{"id":38407,"date":"2017-04-24T20:30:42","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T20:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/?post_type=careerguidepage&#038;p=38407"},"modified":"2024-09-03T18:24:28","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T18:24:28","slug":"end","status":"publish","type":"careerguidepage","link":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/","title":{"rendered":"The end: A cheery final note &#8211; imagining your&nbsp;deathbed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"audio-player\">\n<div style=\"width: 100%; min-height: 75px; clear: both;\" class=\"margin-top-smaller margin-bottom-smaller\">\n    <type-3-player \n      cover-image-url=\"\"\n      background-color=\"#f1f1f1\"\n      listen-to-this-page=\"\"\n      listen-to-this-page-text=\"\"\n      link-to-timestamp=\"true\"\n      header-play-buttons=\"true\"\n      sticky=\"true\"\n      primary-color=\"#333\"\n      secondary-color=\"#aaa\"\n      accent-color=\"#2ebdd1\"\n      primary-font-family=\"'museo-sans','Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif\"\n      secondary-font-family=\"'proxima-nova',Arial,sans-serif\"\n      analytics=\"custom\"\n      t3a-logo=\"false\"\n      link-to-timestamp-selector=\".type-3-player__replace-timestamps-with-links\"\n      feedback-button=\"false\"\n      custom-css=\" \n    .type-3-player.sticky {\n      box-shadow: 0px -2px 10px 0px rgb(171 171 171 \/ 60%);\n      z-index: 8000;\n      opacity: 1;\n      visibility: visible;\n      transition: opacity 0.2s ease, visibility 0.2s ease;\n    }\n    .type-3-player.sticky.hidden:not(.loading) {\n      display: flex !important;\n      opacity: 0;\n      visibility: hidden;\n    }\n    .-t3a-button-pill span {\n      padding-top: 1px !important;\n      font-weight: 600;\n    }\n  \"\n    ><\/type-3-player><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n      window.t3aAnalytics = function(eventType, event) {\n        analytics.track(eventType, event);\n        gtag(\"event\", eventType, event);\n        if (typeof plausible === \"function\") { \n          plausible(eventType, {props: event});\n        }\n      }\n      window.addEventListener(\"scroll\", function() {\n        const players = document.querySelectorAll(\"type-3-player\");\n        const tocButton = document.querySelector(\".sidebar-toc__open-button-wrap\");\n        const scrollTop = window.scrollY;\n        const viewportHeight = window.innerHeight;\n        const totalHeight = document.documentElement.scrollHeight;\n        if (scrollTop + viewportHeight >= totalHeight) {\n          players.forEach(player => player.style.display = \"none\");\n          if (tocButton) {\n            tocButton.style.display = \"none\";\n          }\n        } else {\n          players.forEach(player => player.style.display = \"\");\n          if (tocButton) {\n            tocButton.style.display = \"\";\n          }\n        }\n      });\n    <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n      document.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\", function() {\n        const noPlayButtonTitles = [\"Read more\", \"Read next\", \"Learn more\"];\n        document.querySelectorAll(\"h2, h3\").forEach(function(element) {\n          if (noPlayButtonTitles.includes(element.textContent.trim())) {\n            element.classList.add(\"no-heading-play-button\");\n          }\n        });\n      });\n    <\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>We&#8217;re about to summarise the whole guide in one minute. But before that, imagine a cheery thought: you&#8217;re at the end of your 80,000-hour career.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re on your deathbed looking back.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/o-EMPTY-HOSPITAL-BED-.jpg\" alt=\"Perfect match\" width=\"632\" height=\"347\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30161\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>What are some things you might regret?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps you drifted into whatever seemed like the easiest option, or did what your parents did.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you even made a lot of money doing something you were interested in, and had a nice house and car. But you still wonder: what was it all for?<\/p>\n<p>Now imagine instead that you worked really hard throughout your life, and ended up saving the lives of 100 children. Can you really imagine regretting that?<\/p>\n<p>To have a truly fulfilling life, we need to turn outwards rather than inwards. Rather than asking &#8220;What&#8217;s my passion?,&#8221; ask &#8220;How can I best contribute to the world?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As we&#8217;ve seen, by using our fortunate positions and acting strategically, there&#8217;s a huge amount we can all do to help others. And we can do this at little cost to ourselves, and most likely while having a more successful and satisfying career too.<\/p>\n<h2>The entire guide, in one minute<\/h2>\n<p><strong>To have a good career, do what contributes.<\/strong> Rather than expect to discover your passion in a flash of insight, your fulfilment will grow over time as you learn more about what fits, master valuable skills, and use them to help others. (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/job-satisfaction\/\">Part 1<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>To do what contributes, build useful skills and apply them to meaningful problems. Here&#8217;s the three key stages to focus on over time:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Explore<\/strong> and investigate your <em>key uncertainties<\/em> to find the best options, rather than &#8220;going with your gut&#8221; or narrowing down too early. Make this your key focus until you have enough confidence in some longer-term options to bet on one (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/personal-fit\/\">Part 8<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Build career capital<\/strong> to become as great as you can be. This means looking for jobs that let you generally improve your skills, reputation, connections, and character, and that most accelerate you towards your vision, as well as investing in your personal development. Do this until you&#8217;ve taken the best opportunities to invest in yourself (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-capital\/\">Part 7<\/a> and <a href=\"\/career-guide\/how-to-be-successful\/\">Part 9<\/a>). Then, use your career capital to&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Deploy<\/strong>. Use your career capital to effectively help others. Do this by focusing on the <em>most urgent social problems<\/em> rather than those you stumble into &#8212; those that are big in scale, neglected, and solvable (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/how-much-difference-can-one-person-make\/\">Part 2<\/a>, <a href=\"\/career-guide\/most-pressing-problems\/\">Part 4<\/a>, and <a href=\"\/career-guide\/world-problems\/\">Part 5<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>To make the largest contribution to those problems, <em>think broadly<\/em>: consider research, communicating ideas, community-building, organisation-building, and government and policy careers, or earning to give, as well as the direct helping careers that first come to mind. (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/high-impact-jobs\/\">Part 6<\/a>). And focus on the paths that have the best personal fit. (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/personal-fit\/\">Part 8<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Although many efforts to help others fail, the best can be enormously effective, so be ambitious. But don&#8217;t forget you can have a big impact in any job (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/anyone-make-a-difference\/\">Part 3<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>While doing the above, <strong>keep adapting your plan to find the best personal fit.<\/strong> Think like a scientist testing a hypothesis: make your best guess, clarify your key uncertainties, then investigate those uncertainties. Have some ideas about the best longer-term vision, but then put a lot of attention into finding the best next step (both working backwards and forwards). Eliminate any jobs that do significant direct harm, even if it seems like they might let you have a greater impact. If you keep learning more and improving your skills with each step, you can build a better and better career over time. (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/personal-fit\/\">Part 8<\/a> and <a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-planning\/\">Part 10<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Seek community and apply widely (with both stretch and back-up options) to be more successful. (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/how-to-get-a-job\/\">Part 11<\/a> and <a href=\"\/career-guide\/community\/\">Part 12<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>By working together, in our lifetimes, we can prevent the next pandemic and mitigate the risks of AI, we can end extreme global poverty and factory farming, and we can do this while having interesting, fulfilling lives too. So let&#8217;s do it.<\/p>\n<p>You have 80,000 hours in your career.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t waste them.<\/p>\n<div class=\"well bg-gray-lighter margin-bottom margin-top padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-8\">\n<h2>Get help making your plan by speaking to our team one-on-one<\/h2>\n<p class=\"small\">Now that you&#8217;ve completed the guide, our advising team may be able to help check your new career plan, as well as introduce you to mentors and find job openings and funding opportunities to help you put it into action. (It&#8217;s free!) <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/speak-with-us\/\" title=\"\" class=\"btn btn-primary\">Speak to our team<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-sm-4 hidden-xs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/DSCF0279_BackDrop-recrop-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"A member of the 80,000 Hours advising team\"\/>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"well bg-gray-lighter margin-bottom margin-top padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<h2>Go beyond the basics<\/h2>\n<p>If you&#8217;re not ready to change your career right now, here&#8217;s some more of our most important research about how to have more impact with your career. Skim through and read the articles most relevant to your situation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/advanced-series\/\">Advanced series<\/a> <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/problem-profiles\/\">List of most pressing problems<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/skills\/\">List of most useful skills to build<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/career-reviews\">Reviews of impactful careers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/podcast\">In-depth expert conversions on our podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/research\/\">All our research by topic<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"well bg-gray-lighter margin-bottom margin-top padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<h2><small>Help us out in 10 seconds:<\/small> Share the guide<\/h2>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve enjoyed the guide, gift an ebook to a friend:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/gift\/\" class=\"btn btn-primary\">Send to a friend<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If your friend joins our newsletter, they can receive a free book about impactful careers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- Remove default margin above the content, since it looks weird with the audio player at the top. --><\/p>\n<style>\n.container--default > .row {\n  margin-top: 0;\n}\n<\/style>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315],"class_list":["post-38407","careerguidepage","type-careerguidepage","status-publish","hentry","category-career-advice-strategy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The end: A cheery final note - imagining your deathbed - 80,000 Hours<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We summarise our entire career guide in one minute.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The end: A cheery final note - imagining your deathbed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We summarise our entire career guide in one minute.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"80,000 Hours\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/80000Hours\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-03T18:24:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/o-EMPTY-HOSPITAL-BED-.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@80000hours\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/\",\"name\":\"The end: A cheery final note - imagining your deathbed - 80,000 Hours\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/o-EMPTY-HOSPITAL-BED-.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-04-24T20:30:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-09-03T18:24:28+00:00\",\"description\":\"We summarise our entire career guide in one minute.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/o-EMPTY-HOSPITAL-BED-.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/o-EMPTY-HOSPITAL-BED-.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/end\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The end: A cheery final note &#8211; 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