All I knew was that I liked being able to get out of school to go to a nice hotel with free pastries for a day of peer counselor training.

It turned out the training helped us learn some skills to counsel other kids who were dealing with problems they didn’t want to talk about with adults.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, this would be the spark that made me aware of my ability to counsel others and help them solve their problems.

I wish I could say I realized my life’s passion at that moment and everything was downhill from that point. Not so much.

However, being encouraged to use some skills I had never tried before would allow me to explore skills that were linked to my eventual passion.

From that time until now I’ve discovered you need three kinds of skills in order to love your work.

1. Skills you enjoy using. What kinds of tasks do you enjoy? Personally, I don’t enjoy fixing things around the house. If something breaks and I have to get my toolbox my wife gets nervous. (She calls me Cliff Huxtable) However, I love to write about careers and helping people do work they love. Two different skill sets and two different levels of enjoyment. If you don’t enjoy using a particular skill, even if you’re good at it, you’ll still be off the mark in regard to your ideal career.

2. Skills you are competent in using. This past winter our shower was having problems and I tried to fix it. I ended up spending two hours on something that would have probably taken a plumber five minutes to fix. I was soaking wet and frustrated beyond belief. Needless to say I’m not very good with my hands. In order to enjoy a skill you usually need to be fairly competent in using that skill.

3. Skills that are marketable. You can be good at something and you can enjoy doing it, but you must have a customer for that skill. Whether that customer is an employer or someone who purchases directly from you there must be a market for what you provide with your skills.

Be aware that if you only have two of the three components you will still be out of alignment with your ideal career. You must have a combination of all three.

When you find the sweet spot that combines all three components you will experience work that is rewarding and enjoyable. Something very few experience today.

Question: Do you have all three components in your current work? If not, what could you do to get all three?

There are two pieces you need to know and understand in regard to your skills.

Photo Credit: Alfonsina Blyde » via Compfight

The first piece is knowing the current skills you possess. The second piece has to do with understanding your level of enjoyment using specific skills you currently posses or skills you want to learn in the future.

However, the dilemma is we often don’t really know how to figure out which skills we currently have or want to obtain and enjoy using.  

This could be due to a number of issues.

Some may not have a lot of experience at this point in their career. If you’re just coming into the workforce you really haven’t had a lot of time to try your hand at different tasks to develop a range of skills.

Others may be too hard on themselves. Maybe you think you’re not very skilled in anything – you’re just mediocre. You discount the skills you possess because you don’t feel very good at them in comparison to others.

Maybe you’re not sure what it feels like to enjoy using a skill. Maybe you’ve been in a job that has been a poor fit for you for some time or your exposure to a broad range of skills has been lacking.

If you find yourself in this situation here are four ideas to help you gain greater understanding of your skills:

1. Take an inventory. Take a look at ONet’s Skills Search. It groups skills into skill families and can be a good place to start when you have no clue which skills you have and/or enjoy using. To help you determine which skills you have and/or enjoy using try iseek.org’s assessment. It aligns with the ONet skills search.

2. Ask friends for feedback. As with many things in life, sometimes we’re just too close to the situation to recognize our skills. Take a few friends to lunch (be sure to pick up the tab) and ask them to give you feedback on the skills they see you using well.

3. Pick something and try it. If you’re not sure which skills you may enjoy using in the future, think of an activity (at work or volunteer opportunity) that is outside your current day to day tasks. Then find a way to experiment with that task to use a new skill. For example, if you currently spend most of your day at work focused on numbers and data find an opportunity to attend a community outreach event sponsored by your company where you’ll be focused on people.

4. Use skills you already have in another setting. Maybe you’re a high school teacher who’s burned out, however, you know you still enjoy helping others learn. Find a way to teach adults. Maybe in a night school setting or at a community college. Find out if you still enjoy using your teaching skills in a slightly different environment.

Knowing more about the current skills you posses and the ones you enjoy using are part of the process that leads to finding your passion. It may not solve the riddle for you but it’s the necessary glue to connect the pieces of the mosaic of your passion.

Question: How else might someone gain a greater understanding of their skills?

JD Hancock via Compfight

I know that may sound like a really strange question.

You might be thinking, what do you mean by “supposed to be doing?”

Most discussions about what you want to do in your career don’t revolve around this question.

Here’s what I mean.

If you ask a friend what they were supposed to be when they grew up you’ll likely get a response like:

“I was supposed to go to medical school and become a doctor.”

“My mother wanted me to be a full time stay at home mom.”

“I was supposed to go into the plumbing business with my Dad.”

“My parents didn’t care what I did as long as I made a lot of money.”

“I was supposed to get my MBA and climb the corporate ladder.”

In her book “I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was” Barbara Sher says this is an interesting question,

“Because even if you can’t figure out what you want to be doing, you probably know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.”

The problem is we often have trouble figuring out the type of work we want to do because we’re trying to please the person who told us what we were supposed to be doing.

We are all influenced for better or worse by so many external factors.

We are each part of a family, neighborhood, community, and culture who influence us.

All of those influencers have an impact on how we shape our decisions when it comes to our careers.

Often we can’t even pinpoint who we’re trying to please, we just know there was an expectation of us to do something that fit within the mold of what it means to work where you come from.

Now let me say that not all influencers are bad. In fact, most of the people in your life were probably well intentioned. They truly wanted what was best for you.

However, their guidance likely was targeted toward things that worked for them or they thought would have been better for them.

Maybe a parent or influential adult had done well in a corporate position and they knew you could do the same even though you hate staring at a computer screen all day. Or perhaps they always wanted to be a jazz pianist but never ventured into that area so they put you in piano lessons even though your hands felt like potatoes pounding on the keys.

The key to enjoying your work is to be able to know yourself well enough to know what makes your heart sing.

Unfortunately most of the people around us aren’t tuned in to listening to us or paying attention to what we do well. I mean can you blame them? It’s hard enough to figure it out ourselves let alone for someone else.

It’s not their fault and it’s not your fault. There’s no one to blame here. It’s just the way it is.

However, it’s absolutely essential that you figure out if what you’re doing now is in alignment with who you are.

Does it bring out the best of your personality?

Does it allow you to use your greatest talents and skills?

Does it connect with what you value and what you’re passionate about?

If it doesn’t, then I’m afraid you’ve got some work to do.

But don’t be afraid of hard work. Be afraid of working at something and succeeding in something that means nothing to you. That would be the greatest travesty of all.

Question: So tell me, what were you supposed to be doing with your career?

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