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There are probably at least a dozen professions that would each be just as right for you as another. So don't imprison yourself with the notion that there's one thing you're made for, and if you can't do that it's not worth bothering.

Don't think you have to know what you're going to do by the end of the final year of university. If needs be, take the year afterwards to experiment, but don't just bum around. Make it your business to learn about the various work-options that might suit you. Actively investigate various possibilities by taking a work placement somewhere, everywhere!

Have a thorough, in-depth review of what you've done in your life, and what you've wanted to do. Be totally honest with yourself. It is vital to know what you don't like, just as much as what you do, so don't regret even the 'miserable' experiences.

The really clever thing is to arrange it so that the world rewards you with money, gratititude and a good reputation for those things that you want to do anyway.

You can set out to do whatever you want, as long as you understand two things. 1) you're going to have to be extremely proactive. 2) You might not make it.

There are certain fields in which you can more easily work towards and predict a certain level of success, but in these arenas perhaps the potential fianancial and public rewards are less than in a more risky profession. Which would best meet your other requirements from life?

There's no glory in embarking upon a high-risk profession if you've no desperate urge for the lifestyle it promises.

You might want constant change and adventure from a job, or you might prefer security and stability because you've got a great place to live and great friends within driving distance. And, of course, all of this might change in 6 months time as new experiences develop your needs and horizons.

Of the many tens of thousands of would-be books that are written in Britain each year, only a few hundred get published and only a few dozen make just enough money so that the author can concentrate full-time on their writing. In Britain, no more than a dozen writers get rich on it. Very few people make a reasonable living as book writers of any sort, very few people. The odds are awful: literally a thousand to one against of being published successfully. Same goes for painters and sculptors and musicians and actors and other creative artists and performers. You'll be your own best friend if you consider very carefully whether full-time pursuit of your artistic passion is the only thing you want to do with your youth. Why not deploy all that inventive creativity to make another equally satisfying life for yourself, and save your artistic self-expression for evenings, weekends and long vacations? That would still leave the possibility that things could take off.

Impressions of what a particular industry or a company is like, are very often false. Parents, friends and teachers can often be wrong or just out of date in their views of what a particular world is really like. There is usually a place to suit a wide variety of personalities within any one organisation, and it's a question of exploring them. Challenge your prejudices by talking to people who actually do the job everyday, and by experiencing the environment first hand. Internships, which offer 2 or 3 months work experience within a company, are invaluable opportunities for you to see the organisation and for them to see you.

There may be a lot more choices out there than once there were, but that doesn't make your choices any easier to achieve in reality. You'll still have to earn them, and probably step by step, rather than in one fell swoop.

Beware those professions where you think you would rather like the image, but maybe the doing the job day to day wouldn't be so hot. And if you won't enjoy the training, it's unlikely you'll enjoy the profession. Seek out those things that you suspect you would love to do for their own sake before any consideration of the image or the public rewards.

Film-making seems great until you've hung around a cold set all day for a ten-second shot that ends up on the cutting room floor, and you have to do the same thing four weeks running. One in fifty hopeful producers and directors end up making dozens of documentaries or movies, while the other forty-nine spend most of their careers making corporate training videos or, if they finally get lucky, TV commercials for toilet paper. Just as it is with most of the artistic professions, you're either a star or you're nothing at all.

If you like performing to an attentive audience, that could make you a good teacher, a barrister, an actor, or a sales executive, yet each of these professions offers quite different styles of life and a sense of who and what you are.

Look for those activities or a career that you could take pride in saying you do: not just what you do, but how you do it. Doing a good job has its own invisible rewards. Earn your living doing something that you thoroughly enjoy for its own sake before any consideration of the social status or salary or approval that you hope it might afford you.

Raw enthusiasm isn't enough on its own; you've got to have a sense of direction. Find yourself a path that you could put your whole heart into. You don't need to give your future goal a 6-figure compass reference, but it helps to decide that you are going this way, rather than that.

Give things a proper try-out: that means a try-out that's long enough to include all the pains and pressures as well as the pleasures.

Identify your 'unusual features', your differences, and make these work for you. Make them a strength and explore and mine them. Let your uniqueness be your competitive advantage.

Ask yourself, 'Do I know what my capabilities are? Where does my potential lie?' That's not to say that's what you'll do, or that's what you'll do for the next 10 years, but at least it's a good base to build upon.

Whatever you do, do it well. Doing things well brings a great sense of satisfaction, no matter that it's cleaning your bathroom or building a company.

Make a niche for yourself. Find a job, a place, and make it yours.

Your mum and dad only want you to become a lawyer, a dentist, a medical doctor or an accountant, because they know too well how painful it is to be broke, and they want you to have a secure source of income. But in tomorrow's world, there will be many new ways, if as yet little known ways, to make a very good living. It's up to you to hunt these out.

My parents didn't know that they didn't know how the working world was changing or had already changed from the one they grew up in. They didn't know that their prejudices as to what was or wasn't a worthy career ambition, were dangerously out of date.

Many young people are worried about disappointing their parents, but this means their choices for action are dictated by their parents' values rather than their own.

Just because one can become a Wimbledon Champion or Business Tycoon through absolute dedication, this doesn't mean one should.

Be brave enough to take a year out after university to shape your ideas, and to investigate a range of companies and industries. But don't try this exploration near your home or where you went to university. You need new ideas and perspectives, and creating physical distance from those familiar places and people is really the only way to achieve that.

It is estimated that in 16 years time, the microchip will be 1,000 times more powerful than it is today. How do you imagine that will effect daily life, the working world, and your part in it?

Dare to consider what the zeitgeist is, and what soicety will be crying out for in just a year or two's time. Five years ago mobile phones weren't that big a deal. Two years ago, the web was just emerging. What's next?

Our world is changing so rapidly that you can't predict or follow a blueprint of how to conduct your life, you have to be prepared to adapt, and to know how to adapt.

The amount and intensity of practice is a key determinant of whether an individual reaches national or international status in their chosen field. It has been estimated that what is usually required is perhaps 70 or 80 hours per week for at least 10 years or more to have a chance of reaching international standing in most fields, no matter if the field be predominantly intellectual or physical. The indivdiual might do well to consider whether 10 years or more of focused commitment to achieve expertise in a single arena may not produce a level of overall satisfaction from life that can compete with the total sum of satisfaction derived from even moderate achievements in several domains of activity, professional and extra-curricular.

It can be painful to realise that sometimes even your best friends don't always want to help you get where you're going, simply because they don't want to lose you.

The greatest influence on our everyday choices, behaviour and expectations is the real-life examples in our immediate vicinity. This is why we need to brush shoulders with a whole host of different worlds.