Finding the Right Career Starts With Understanding Yourself
In this Meet the Expert session, recorded during my time as University Manager at VMware, I explore something that remains at the heart of my approach to career coaching today: before deciding what you want to do, it helps to understand who you are.
I talk about the role self-awareness can play in making career decisions, practical ways to better understand your strengths, values and motivations, and how developing a growth mindset can help you navigate setbacks and uncertainty.
Whether you're choosing a university course, starting your career or wondering what comes next, the aim isn't to have your entire future figured out. It's to understand yourself well enough to make choices that feel like a better fit.
Watch the video to explore some practical tools and ideas for getting started.
Interviews can bring nerves, self-doubt and a lot of pressure to perform. When we're anxious, it's easy to get caught up thinking about what might go wrong, whether we'll know the answers or what the interviewer will think of us.
This short meditation is designed to help you pause, settle your thoughts and get into a calmer, more confident mindset before an interview.
Rather than trying to eliminate nerves completely, take a few minutes to breathe, ground yourself and remember what you bring to the conversation.
You don't need to be perfect. You don't need to have every answer. You just need to give yourself the best opportunity to show them who you are and what you can bring.
Try listening somewhere quiet shortly before your interview — and give yourself a few minutes afterwards before jumping back into preparation.
Before deciding what you want to do, it helps to understand who you are.
One simple way to start building that self-awareness is to explore your VIPS:
Values – What really matters to you?
Interests – What are you naturally drawn to and curious about?
Personality – How do you prefer to think, work and interact with others?
Strengths – What are you naturally good at and what gives you energy?
When we understand these different parts of ourselves, we can start looking at careers, courses and opportunities through a different lens. Instead of simply asking “Is this a good career?”, we can ask “Is this a good career for me?”
The free tools below can help you begin exploring your personality, strengths and values. They aren't about putting you in a box or giving you a definitive answer about what you should do. Think of them as prompts for reflection — a way to notice patterns, learn more about yourself and start asking better questions.
Take your time with them, and pay attention not only to what the results say, but also to what resonates with you — and what doesn't.
Understanding yourself is a great place to start — but sometimes the harder part is knowing what to do with what you've discovered.
Coaching gives you the space to explore your values, strengths, personality and interests more deeply and connect them to the decisions you're facing. Together, we can look at what's important to you, what's getting in the way and what your next step might look like.
Whether you're choosing a course, starting your career or wondering if it's time for a change, you don't need to have all the answers before you begin.
Ready to explore what might be the right fit for you? Book an Enquiry Call Now
A quick and easy personality assessment that can help you explore your natural preferences, strengths and ways of working. Use your results as a starting point for self-reflection rather than a label — and consider what they might tell you about the environments, roles and ways of working that suit you.
A free tool designed to help you identify the strengths that energise you and that you enjoy using. It can be a useful starting point when thinking about career direction, development or your next step — helping you consider not just what you're good at, but what brings out the best in you.
This free interactive exercise helps you identify the values that are most important to you. Understanding your values can help you make more confident choices about careers, courses and opportunities — and recognise when something genuinely feels like the right fit.
Use your results as a starting point to ask: Does the direction I'm considering align with what really matters to me?