***Understanding Yourself to Understand Your Career

This is key to a successful career change. There are two main areas for understanding yourself. One is through the outward appearance and actions, and the other is through your inward feelings and emotions. To understand your outward appearance you need to look in a mirror. This mirror translates to your family, friends, co-workers and acquaintances in your life.

By interviewing friends you can find out your strengths and your challenges. Asking them to pinpoint skills and knowledge you see a picture of yourself as the outside world sees you. When you use this interview technique, you must set specific ground rules: ask the interviewee to be honest and open; listen – do not argue or defend or even agree – simply acknowledge that you hear what the person is saying about you; and finally be prepared to use or dump anything or everything you hear from your interviewee. If it all makes sense in your heart and your soul and other people are reinforcing this message, chances are that it is accurate information. It is does not make sense in your core being, and it is not being repeated by other people, chances are that it is incorrect information.

To learn about your inner you, you need to get quiet, meditate and reflect on who you are. This can clear a space so that you can receive the correct and helpful information. Once you have that open mind you can take any one of the numerous personality assessment tests such as those created by Jung, Meyers and Briggsnn