“The world is your oyster.” What a stressful phrase. It’s meant to be freeing, but for a lot of people, it just means, “You have endless possibilities…How on earth will you ever choose one?”
Here’s a thought: What if we stopped thinking about those endless possibilities and instead asked ourselves, “What difference do I want to make in the world?” JP Michel, founder of SparkPath, suggests that building your career upon the ways that you want to impact the world makes way more sense than trying to figure out “what you’re passionate about,” like so many prescribe. A large population of people have no idea what they’re passionate about. Not only is that ok, it’s normal!
So, what if you take a different approach? Consider which problems in the world/society you want to see solved and find out who is working toward solutions! What are their roles? What organizations/companies are doing that work? If you can find an organization that is making the kind of impact you want to make, there’s a good chance that at least one of the roles within that org would also fit your skills and strengths. We already know that the organization aligns with your interests and values – or at least some of them!
Maybe you want to redesign the healthcare system because your grandma had so many issues with her care in her later years. Ok! There are a million ways to approach that! You could do the obvious thing and study health administration, planning to take a leadership role in a healthcare organization. Or you could become an accountant and snag a job at your local hospital, working your way up the chain of command until you have some power over how the hospital deals with its funds. Or you could go into donor relations for a group of clinics in your state, intentionally seeking out donors who are open to system reform and would be willing to put pressure on the board to make innovative decisions about how the clinics are run. Or you could get a job in human resources for your city’s hospital, focusing large amounts of energy on hiring the kind of healthcare professionals who provide brilliant care and have wonderful bedside manner, making sure that they’re paid enough to stay in their jobs long-term.
You see how working backwards from a problem-to-be-solved can result in a wide variety of job possibilities that you might not have thought of otherwise? Consider giving it a go! If you have no idea what problems you want to solve, hop on ChatGPT and ask it what societal/global issues exist that need solving! Or look at the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
If you’d like help brainstorming problems to be solved or ways to chip away at them, feel so free to make an appointment with a career counselor in the CMC! We’d be so happy to support you.
Source: Michel, J. (2023). The world needs you: A new mindset for student career exploration. selfpublishing.com.
