What do you want to do as a career? It may surprise you to know people who have been working for decades cannot answer this question. But sometimes we’ve known all along what we want, it’s just that ambitions we had from an early age have become clouded over and forgotten.

I was leaving work one evening a few years ago, and was chatting with another colleague, who was likewise going home.

“Another day, another dollar?” I joked. He shook his head in despair, and wryly said that while he didn’t mind working for just a dollar, he would much rather have spent the day doing something more fulfilling.

“Oh? You don’t like being a sales analyst?” I enquired. He shook his head. “No, and nor the other dozen or so things I’ve done before this either.” He summed up his working life to date by saying, “I’ve done this, and I’ve done that, but I still don’t know what I really want to do!”

Although I could partially relate to his situation, his admission did surprise me. He would have been in his late forties, and while some people can take time to work out “what they want to do”, I’d have thought by his stage in his life he would have found a career that satisfied him.

I remember in my final years at high school being asked to give thought to what I’d like to do for a living when I left school. I could think of nothing. Even for my first few years in the working world, I was just “taking” jobs, thinking that I’d have a career epiphany sooner or later. And preferably sooner, if possible.

Whatever the case though, I thought I would find my desired career within “five or so years”, but certainly never be in the position of my former colleague, who was still trying to find his niche, almost 30 years after leaving school!

So how do we find that desired career? While some people seemingly know their career ambitions from the time they are “knee high to a grasshopper”, why are others struggling to find the merest hint of career direction decades later?

Ironically part of the answer could lie in those childhood dreams. When we are younger, we tend to be bolder in our thinking, and believe all manner of things are possible. It’s as we become older, and more cautious, that we start to discount our options and possibilities. We also tend to be more receptive to the comments, particularly the negative opinions, of those close to us.

How many times would you have someone say, “What? You want to be a… photographer? Well that’s a very hard field to get into, you’d be better off choosing something else!”

And so it goes. We hear disparaging thoughts like that, and begin to believe that we are wasting our time pursuing such “lofty” ambitions. Pretty soon we have narrowed the field down to a few “safe” career choices, and think we have made the “right” decision.

But what happened to those people, who as children, wanted to be entrepreneurs, photographers, film producers, journalists, or whatever it was they set their hearts on? And by the way, I’m not talking about the people who had the movie, and rock star ambitions, although one or two would have succeeded I’m sure!

I talking about the people who, at a young age, had a very clear, and shall we say, “down to earth”, career goal in their mind. Chances are they went on to do what they dreamed of. Why? Because they believed in their dream, and themselves, and were able to see passed the detracting comments of others. If they even listened to those comments in the first place!

So what was your dream growing up, and why are you not doing that now, today? For my part I knew I wanted to be a free agent of some sort, working in a field that was somehow creative. I used to read the Tintin books (don’t laugh, now!) as a boy, and thought Tintin, as a freelance reporter, had a pretty cool job, and lifestyle.

While Tintin embarked on all sorts of weird and wonderful adventures along the way, I realised early on, that aspect of his “career” may have been slightly far fetched, but being a freelance journalist, or writer, or content producer, wasn’t exactly that unrealistic an expectation.

That dream however just seemed to get lost somewhere for many years. Perhaps when I was younger, and spoke of this future possible career, I didn’t word myself carefully enough, and took too seriously the jibes that I was setting myself up for failure by trying to be the next Tintin! It was a comic book, not real life after all, how you base any career dreams on something like that?!

I wonder what my former colleague had dreamed of doing when he was a child? Despite declaring that he had “no idea” what he wanted to do, I’ll bet he did once. It’s just that he’s forgotten it, or let himself dismiss the thought long ago, after hearing a few ill-conceived and negative thoughts.

Of course not all childhood career dreams are achievable. And this can sometimes be due to reasons beyond an individual’s control. An old school friend for years had wanted to be a commercial pilot. Again, not an especially unrealistic ambition, but eye tests revealed he was colour blind, which at the time, was enough to rule that out as a career option.

And assuming a situation like that doesn’t apply to you, as a first step in finding yourself a new career direction, think back, and recall your childhood dreams and thoughts. And remember not all of these ambitions are necessarily naive or far fetched, and even at a young age, you may have known more about yourself than you thought!

As I say, regard this as only a first step, and see what options or ideas it produces. I know it won’t work for everyone, and in the second part of this article, next Monday, we will examine some more methods of identifying career direction.