Explore your future online

Having a car that will get you where you need to go is much more important than what type of car you have. In the same way, finding a method that will help you clarify your career and life direction takes priority over identifying the “Cadillac” career-planning service.

With so many career-related websites, books, and online assessment systems available this point is important to keep in mind.

Find a source of guidance and insight that will potentially transport you from where you are right now to where you want to be in 10 or 20 years. Look around. Take your time. But remember: the idea is to get moving. So try something; don’t wait too long. A tangible resource in hand is exceedingly better than a distant ideal in your head.

Would you be interested in exploring the TypeFocus career-planning service provided here at Career & Life Direction? This offer is free (yes, free) to the first 4 people who send an email with the required information. The usual cost is $34.95 plus tax. The only catch is that you need to be willing to have your opinion about this service published on this site.

Why don’t you give it a try?

While I am not a pure pragmatist, in many situations what works for one person may not necesarily work for another. Different people have different preferences, different personalities and different ways of making decisions. There are often 25 different ways of doing the same thing that all more or less work just fine. This way of putting it could be a slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean.

So don’t feel like you have to do what everybody else around you seems to be doing -particulary if you are mingling with the coasting crowd. Be yourself. Take responsibility for your life. Take action. What will help you become all that you were intended to be? That is the question.

It might be necessary to try a few different career planning methods until you find one what works for you. What have you looked into so far?

Back in high school, I had a brief job guiding other students through a computer program (I can’t remember what it was called) that was intended to help young people decide which career path to take. Punch in some information and out popped your life purpose – or at least a few potential careers. That’s how it worked.

And although I am sure this form of guidance was offered with the best of intentions, I didn’t find it particularily helpful. More to the point, this experience only seemed to create more confusion in my life. Was I really supposed to be a florist? I didn’t think so.

For all I know, this service was greatly appreciated by the vast majority of students at my school. And yet, I can’t remember a single student jumping around joyfully in the guidance office, exclaiming how this program had just changed their life. It was more like, “Well, I finally got that over with.”

Staring at a computer isn’t likely the answer if you are tired of feeling like student or human being #489. It is possible that what you need more than anything else is a real, live, human being to talk to. If this describes your situation, is there someone in your community who you know and trust? Why don’t you give them a call and arrange a time when you can talk?

During the conversation you might want to ask your older friend how they decided what to do. What worked for them?

Perhaps you could also talk about the recent TypeFocus career-planning service you worked through. Did this experience give you more of a sense of direction in your life? You could share your thoughts. What did you like about it? What didn’t you like? Ask for their response. Go from there.

Here is my final pitch: Please consider signing up for free access to the TypeFocus career-planning service. This offer is available until Thursday, February 14, 2013. All that is required is your real name and email address together with a brief statement that you want to sign up.

If you are one of the first 4 people to respond, you will eventually receive an email indicating that you are signed up and telling you how to proceed. A short paragraph describing your impression of this service is requested by March 1, 2013.