a quick video explaining to you some of the factors that you need to

consider in choosing a career. So here we are in the online whiteboard, and

I've drawn three circles as a way to represent three different areas that

you need to consider in choosing a career. And this can apply to all ages,

it doesn't really matter if you are 18 and just entering college and you're

really trying to think through this idea of what major to go after, or

whether you're in your 40s and 50s and looking to make a mid-career shift

into doing something a little bit different that kind of aligns with your

passions a little bit more. Regardless of what age, these principles apply.

So the first circle we're going to talk about is called your natural

strengths. And oftentimes your natural strengths are things that are under

the radar, you don't see them always right away. These are the things that

come easy to you that when you do them you get lost in the flow. And you

just can effortlessly work on these type of activities for hours at a time

and still have plenty of energy. One of the ways that you can identify

whether you're not working in your natural strengths is when you're

constantly tired or frustrated or drained or worn out with your work.

That's a good indicator that you're working in an area that's not your

strength, so it's taking a lot of mental, physical energy from you.

If you want to really understand and discover your natural strengths, then

ask somebody who knows you well to tell you what it is that you do well.

And it might surprise you. You might oftentimes be surprised with the

answer that you're given because you may have thought that that certain

task or that certain strength was something that inherently was good for

anybody and everybody and that everybody just has that strength and that's

just easy for everybody. But that's not always true. So it's important to

understand your natural strengths.

Number two. It's important to understand your personality type. This is

where oftentimes in America, we often get this wrong because we follow

after money. We think this will be a good stable job, it will provide lots

of money for my family and all we see is the lifestyle that we want to

create. And so we kind of fake it until we make it. We force ourselves to

do the best we can at maximizing our strengths and try to do our best to

even do better with our weaknesses and concentrate on them. But what

happens is we end up frustrated because we're trying to become something

that we're really not.

And then, the last circle represents our passions or interest. Now

oftentimes people make this idea of finding their passion too heavy, or

they put too much pressure on themselves. But the truth is your passions

really are where your natural interests are. So I often use the

illustration of think about walking into a bookstore, Barnes and Noble for

example, and you walk into Barnes and Noble what section or area of Barnes

and Noble do you gravitate towards? What books do you like to read through?

Those can be an indication of your passion or your interest. So if you are

gravitating toward the computer tutorials, then computers are information

technology, the real detailed type of work might be something that fits you

really well.

Now here's how you put all this together. When you take your natural

strengths, personality type, passions and interests into play, then you'll

find your sweet spot. So your sweet spot is where all three of these

intersect. And this is where it can become powerful for you because you

have found your sweet spot, it's something that you're energized about, you

can work for hours at a time, it's an area of interest. It's also an area

of natural strength, it's something that you enjoy doing and it's just

something you're excited about waking up and going to work about. So for

more tips, go to cpacareercoach.com.