Reframe Problems: Understanding Yourself
The standard advice we often hear is ‘follow your passion.’ However, this is not helpful if you’re unsure of your passion. Rather than focusing on finding a ‘passion,’ naming and understanding what you’re good at (strengths) and gaining a better understanding of your personality, characteristics, values, and interests can help you make decisions that lead towards education and a career that fits. Finding your passion may happen over time by trying and reflecting on things. It isn’t something we can discover through one simple online test or quick self-reflection.
Self-awareness typically involves exploring five personal characteristics: personality, interests, values, skills, and strengths.
Personality
Interests
These are the things you enjoy learning about and/or doing. For example, interests could include cooking, creating apps, playing basketball, fashion and/or learning about history. Other terms that you’ll see used for career interests are realistic, investigative, artistic, social, intriguing, and conventional. You can learn more about career interests at this Indeed article: How To Identify Your Career Interests.
Values
Skills
Your skills are the specific abilities you possess because of knowledge gained, practice, and aptitude. For example, through practice and training, a person can gain skills in using Excel, working in teams, using a new language, repairing an airplane engine, or caring for young kids. Each profession has many specific skills, but there are also more general “essential employability skills”. You can learn more about the skills required of Ontario post-secondary graduates at the Essential Employability Skills website.
Strengths
Think of your strengths as a combination of the things you are naturally good at, that you enjoy using, and that you have put a lot of effort into improving. Finding a job that uses your strengths can lead to work that is both enjoyable and that you are good at. You can learn more about strengths by watching this Ted Talk Video by Dr. Shane Lopez, Focusing on your Strengths.
Attribution
Adapted from “1.3 Your Personality, Interests, Values, Skills and Strengths” from Centennial College Career Success Guide Copyright © by Career Services and Cooperative Education, Centennial College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
