Help! I Want to Do All the Careers and I Don’t Know Which One to Pick

Sings in Spice Girl: “I don’t know what I want, what I really really want”. 

If you were anything like me as a kid, you didn’t love it when adults asked you the age-old question: “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Not because I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do, but because I wanted to do literally everything.

Sometimes I’d answer that I wanted to be an author, sometimes a teacher, and for a while there I was hell-bent on becoming a physio. I truly could not decide what my career calling was.

Sound relatable? Welcome to the club, friends!

But never fear, Student Edge is here! And we’ve got a few tricks you can work through to narrow down your professional goals, as well as some tips to keep any ✨ anxiety ✨ at bay that you might have regarding your future. 

Psst.. if you haven’t already, sign up to Student Edge for free and you'll get more resources than you can poke a stick at to kickstart whatever career you're interested in, including an epic jobs board that makes the search a whole lot easier.

Find your Ikigai.

Ah yes, Ikigai, that four-circle diagram you might’ve seen before from Japan that could be the best place to start when it comes to all your potench careers. 

It’s the sweet spot between what you love, what you’re good at, what you can get paid for, and what the world needs–and it’s the thing that gives you a sense of purpose.  

While there are a tonne of books about it already in existence, you don’t need any of them because Student Edge has already put together a free printable and explainer on Ikigai. 

Ask yourself the deep questions.

Similar to finding your Ikigai, it can be helpful to get introspective and consider all the things that might make certain careers a better choice than others.  

Here are just a few questions you can ask yourself to hone in on some good job options: 

1. What kind of work environment do you thrive in? From home, in a team, on the road?  
2. What causes do you care about?  
3. What are you good at? Are you an Excel Spreadsheet magician or have you got a knack for Photoshop?  
4. What does your ideal lifestyle look like in 5, 10, 15 years? 

Remember: young people are likely to have up to 17 different careers these days. 

We’re not just saying that to make you feel better—you can read all about it here.

Actual studies from McCrindle show that in Australia today, young people aged under 25 have an average of three different jobs per decade.

It’s called ‘job mobility’ and young people have more of it for a bunch of reasons (including moving in and out of education and home), which means we can expect a windier employment journey with a whole heap of different careers.

So next time someone asks you what you wanna do with your life, you can say: ‘how about a little bit of everything?’

This is too hard, just tell me what to do.

Okay, okay, you know we can’t do that, but how about having some fun with it all?

We’ve put together a bunch of the best online career quizzes on the market, which you can check out here, or, even better, jump onto our random career generator for a bitta inspo (and a few laughs).

No matter what you pick, we know you’ll smash it!