An Effective Approach that Leads to Your Ideal Work

I am often asked about figuring out what career path to follow. One of the resources I have found useful is the book “What Color Is Your Parachute”, by Richard Nelson Bolles. Particularly helpful is the companion publication “The What Color Is Your Parachute Workbook – How to Create a Picture of Your Ideal Job or Next Career”. The end result of the workbook process is a “flower” – a model for the picture of the “Ideal Job”. Each petal of the flower addresses an important aspect to consider:

1. My favorite kinds of things that I like to work with
2. My favorite kinds of information that I like to work with
3. My favorite people to work with
4. My favorite rewards at work
5. My favorite spiritual or emotional setting
6. My favorite outcomes, immediate and long-range
7. My favorite physical setting
8. My favorite transferable skills

So after working through the entire process you end up with a “flower” where each petal displays your preferences, prioritized in order of importance to you.

The key here is that if you can find work that incorporates (ideally) your top choice in many of these categories, you will have a very satisfying job and career.  Herein lies the difficulty: how do you identify such work?