Today was a low-consumption day. I spent the morning doing chores around the house and on my computer. Later in the day, my wife and I went on a hike. A couple of days ago, I completed a survey by Chris Croft on my ideal career type. I like Croft’s material, so I thought the survey may be fun and insightful.
Ideal Career Type
The survey aims to determine which of six career types is good for you. The six types are,
- Corporate Ladder.
- Vocation (i.e. job you love).
- Retire early.
- Minimal for personal (just enough money to do what you want).
- Grow and sell (a company).
- Lifestyle (work for yourself).
Of course, there can be cross-over in some of these categories. Your “vocation” may be an entrepreneurial “lifestyle” career, for example.
Figure 1. My Survey Results
Croft’s survey recommends a vocation for my most ideal career type, but perhaps “minimal for personal” or the corporate ladder as other options. The difficulty with a vocation, as Croft says, is discovering what your vocation is. That’s one of the reasons why I made this site, so I document my experiences why I explore. Hopefully one of the things I’ll find/create in my exploration and experimentation is my vocation. At the moment, I am working a “Lifestyle” freelance career for “minimal for personal” reasons.
I don’t think the corporate ladder is for me because I want to spend a lot of time doing things outside of work. For example, I like experimenting with projects and running this site. I like reading and writing and gardening and being in nature. My wife wants to open a coffee shop and, while I won’t work in it as much as she will, I want to help around the shop. I don’t think the corporate ladder excludes any of these other activities, but it doesn’t sound like a lifestyle I want.
Similarly, I don’t want to retire early. Anytime we think about our careers in the long-term, my wife and I both idealize working until we’re old and wrinkly. Not because we have to in order to survive, but because we enjoy the things we’ve created. This ideal, I think, lines up with the vocational ideal career type.
10 Steps to Life
Chris Croft is developing another course called The Life Skills Collection. He released an interesting promotional image for how our work and happiness are intertwined. I think it’s a picture to ponder over.
He says that all ten factors have to be aligned to achieve “your maximum life.” Thoughts?
