One of the best ways for you to choose your career is to take a good hard look at what you do best already. 

What do you excel at? 

What is your passion in life? 

What is that one thing that your friends consider to be your area of expertise?

If you are the type of person who likes to write, then examine all of the careers that involve writing. There are many careers that on the surface may not seem as if they would provide you with an opportunity to use your writing talents and follow your innate passion, but you would be surprised when you "really examine" some of the careers in that particular cluster.

If you love competitive sports, then examine all of the careers that involve sports. And when you examine something like sports, remember that it does not mean that you must become a professional athlete. There are many careers that spin off from sports or involve a supportive role. For example, if you want to be involved in hockey, but you are not talented enough to be a player, you can still work in the front office in the marketing department, or with public relations, or even with equipment management. It will still allow you to keep close to the sport you love and make a career out of it.

If you love to work with children, then examine all of the careers that will allow you to work with children or for children. You don't just have to be a teacher. There are many careers out there that will keep you working close to children.

Regardless of everything else, always keep the following key message in your mind:

No matter what you have done as a student;

No matter what your marks have been in school;

No matter if you feel you are not as talented as some of the other people you know;

Just about everyone today is familiar with the ever popular "Top 10" lists. TSN has the top ten sports stories of the week. Letterman has his top ten list every night.

Regardless of what you feel about yourself - you do have special gifts and talents that make you different. Those abilities and personality traits create excitement about life that define you as a person. These can be character traits (e.g. that you’re honest, persistent, generous) or abilities that you possess (e.g., you’re a good cook, adept at fixing things, an excellent tennis player, etc.). 

Now, look carefully at your CAREER INTEREST LIST and compare them to your PERSONAL PASSION LIST.

See if there are any careers on the list that are related to your personal passion list or to your natural abilities. Without a doubt, there will be a number of careers on your list that are directly connected to what you already like or to what you are already good at.

For example, if you have a real talent for writing, you may have listed "Novel Writer" on your career list.

Therefore, once you have compared your two lists and identified some careers that are connected in some way to what you already do well or in which you are already interested, you are ready for the next step, which may well be the longest and most important part of this process.

For each career that is connected in some way to your PERSONAL PASSION LIST, make a sub-list of related careers and jobs. For example, your ultimate dream may be to write a novel. But, as you research the types of careers where you can use your writing skills, you will find that those careers include things like working for newspapers, magazines, printing companies, television stations, writing copy for news broadcasts, writing children’s books, editing for a publisher, writing training manuals, writing speeches for politicians, and the list goes on and on. As you break down the broader career and personal skills you have identified, you will begin to notice that there are a whole "cluster" of related careers in which you might achieve satisfaction. Use the internet; use your public library; use your school guidance office; use whatever you have available to develop as large a sub-list of related careers as possible.

When you have completed the exercise and have expanded upon each of your selected career choices, compare them with your PERSONAL PASSION LIST. 

You should quickly discover that you can eliminate some of the career clusters on your list as simply not being as interesting to you as others.  You should be left with one large career cluster that is clearly a "natural fit" for you!  These are careers for which you already have the basic skills and motivation to succeed. These are the careers you should be aiming for. 

Once you have identified the best career cluster match for you personally, you will have set your sights on a clear and distinct target. 

Most of the careers in your cluster will depend on the particular skills or passions that drive you as an individual. These are the things things for which you already have a natural talent or ability. 

NEVER EVER FORGET...Everyone has a gift. Everyone has something that they do as well as or better than anyone else. You too have a gift and it will give you great satisfaction to use that gift to make a difference in the lives of others!

Now you have to go about the task of selecting the best education path that will enhance and sharpen those skills even more, so that when you graduate from your post-secondary studies, you will be the best you can possibly be and will thrive in whichever career you enter within your cluster.

Remember one very important point, however. 

You must identify your career target and then you plan your education. 

Don’t do it in reverse. 

At this time, I must take a moment to once again caution you to avoid trying to be something that you are not. In this world of high tech and instant communication, you are constantly being bombarded with images of people in glamorous careers.

It is very easy to play the "I wish" game. "I wish I could have that life". "I wish I could do that". 

The big danger is that you can easily find  a post-secondary education path that can bring you on the road to that glamorous "wishful" life you are seeing on television, in movies and in magazines. All you have to do is look and you will find one of the hundreds of courses offered by public institutions and you will find the training for that glamorous career.

Unfortunately, that is how a lot of young people get trapped.

The next time you find yourself saying, "I wish" about a career that falls outside of your "passion range", think about the story that follows. It is simply called "Animal School" and is written by an unknown author.  The story delivers a powerful message to all students.

Before you read the story, let me give you a bit of an introduction.

Develop your strongest skills. Take a course of study that will make you even better at what you do well already. When you graduate from post-secondary school and you are ready to begin a career within your cluster, not only will you be extremely good at your work, you will enjoy it because you have always enjoyed it.

When I was a hockey coach I was often criticized for my practices. I would have the players go through the regular routines so that the worked on all of their skills such as passing, skating, shooting, etc. However, I would take the kids who had a really good slap shot, and I would have them practice their slap shot over and over again. They may not have had a good wrist shot or a good back hand, but I felt that if they had a natural talent for taking slap shots, I wanted to build up that skill even more. As a result they became superior slap shot artists. Their wrist shots were good enough to get by, but when they wound up for a slap shot, everyone got out of the way.

I could have told them that since they already had a good slap shot, I was going to have them work all practice on their wrist shots. They would have improved their wrist shots but they would have hated their practices and their slap shots would not have improved. During games, neither their slap shot nor their wrist shot would result in goals. 

Develop your natural talents, and you will find that your other skills will improve naturally.

Once you have identified a number of desired careers within your cluster, and you have selected an appropriate education path, you must then keep a constant eye on the target.

It is vitally important that you be aware of the many things happening in the world today that have a direct impact on a career. What seems like a good career today may not be so good in a very few years. You must constantly be evaluating your career goals and adjusting your "aim".

The benefit of having a large number of possible career targets in your cluster is that you can eliminate some of them along the way and still have several excellent options open to you when you graduate - all of them still within your passion circle.

The key to happiness, therefore, is learning how to adopt the "Moving Target Principle" in tracking the individual careers in your cluster.

The secret to hitting any moving target, even if that target is another person in a game of dodge ball, is that you must anticipate where the target is going to move and then aim for a spot to where you think he will be moving.  

If you aim "at" the target and then shoot, by the time the ball gets there the target will have moved and you will miss. Also, if you aim too far to the left or right, you may still miss the intended target. 

So the "skill" you must develop to be successful in a game of dodge ball is to learn how to figure out where your target is heading and then aim the ball so that it strikes the target while it is moving.  If the speed of the "target" is constant,  it is not that difficult to hit the target. 

However, there are times when the target will unexpectedly change directions or speed, making it even more difficult to hit. You may have planned everything perfectly and then the target changes unexpectedly and your shot misses. 

You are also aware that in a game of dodge ball, if you are shooting at a large number of targets (i.e. people), there is a better chance that your ball will hit one of them. If you are shooting at only one target, then it is more difficult to hit unless you are very close to the target.

The "Moving Target Principle" is at work when you are aiming for your career goals as well. 

You must carefully study the characteristics of each career in your cluster.

Then try to determine what things in the world today are working to change the career and see if you can estimate how much that career will change by the time you are out of school and ready to work. 

You may still have done all of the proper research and planning and just when you are ready to enter the career, something unexpected happens that changes things so drastically that it is no longer a career in which you will find happiness and satisfaction. Many people begin a career that they have been longing for since they were young, only to find out that it really isn't what they expected. Soon they are looking for other work, and often they must go back to some form of retraining program.

That is why I constantly advise that the more career targets you have in your cluster, the better. If you have more targets to shoot at, you are bound to hit one that works for you. If you only have one target to shoot for - if you put all of your eggs in one basket - you will have to hit it "dead on" the very first time or face disaster.

Ever hear the phrase...

"Keep your eye on the ball!"

If you play baseball, golf, tennis or any other sport that requires you to catch or hit a ball, you are quite familiar with that bit of advice.

"Keep your eye on your career!" is the new slogan that you must adopt while you engage in one of the biggest games of your life – training for a career.

Once you have selected a career cluster that is appropriate for you, it is imperative that you begin the most important project of your life. For the next several years while you are preparing yourself for a new career - education and networking - make sure that you get into the habit of doing as much reading and research as you can on all of the careers in your cluster. Check the business section of the newspapers in addition to the comic section. Instead of the latest movie or sports magazines, pick up magazines that specialize in your career. 

The more you know about what is happening in your career fields, the better prepared you will be when it comes time for you to "catch the ball". If you take your eye off the ball, it may hit you where it hurts or you may miss it all together.

If you have done your research properly you will come up with several careers in cluster that are within your passion range; 

If you continuously follow the careers within your cluster as you are going through the appropriate education path;

If you are willing to adapt to changes within those careers;