I can't believe I'm asking PC for life advice, but since I spend so much time lurking on the site and y'all seem like good people I might as well.
So I've been on an academic hiatus for about... almost 2 years now? Previously I was an art major, but... I lost pretty much all motivation/ambition and to be honest I think with how lazy I am, I wasn't cut out for something like that. So I took a break from college and spent some volunteering and even got my very first job at a donut shop, haha... Anyway what I came here to ask for advice about is... Can anyone give me any tips on finding a new major? I've had a long time to think about what I could do, but I still honestly have no idea... The only criteria I have right now for a potential career is that it make decent enough money so I can live without worrying too much about finances, and that it not have hours that are too long. Only I can decide my future, but... I guess I'm just asking for tips on self-assessment and things to consider when choosing a new major/career path.
I think there are two questions to ask (not only these two, but these two are important): what do you love and what are you good at?
The first question can be really elusive because we're all subjective individuals here and I'm not going to bother since I don't know all that much about you and I don't think I could give advice to people on finding what they love.
The second question, however, is a bit more objective. Start with your strengths and weaknesses. What kind of stuff are you good at? You can look at this from a couple of perspectives.
1) What subjects are you good at? Go as far back to high school for this one. Look at the courses you did well in and enjoyed. Look at the courses you took in University that you enjoyed before quitting your art major. And then look through which kind of fields you might prefer or be interested in or have succeeded in.
2) What ways of learning or doing are you good at? Are you good with numbers? Are you good with verbal communication? Are you good with writing? Do you like to solve problems? Are you a big-picture kind of person or a details-oriented person? Are you spatially-oriented meaning you're good with visuals and diagrams? Look at all the activities you've done in life, doesn't have to be school or work, and think about "the ways" you do things.
3) How do you like to work with people? Are you more of a solitary person or do you work better in a team? How important is team spirit to you? Big groups or small groups? Do have a preference for working face-to-face with a client? Do you have a preference for working face-to-face with a team of colleagues? Is face-to-face contact important to the work you want to do, or is long-distance communication okay? When you think about these questions, I think it's important to keep in mind that they're not mutually exclusive. So you might find that you might be solitary, but you're still open and would enjoy the opportunity to work with other people. You might want to be face-to-face with both your clients as well as your team. Try to be as open and as honest with yourself with this as possible, because people can have really diverse and complex relationships with society and that's just a part of human nature.
There are more, but that's all I can think of at the moment. I think it's a good starting point. As you start answering questions, other questions will reveal themselves. You come to a better understanding of what you do know about yourself and what you don't know about yourself. I think knowing what you like isn't as important as knowing what you know and don't know - those "unknown" unknowns can reveal themselves as dealbreakers down the line and bite you in the ass. So try to be aware of what you don't know about yourself, because that will allow you to be more self-aware and make better decisions. If this paragraph seems super contradictory with what I've said before, my main idea here is this: you don't need to have a positive answer to all the questions you ask yourself - answering "I don't know" is valuable in and of itself.
Also, you'll find that as you answer these "what are you good at questions" you'll undoubtedly answer those "what do you love" questions. Thinking about what you love will involve parsing feelings, that are sometimes unreliable and change. Thinking about what you're good at will involve going through experiences where you've actually executed on something, and so IMO it's more objective and predictive and also reflects somewhat on what you love as well.
I feel that it's easier to think about which careers and majors are for you once you've realized what you like/want/are good at/are bad at than the other way around. There's so many careers in the world that will pay well and not give you ridiculous hours but there's only one you.
Lemme know how it goes.