are typically uncapped due to earning commission based incomes.  There are numerous fields in which sales professionals are required such as financial services, medical equipment, manufacturing equipment, real estate, software.   High six and seven figure incomes are possible for the very best. 
   
   
7. Engineers;  Successful engineers can earn a lot of money, especially the ones that are more specialized.  
   
   
8. Blue Collar workers:  The demand for trades people is very high, such as plumbers, electricians etc.  You can be self employed in this field and run your own business and earn six figure incomes.   Generally you will start as an apprentice and work at your trade for several years, get a license, work hard for many years and then look to set up your own business and hire other people to work for you.

In most cases, a successful education is what you will need to get you started into your chosen career path.  

Doing a career assessment, reading and talking to people is what will help you decide which career path is right for you.  

While high income is highly desirable to support your life goals, it is not everything and you may want to pursue a career path that does not traditionally generate high incomes. 

This is one of the most difficult decisions you will make in your life.  It is not easy and it is therefore very important you take the time to think this through, conduct your own research and talk to people already in the careers you are thinking about.   

Start with a career assessment to learn more about yourself!

Career goal setting is important!

Suggested Goal(s):    Do a thorough career assessment.  
Your Outrageous Goal:  Update your career assessment every decade.  

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Last updated: October 27, 2019