How to decide where to go next in your career

These days, the word “career” has taken on a whole new meaning. It used to be that having a career meant choosing a trade or a position in a certain industry and field and then working hard to make your way up the ladder until you could tell people you were successful in your career.

Now the word “career” basically means how you have spent and will spend your time after your education. If your resume is “all over the place” as an early version of mine once was, you may have tried out a number of different jobs simply because you were trying to find out what worked the best for you. And that’s not such a bad thing, considering that no college degree comes with the guarantee that you will love working in the field that you studied.

If you find that it is time to move in your career, here is what you need to do. Simply write down all of the things you think or know you would like to do and choose the one that will make you the most money.

I’m sure some of you are shocked by this advice, having heard throughout your life that you should follow your dreams. But it’s time to grow up and be realistic—unemployment is on the way up on the US. You may decide that now is the time to pursue your dream, but the reality is that it probably isn’t the best time (unless you have some money put away that you can live off of for awhile). But that doesn’t mean you can’t find a job that you will enjoy doing, which will provide you with some degree of satisfaction and self worth.

When deciding where to go next in your career, you absolutely must be realistic. If you are working at the Banana Republic, want to work in TV, and you find a job opening as a television producer, even though it probably pays much, much better than your gig at the Gap’s upscale sister, chances are you won’t get the job. You should also be realistic about the pay in some jobs that you are sure that you would love, because it just may not help you make ends meet. For example, you may want to work as a writer, but chances are that it might never pay well (unless you are as good as I am).

Now for some, this reality check might be pretty harsh. I mean, how many of us actually work (and get paid well for) working at a job that we dreamed about doing when we were kids? As adults (and I am going on my Lewis Black in “Accepted” tirade right now), we basically have two choices: work for yourself, or work for a company. If you are risk averse, get used to the idea of working for a company, and if you enjoy taking risks, entrepreneurship is for you.

One of the best pieces of advice on changing careers I have ever heard was from career expert Penelope Trunk, who says that if you are not making the time to do something you love on a regular basis without being paid, then you probably don’t love it like you thought you did. Which to me means that anything you truly love you will do regularly, regardless of whether or not you get paid for it. As such, I should be a full time boater and fisherman, because every free moment I can, I like to get out on the open sea.

The problem is that there are not a whole lot of fishing jobs out there that will pay me what I want to make. As such, I have chosen a different path and left my real love as a leisure time activity. Because in the end I should be earning the money than I need to make (especially in this economy) — even if it means dry-docking the boat until I can use it.