It’s never too early to start thinking about your career.

The end of high school marks a huge transition for everyone, and the many paths forward can feel dizzying. How do you even begin to think about what to do for the rest of your life?

If you are facing this stressful uncertainty, please know that you can make it through! Few people know exactly what their career will be from the get-go. Here at LaunchNW, we are certain that our students are stronger and smarter than they know. With a bit of determination, research, and planning, you’ll ready for the future.

Any successful plan begins with a clear direction and purpose, and that includes your career plan. Before you start combing through countless webpages and Google searches, it’s best to sit with yourself for a while and consider what matters to you.

Interests and values may change over time, but being faithful to who you are and what you want now will help in the long run. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What are you passionate about? What can you talk about for hours on end without getting bored?
• What have you tried that you did not enjoy doing?
• If you’ve worked before, what specific tasks or aspects of a job were appealing to you, and which were grating?
• What are your overall life goals right now? Do you want to have a family and settle down somewhere? Do you want to travel the world and explore places you’ve never seen before? Do you want to create something new? Do you want stability?
• Then, consider what your overall career goals are. Do you want to make lots of money or own a business? Do you want to change the world in some way? Do you want to share a passion? Do you want to expand your knowledge of something and become an expert on it?

Phew! That’s a lot to consider. Be sure to write down your answers and revisit them later to see if they stay consistent. Then, condense them into an easy reference as you move into the next stage of this process.

Now that you have your most important goals in mind, as well as some insight on what you enjoy doing, begin exploring careers that complement these factors. Compile a list of careers that align with your goals and rank them according to how well they fit into your vision of the future, and how much they excite you.

A central part of this career exploration process is to analyze what people actually do in these careers. Through research, try to answer the following questions about the careers you are interested in:

• What are the day-to-day tasks and responsibilities of people in this career?
• How social is the job?
• Who are people in this job responsible for and to?
• What is the typical work setting for this job?
• How much do people generally earn in this career?
• How much is this field expected to grow in the future?
• What kind of education, training, or skill is needed for this career?
• What is the work-life balance like in this career starting out? How is it later on?

These are all important questions that will help you evaluate each entry in your initial career exploration list and narrow down the best options for you.

Now that you’ve evaluated each career you are interested in, it’s time to get serious! To really be sure that a career is a good fit, arrange some informational interviews with folks who work in that career (LinkedIn is a great place to find them). These informational interviews can be conducted remotely or in-person, but the key is to draft some specific questions for your interviewee that answer any lingering concerns or uncertainties you may have about the career in question.

The goal of an informational interview is not to get a job; Rather, the insight you will gain from real workers serves as an invaluable look into what you would be doing and experiencing daily should you pursue this career. Equipped with this knowledge, you can make an informed decision about what careers would be worth pursuing.

Additionally, consider other avenues of career exploration, including job shadowing and workplace visits. Such experiences translate these careers you’ve only explored in the abstract into something tangible and easy to understand.

At the end of this process, you should have a solid understanding of what careers are a good fit for you, as well as the pros and cons of each considering your life and career goals. In the end, you will have to choose only one career and move forward with a plan to enter it, but don’t worry over much about this decision.

You’ve done the research, you’ve got the experience, and you’ve weighed all your options. It is unlikely that any career you pick after going through these steps will seriously backfire, and it is also worth remembering that people transition in and out of careers all throughout their life. Expecting yourself to pick the perfect career right out of high school simply isn’t realistic. As long as you’re taking the steps to make an informed decision, you’re doing it right.

We at LaunchNW wish you the best in your career journey. Now, get out there and start your future!

Samuel McLaughlin is a Marketing and Communications Program Associate at LaunchNW.