How to Find the Right Career: Understanding Your Strengths, Values, and Interests.
Career satisfaction emerges when what you do aligns with who you are. If you’re wondering what career path to pursue, one of the most effective ways to find clarity is to understand your strengths, values, and interests. When these are known and intentionally applied, career decisions become clearer, work feels more energising and satisfying, and you experience a deeper sense of purpose. I like to think of this as aligning your inner world with your outer world.
Why Strengths and Values Matter in Your Career
Strengths are the activities and patterns of thinking that give you energy and lead to high performance. Values are the principles that guide your choices, priorities, and sense of meaning. When either is ignored, people often experience disengagement, burnout, or a persistent feeling of being off track.
Marcus Buckingham, a leading voice in strengths-based development, emphasises that excellence comes from building on what is already strong rather than fixing weaknesses. In his work on love and work, Buckingham argues that we thrive when we do work we love in environments that allow our natural strengths to be expressed. Without knowing those strengths, people often chase roles that look successful on paper but feel empty in practice.
Values play an equally critical role. They act as an internal compass. When your work environment or career path conflicts with your core values, stress and dissatisfaction follow, even if you are objectively successful.
Career as a Lifelong Expression of Self
Donald Super’s Life-Span, Life-Space Theory reframes career as all of life. This suggests your work is not separate from who you are as a parent, partner, community member, or individual. Career development is the ongoing process of expressing your self-concept across all life roles. From this perspective, identifying your strengths and values is not a one-time exercise for choosing a job. It is essential for navigating transitions, redefining success at different life stages, and creating coherence between work and life.
Tools to Identify Your Strengths & Values
Several high-quality assessments can support self-discovery:
VIA Character Strengths (Free Assessment)
The VIA assessment identifies 24 character strengths such as curiosity, fairness, bravery, and hope. It provides a shared language for understanding what is best in you and how those strengths can be applied at work and in life.
https://www.viacharacter.org
Gallup CliftonStrengths (Top 5 - AU $35)
This assessment focuses on talent themes related to how you think, relate, and perform. Identifying your Top 5 strengths helps you understand where you naturally excel and how to intentionally aim your career toward those patterns.
https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths
Brené Brown’s Values Assessment (Free Assessment)
Brené Brown’s values exercise helps you narrow your core values to the few that truly guide your behaviour. This clarity supports better boundaries, decision-making, and alignment between personal integrity and professional choices.
https://brenebrown.com/resources/dare-to-lead-list-of-values/
Each of these tools offers insight, but insight alone does not create change. The greatest value comes from interpretation, integration, and application.
Going Deeper: Strong Interest Assessment and Guided Debrief
In addition to strengths and values, interests are a critical third pillar. Understanding what consistently draws your attention and curiosity helps clarify not only what you are good at, but what you are likely to remain engaged in over time.
A Strong Interest Assessment, completed and interpreted with a professional de-brief, connects your interests to potential career paths, work environments, and roles. When combined with strengths and values, it creates a comprehensive picture of career fit and supports confident, informed decision-making.
Working through these assessments with me allows for:
Personalised interpretation rather than generic results
Integration of strengths, values, and interests into a coherent career narrative
Practical application to career decisions, transitions, or redesigning your current role
The Long-Term Value of Self-Knowledge
Knowing your strengths and values helps you:
Make career decisions with confidence
Find and advocate for roles, projects, and environments where you will thrive
Navigate change without losing your sense of direction
Experience greater engagement, meaning, and resilience at work
Career fulfillment is not accidental. It is built through self-awareness and intentional alignment. By investing the time to understand your strengths, values, and interests, you create a foundation for work that is not only productive, but deeply meaningful across all stages of life.
FAQs
How can I identify my strengths?
You can use assessments like VIA Character Strengths or Gallup CliftonStrengths to uncover natural talents that energise and drive high performance. You can also engage with a career coach or career counsellor and talk through what you love or find energising.
Why are values important in career decisions?
Values act as your internal compass. Aligning your work with your core values reduces stress, increases engagement, and ensures your career decisions feel right, not just impressive on paper. So many clients I have worked with realise in our sessions that one of the reasons their careers have developed problems is because there is a conflict with a core value of theirs.
How does a Strong Interest Assessment help?
It shows which activities and topics consistently capture your attention, helping you choose work you are naturally motivated to pursue.