“What do you want to do with your life?” I think this (or some version of it) might be the most often-asked question that college students get. Whether you’re meeting a new peer, sitting around the table at a family event, or in a job interview, the world seems to be very interested in what you plan to do with yourself. My favorite way to answer this question (yes I still get it regularly, over a decade after graduating undergrad) is to throw it right back, “what do you want to do with your life?”
Language Matters
Usually, you’ll be met with a blank stare. Usually, the person asking this question has no idea how to answer either. Why? Because as best as I can tell, they’re really asking “what career do you plan on seeking?” Yet they ask you to summarize your goal for life, as though work is life. It isn’t.
The real problem is that every time this question gets asked it propagates the myth that there is an answer. There isn’t. You can’t spend your entire life on one thing. You likely can’t even spend your entire career in one field. Perhaps what they really mean to ask is “what do you plan on doing next?”
But seriously, what do you want to do with your life?
Another challenge that students face when this question is asked is that they’re outsiders. No matter what field you’re hoping to work in, as a student you haven’t yet worked in it! We all have this vague idea of things that people do for a living with various degrees:
- Engineering majors engineer stuff
- English majors write stuff
- Business majors do business stuff
Does anyone actually know what it looks like to do that all day? We only see finished products:
- A device
- A book
- A company
These are the big results of lots of effort, usually from multiple people. We don’t see what a person does at 10:17am on a Tuesday in October (probably checking email).
Micro Tasks
Big things are made one small step at a time. According to NASA, the Space Shuttle had about 2.5 million moving parts. None of them were designed by a single person in a single day. The typical car has about 30,000 parts. Same deal. No one “designs cars” – they design car parts or systems (assemblies of parts). They’re collections of small things that combine to form big things (books and businesses work this way too).
What’s the point? From the outside, building the next Space Shuttle or sports car (or book or business) looks really exciting – and it is. But the entire project is a huge, multi-year goal. The day in, day out work that it takes to make something like that is where we actually spend our lives. We spend our lives doing one small thing after the other, hoping that the aggregate is something big and exciting.
Conclusion
I’m over a decade into my career and I have no idea “what I want to do with my life.” I don’t think I ever will. What I do know is that I enjoy (love) most of the little things I do all day at work, and I am inspired by the big projects I am contributing to. The big things serve as motivation to do the small. We’re constantly given the pressure to “dream big” (and you should) – but don’t let that pressure overwhelm you. It is OK to have no idea. How could you possibly know what someone does all day in a job that you’ve never had?
My hope for you (and for me) is that you’ll enjoy the micro tasks that actually form your career. I have great news for you: we don’t live in a vacuum. Thanks to the ability to network online, you can actually get potential employers to show you your options. I did this and I found a dream career that I’d never even heard of. Many students that I’ve coached have similar stories:
“You can do THAT with my degree!? Sign me up!”
We’re getting ready to launch an online workshop called “Bypass the Machine.” While we’re teaching you how to land more job interviews without applying to dozens of jobs that you have no idea if you’d even want to go to, we’ll also be teaching you how to let potential employers show you your options. You’ll learn how to discover a wide array of careers, and how to narrow your focus to things you’ll actually LOVE do to – both the big things and the micro tasks that will make up your day to day work life.
Interested in learning more? Type your name and email address into the form below and I’ll keep you posted on when this workshop launches. In the meanwhile I’ll share an ebook with you that gives some tips on reducing stress. If you’re not a fan of email (I’m not, so I totally get it) feel free to contact me directly and I’ll tell you all about the workshop!
What do I want to do with my life? Live it.
