At the very time when graduates decide which university to take documents to, and those who did not get points on the Unified State Examination are thinking about going to college or finding a job, psychologist and TV presenter Andrei Maksimov has released a new book - this time for teenagers. Maybe she will help in a difficult situation of choice, because she is also dedicated to her vocation, the search for a life's work. Yes, the author categorically does not advise parents to read this book (he says that it will annoy adults) - so we warned adult readers of the site.
A vocation is not about finding a prestigious, well-paid job. It's about finding what you want to do.
For several years, the famous Harvard University studied a large group of graduates who achieved their goals in life. It turned out that 85% (!) succeeded because they aspired to it, and only 15% - because they had the ability.
Here is the power of desire! Aspiration is realized only when you really want to realize it.
Maybe you know that such a unique person lives in our world - Nick Vujicic. He has no limbs. Everyone advised young Nick to become an accountant, believing that for a man who has neither arms nor legs, this is quite a suitable occupation.
But Nick was not at all interested in this occupation! He dreamed of becoming a preacher, traveling all over the world and telling people about how to become happy! Nothing, it would seem, contributed to the realization of this dream. And first of all, his physical condition. But desire won. And today Nick Vuychich is one of the most famous and, by the way, highly paid preachers in the world.
Have you ever thought about the fact that in all ages all - without exception - the great people were engaged only in what they were interested in? A great person is one who has found a calling and dedicated his life to fulfilling it. Great people in life had a lot of problems, a lot of difficulties. But they are everything! - worked with pleasure. Why?
Because they did what they wanted. It is impossible to achieve serious success in a business if you are doing it, say, only for the sake of money or for the sake of prestige.
“You will realize that you have found the object of your passion,” writes Nick Vuychich, “when your talents, knowledge, strength and willingness to work unite and fill your soul with such joy, which is familiar only to a child who has received his favorite toy. Work and pleasure will merge together.”
You can object: they say, where are the great people and where am I?
Or you can try to take their example.
Your choice.
calling and money
"Well, okay, - I can hear your voice - the voice of the reader of my book. - About the fact that vocation is a desire, we understood. But no one has canceled money, right? and where to apply your talent, the financial side does not need to be borne in mind at all?
All - without exception - the great people were engaged in their work with passion and pleasure. They could plow for twenty-four hours in fact, because they loved their job very much. In their work, they liked the process, not the result. Some of them have achieved enormous material well-being. Others didn't succeed. But both of them were happy. Because only a person who is passionate about his work can be happy.
By choosing a job for material reasons, you automatically cross yourself off the list of those who can even try to become someone outstanding.
I respect money. I understand that they open up great opportunities. I understand that they are needed. But I really like the saying of some genius, in my opinion, the great French writer Honore de Balzac, who claimed that money is good servants but bad masters. Pretty well said!
The world around you screams endlessly - from TV screens, from the pages of glossy magazines, from advertising posters: "Get rich! And your life will become beautiful!" And almost no one ever says: "Find your calling! Discover yourself - yourself! And you will be happy!".
To a large extent, this is why you see so many people around you - both rich and not so, and even poor - who are engaged in an unloved business and suffer about it.
It's a choice. And no one will do it except you.
The method of finding a vocation was developed by me on the basis of the method of nature correspondence Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Let me remind you that Pestalozzi proceeded from the fact that the task of a person is to discover and develop in himself the talent inherent in Nature (God). Hence the name of his method.
The genius of pedagogy believed that a person should search for a vocation starting at the age of five, moreover, at the age of seven, he can already generally decide what to do in life.
My method is designed for parents who need to help their children find a calling. However, if a person who is of the age of a scout reads this chapter in the hope of deciding on his vocation, it means that his parents missed the age when it was necessary to assist the scout in the search for his talent. And now you have to do it yourself.
First challenge: figure out what you enjoy doing the most. I emphasize again: not something that will bring you a lot of income in the future; not something that comes easy to you; but what you like to do, what makes your life interesting, without which it is difficult for you to exist.
For example, you like to play on the computer.
OK. But playing on a computer cannot be a matter of life.
Because the world is so arranged that the work of a person must certainly be directed to others. Otherwise the world will fall apart.
Playing on a computer cannot be a matter of life, but inventing new computer games can.
Little Walt Disney loved to draw since childhood. And the boy John, by the name of Rockefeller, from an early age wrote down his income and expenses in a small book: he liked to watch the movement of money. As a result, the first became a great cartoonist, and the second became a great businessman.
It is very important to observe yourself and think about which of your addictions can become your calling.
Do you enjoy interacting with people? Wonderful. So, your future profession may be related to communication. For example, a psychologist. Or a journalist, but in this case you have to love to write, because even a TV and radio journalist has to write a lot of texts.
Do you enjoy being an organizer? There are a huge number of professions associated with this business. For example, a producer.
The main thing is not to be afraid of your desires!
Verification of vocation by boredom and laziness
Next stage- the main. I call him setting more complex creative tasks.
What does it mean?
You like to draw. Fine. You draw what God puts on the soul. Make your life difficult. Try drawing something you've never painted before, like a portrait or a landscape.
You like doing physics. Very well. Do you easily solve problems in your class? Amazing! Try to solve more complex problems.
If what you like to do is your calling, then more complex problems will only provoke you, arouse interest. It can be difficult, sometimes even temporarily hands down, but the desire will definitely win.
What if he doesn't win?
So there was no desire.
Calling in no way abolishes work, but it makes it desirable.
Many famous musicians told me that at the beginning of their career there was always a moment from music. For example, when it was necessary to learn scales. But sooner or later the desire to play still prevailed.
Have you ever wondered why a person is never lazy to do what interests him? If you like to draw or solve problems in physics, then you can, of course, get tired of this activity, but so that you are too lazy to do it ... Hardly.
If laziness, that is, an unwillingness to continue working, constantly arises when you are doing what seems to you your calling, this is a sign that you are on the wrong path.
Boredom is something that absolutely cannot be when a scout realizes his talent. And if you regularly experience it while doing something, then you need to listen to yourself again, look for new desires and test them with new creative tasks.
There is nothing wrong with giving up one thing and embarking on a search for a new one.
How to choose a future profession if you like several things at once?
This is where the conscious decision comes in.
One of my acquaintances scout dreamed of being an artist. But at the same time he played football very well. And one day, at the age of fifteen, he was invited to a professional football club.
The moment of choice has come. It was obviously impossible to play football professionally and at the same time go to the theater studio and play on stage.
The young man thought. I consulted with my parents. I talked with the coach and the head of the theater studio. He figured out where he would like to see himself all his life: on the football field or on the stage and TV screen ...
And chose acting. The main argument was that he could always play football. Let not at a professional level, but this game will not leave him. But it is impossible to engage in acting at an amateurish level.
What if I don't have a calling?
Know that this does not happen. There is no such person on earth to whom the Lord (Nature) would not give any calling. I am convinced that God (Nature) creates only soloists. People turn themselves into extras.
How to find your calling?
Search. Listen to yourself. Consult with those people (both adults and peers) whose opinion is important to you. It also happens that a person does not believe that some of his aspirations can become a profession. This is where wise counselors can help.
Finding a calling is a business that always ends in success. There can be no defeat here if you do it consciously, focusing on your own desires.
Did you find a calling? Check Yourself: 7 Questions
If you feel like you've found a job that could be your calling, ask yourself the questions he recommends asking. Nick Vujicic. Read them carefully and try to answer them.
- What turns you on?
- What makes you happy to meet every day?
- What are you willing to do for free - just to do?
- What do you never get tired of?
- Is there something for which you are ready to give all your material wealth?
- What are you willing to sacrifice any comfort for, just to do what you love?
- Achievements in what area bring you the deepest satisfaction?
Do you have answers to these questions?
Fine! It means that the deed is done: you have found your calling, in other words, you have embarked on the path of achieving happiness.
The editors of the magazine "Foma" received a letter from a teenager who is puzzled by the choice of his professional future.
The letter is commented by Kirill Kuznetsov, head of the vocational counseling department of the Center for Humanitarian Technologies, and Konstantin Olkhovoi, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist.
Here is the full letter and comments of experts.
Hello, now I’m almost 17 years old, I’m in the 11th grade and I don’t know at all who I should be, where to go to study ... The fact is that from 9 to 16 years old I did nothing except play games on the PC.
But one fine day, I finally understood and realized that games do not develop me in any way and pull me to the bottom, due to the fact that I spent a lot of time at the computer, I rarely went out, as a result of which there are very few friends (on the fingers can be counted). From the age of 13-14, in parallel, playing computer games for days, I began to go in for sports, but because of my strong passion for games, I either gave up or practiced again.
Now I'm 16 and there are six months left until the end of grade 11, and I seriously rethought my life, most recently I started reading books several times a day, exercising and even eating right. But day by day I am disturbed by thoughts of who I should be in this life and who I should become. The main problem is that apart from going to study as a programmer and seriously studying programming, I no longer see prospects for the future (in material terms) and I’m already sick of a computer and laptop just at one sight, because I’m immediately overwhelmed by memories and thoughts how much time I wasted sitting at the computer and playing games.
I live in a city where there are no prospects, all that is here is my peers, who only do what they smoke and drink, and roam the streets, trying to seem cool and important, from work in my city, only mines, shops and factory that has been closed for a long time.
I understand that it is necessary to choose a profession to your liking, which you will really like, and only then you can succeed in it. But I really don’t like anything, except for sports (horizontal bar, bars, dumbbells, etc.). What should I do now, I want to choose a profession, work and develop in the chosen direction, but I can’t do anything and, so to speak, there is no “thrust” for anything.
Alexei
After passing the tests on the sites and having studied the list of professions, figure out what you need to achieve your goals. Make a plan for your actions. It is a really difficult stage in your life that requires full dedication, diligence and work. But this stage is inevitable - everyone goes through it. See how often your peers share their personal experience of experiencing this stage on the Web, and often prepare for the exam together - you can find many useful video tutorials on the Internet. Now it is important to pass the exams well, because where you will study depends on it.
You are in search of yourself, which means that you have already passed the main stage of an attempt at self-determination - and this is a positive result. Do not be afraid to make a mistake, do the wrong thing, or quit studying. It is always the most valuable experience.
Psychiatrist and psychotherapist.
Alexei, like many other teenagers, is in a strange and incomprehensible situation for him. He is confused, because at the age of 16 "society" demands to decide on the choice of a future profession for the rest of his life. But to make such a choice when it is not yet clear what you want and what you like, when there is no conscious motivation to study, is almost impossible. The myth of such responsibility weighs heavily on adolescents.
But I can reassure Alexei: not a single normal person at the age of 16 can know exactly what he will do for all his working 50 years of his life. Activities throughout life can change, and this is normal.
The problem is that often the desire to get rid of this responsibility finds a destructive way out: people hide behind circumstances - this is such a standard myth about a city in which there are no prospects, a country where there is no "growth", an environment that "did not finish", "lost years who can't be caught up." But such a view is not constructive. Blaming everything on external circumstances, we behave like a baby who closes his eyes and thinks that he has hidden. And instead of acting to change the status quo, we begin to wait for everything to miraculously change or ... Or we prepare to passively go with the flow.
Don't expect a miracle. Or rather, do not bet on a miracle. It is important to understand that a lot of things in life are determined not by circumstances, but by ourselves. Look at this "trouble" as a reason to improve your life, turn the problem into a task! Let's look at Alex. He is a young man in good shape, he is mobile and can work hard, he does not have the "burden" of a family of six children, which means that he has a huge number of options to change the situation that will not lead to serious consequences.
It makes no sense to say "I'm not doing well and I won't succeed." I understand that perhaps these stereotypes were imposed by the environment and there is no support. I understand that a person in such a situation is hard and anxious, but the main task today is to switch from thinking about hopelessness and think about what you can start doing here and now.
Fear of failure can be paralyzing, but it can be made mobilizing. You can tell yourself that I don't want to live like this, that I want to get out of the vicious circle! And on this, gather your will into a fist and begin to improve your life. Let it be small, even tiny steps in the beginning, but let them be. You can mourn 5 years of your life in the coming years and decades, or you can act and move forward. Of course, if you constantly think about the “lost years”, you can say to yourself: “We didn’t live well and it’s not worth starting.” Still worth it! For starters, you can try to do what you most want: for example, get out of this city. So set yourself a challenge! Since it seems to you that you are in a hole, remember that anyone can get out of it - a waiter, a doctor, and a sergeant in the Russian army. The main thing is to get out!
When I say this, I'm not fantasizing. I myself entered the medical institute not at the age of 17, but at 27. And before that I was a soldier and a mechanic, the director of a small store and a paramedic. I don’t have a complex that I went to study so late, and I don’t think that these ten years of my life were wasted years - on the contrary, they gave me a huge life experience.
So, from any work you can extract a lot of useful things. For example, many people say that the army is a waste of time. But for me, the army served as the most valuable psycho-training. There I learned to negotiate and get along with a huge number of different people. This gave me an understanding of my future profession - I realized that I can talk to people, not only when they feel good, but also when they feel bad. It may seem paradoxical, but the army, especially in small towns, is an effective social lift for a young person. This is another opportunity to get out of the hinterland through new acquaintances and connections.
So, clearly ask yourself the question: am I really a "loser" or just afraid of not living up to society's expectations? If "loser", then ... Then you might want to become a winner! But on the expectations of "society" you can generally spit and go your own way. But it is extremely important to remember: firstly, almost everything on this path depends on you; secondly, this path cannot be passed in one month, not even for one higher education - this is a long movement, where every step is significant; thirdly, this path will never consist of only victories, there will inevitably be defeats, which means you will have to learn how to get up after "falls".
Now you are at the very beginning of this path - you are experiencing a personality crisis. But in fact, all crises in life are connected precisely with this definition of one's place in life. I really love this phrase: "the crises of life - the chances of life." Crises are given to us so that we can change something; without them, movement is impossible. After such crises, we can roll down, or we can take off ... and it depends on how much we work on ourselves physically and mentally.
And the fear… Well, that's normal. There is a good saying: "All people are divided into two categories: those who are afraid and those who are afraid and do it!" Do it!
Prepared material: Anastasia Bavinova
Final exams - time to think about the future
The closer the final exams, the more acute the question arises of where to go after grade 11. Graduates decide what specialty they will receive and which educational institution to apply to. After all, it depends on what exams they will need to pass. Probably, every child in childhood was "exhausted" with the question of who he would become when he grew up. AT
At such moments, the children answer simply: who will be an astronaut, who will be a doctor. That is, they say the first thing that comes to their mind. Almost none of them take into account their hobbies and interests. Of course, things change over time.
Should you go to the first university you come across?
But nevertheless, most of the schoolchildren, right up to the last call, cannot decide on the final choice of their future specialty and do not know where to go after the 11th grade. Usually they go where they pass on the USE scores. They go like blind kittens, not knowing and not knowing what lies ahead for them, and after a couple of months of study they realize that they have chosen “not that”, “not their own”. More courageous individuals take the documents and leave, while others endure in the hope of obtaining a diploma, which, in their opinion, will give at least some guarantee of well-being in life. On the one hand, they are right. But I would like to note that you will not get anything real, because a real specialist is obtained only if a person really loves the business he is doing. Therefore, initially, when choosing a profession, you need to understand yourself, in your inner world, understand what you like, and only then pick up booklets and choose an educational institution.
Where to go after 11th grade?
First of all, figure out the direction. At this time, there are only two of them: humanitarian and technical. They are completely opposite to each other. The techie prefers the exact sciences, while the humanist is prone to reading, writing and creativity. You should not enter a technical university if you do not understand physics, even though such specialties are considered prestigious in our time. All your years of study will be torture for you. Love to read and write? Go to the Faculty of Humanities. The second stage in solving the current problem is the choice of specialty. This must be done in a calm environment, silence and without pressure. Left alone, take a sheet of paper and write on it all the professions that you are actually interested in. Now analyze the list and choose the most demanded and promising specialty.
Choosing an educational institution
The last point in deciding where to go after grade 11 is the choice of an educational institution. If the universities of your locality do not teach in the specialty that you have chosen, feel free to enter other cities. Distance should not stand in the way of your dreams. Moreover, with the advent of the Unified State Examination, it has become easier to enter a university in any city in our country: everywhere the same admission rules. Just be confident in your own abilities. You can find out about the availability of educational institutions from special brochures for applicants. It is also easy to find information about where you can go after college.
Drawing conclusions
Never rely on someone else's opinion. Of course, listen to what adults say and advise you, but remember: you create your own future and therefore must make your own choice. And believe me, the decision of the question of where to enter after the 11th grade is already within you. Listen to yourself, and you will definitely succeed!
It is difficult to figure it out on your own, even if there are many interests. After all, you need to know what professions are: what a person does, what object he works with, and what requirements this profession imposes on a person. This is what you need to know when choosing a profession.
In truth, for each of us there are about ten suitable and pleasant professions. But you can’t go ten ways: you have to choose the most pleasant and most suitable profession.
What determines the choice of profession?
Here we will not open America for you. The choice of a profession depends on the interests, abilities, values of the person who chooses, age, financial capabilities and family plans, and on the place of residence. But even if you know all this about yourself, what to do with this knowledge? And how to understand what profession they indicate? There are two ways: try to diagnose yourself or trust me.
How to choose a profession yourself
Try to pass the tests. There are career guidance tests and there are tests for professions. Try this and that. There is a 7-step methodology for choosing a profession. It is not a test, but it helps to understand your desires. You can finally listen to interviews with professionals, read books about professions, and even try to work during the holidays in some company and carefully look at what people are doing there. And all this can help a lot, but if it doesn’t help, then I will help.
