What are career options for highly sensitive people (HSP)?
To help you discover career options for HSP, we asked business owners and thought leaders this question for their best recommendations. From online tutoring to caregiving, there are several good career options for HSP.
Here are 13 careers for HSP:
- Tutor Online
- Create Art
- Write Grants
- Console Others
- Work in Social Services
- Aspire to be Creator
- Manage Public Relations
- Become a Physical Therapist
- Try Teaching
- Consider Psychology
- Guide a Yoga or Meditation Class
- Play Music Professionally
- Care as a Career
Tutor Online
The best career for HSP is the one that allows them to use their full potential without making them overwhelmed. Therefore, online tutoring is a perfect choice. When learning, highly sensitive people can use their incredible empathy and vulnerability to communicate and understand the needs of students.
At the same time, this kind of work doesn’t make them devastated. HSPs’ jobs shouldn’t include making decisions under time or pressure, nor in noisy and crowded places. This kind of person needs a stable and peaceful work environment.
Karolina Zajac, Passport Photo Online
Create Art
Highly sensitive people can thrive as artists. People with such intense feelings often need an artistic way to express themselves, as these feelings can be difficult to communicate verbally. They can be creative through any artistic medium, whether poetry or fine art.
Miles Beckett, Flossy
Write Grants
Highly sensitive people are compassionate, and intuitive and want to make a positive impact on people’s lives. Fundraising is a great outlet for those who have the desire to make a difference. Writing is a great outlet for those who are shy or introverted, which many highly sensitive people are.
Grant writing is a great way to combine those two traits. It’s a motivating and worthwhile career option for any HSP. A successful grant-writing career can also be a lucrative career.
Joel Jackson, Lifeforce
Console Others
People with high sensitivity levels are well-suited to work in the mental health area. They make great counselors or therapists since they have the patience and empathy to assist individuals in working through their problems. Therapists and counselors come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
Family therapists and counselors, for example, assist people in navigating complex relationships, while grief counselors assist people in coping with significant loss. Career counselors assist people in determining their career goals.
Salvador Ordorica, The Spanish Group
Work in Social Services
Social work is a suitable career option for a highly sensitive person. Highly sensitive people are very aware of their own feelings, which makes them empathetic to the feelings of others as well.
Social workers need to truly want to help those in extremely stressful mental, emotional and physical situations. If social workers do not feel compassion towards those in these situations, they will not be as effective.
Drew Sherman, RPM
Aspire to be a Creator
Highly sensitive people can sense things that others cannot. Their observations and perceptions can be more subtle, nuanced, and deeper than others. This makes them excellent at imagining and conceiving—two highly valuable skills in the world of creators.
When you can write, draw, express, curate, or design something with a deeper, more intuitive, and more nuanced approach, you and your personality will thrive, and your peers will feel the benefits of it too.
Hannah Ray, TAKE Coaching Amsterdam
Manage Public Relations
If you’re a highly sensitive person, then explore a career path in public relations or publicity. Your hypersensitivity will make you highly attuned to shifts in sentiment about a person or organization.
You’ll sense when people are ready to attack, or when an idea is about to go viral before other people have a clue. Take advantage of this skill set and put your future clients ahead of the curve.
Dennis Consorte, Snackable Solutions
Become a Physical Therapist
Physical therapy can be an ideal career for highly sensitive people. This career path is ideal for HSP because their strengths include compassion, empathy, emotional intelligence, and a keen awareness of others’ needs.
It is no surprise that HSP becomes physical therapists because they are able to effectively process the pain of others. Consider this career if you are drawn to helping people live better lives.
Gerald Lombardo, The Word Counter
Try Teaching
If you’re a highly sensitive person, it’s important to know that there are careers that will suit your personality. Here are some industries and jobs that might be a great fit for you.
Teaching: If you’re a highly sensitive person, teaching might be a good career option for you, because it allows for flexibility in schedules and environments. You’ll be able to create an environment that helps others learn while also feeling comfortable yourself.
Technical fields: If you’re a highly sensitive person, you may have an aptitude for technical fields like programming, computer science, and engineering. These types of jobs can allow you to work independently and on a schedule that fits your needs.
Counseling: Counseling is another great career option for HSP because it allows them to help others in an environment where they can feel comfortable working with vulnerable clients.
Chad Rubin, Profasee
Consider Psychology
Highly sensitive people might consider a career in psychology. The best psychologists are empathetic, and intuitive and have a strong desire to help others in any way they can. Highly sensitive people tend to have these characteristics and would likely thrive in an environment that quite literally caters to and values their higher levels of compassion and concern.
Careers in psychology also tend to allow for a bit more personal control in terms of where you work, how you work, and what that work environment looks like.
These are really important considerations for highly sensitive people, as things like loud noises, bright lights, and sensory stimulation of any kind can be overwhelming. These are just a couple of the reasons why a career path in psychology would be great for folks who are more sensitive than others.
Gigi Ji, KOKOLU
Guide a Yoga or Meditation Class
Highly sensitive people feel positive and negative emotions more strongly than others. They often understand that accepting different feelings without judgment is essential for our well-being. That’s why highly sensitive people should consider being a yoga instructor as a potential career option.
In that role, they can use their empathy and authenticity to empower those that look for more calmness in their lives. They can teach others how to accept reality as it is, to not compare ourselves to others, and to find joy in little things.
However, not everyone is so physically fit to perform asanas such as Warrior or Eagle Pose. For those people, I recommend considering meditation as a career option.
Meditation teachers can use their compassion to work with people that want to be more present and mindful. In that case, your sensitivity will help you to create meaningful relationships with others and support them in finding peace in their daily activities.
Dorota Lysienia, MyPerfectResume
Play Music Professionally
The best career option for highly sensitive people is to be a professional musician.
Highly sensitive people prefer to work independently, but many enjoy working as a part of a team. They are intuitive and reflective people, and their moods depend on others.
All these qualities make a professional musician a well-suited job for highly sensitive people. You will be happiest in a job where you can pair your professional skills with your empathetic maturity.
A professional musician can communicate deep meaning and emotion through sound. It is something that naturally comes to a highly sensitive individual with musical talent. They can choose many ways to work as a musician, such as a studio musician, singer, songwriter, musical instrument player, a theater producer, and many more.
Shivanshi Srivastava, PaydayLoansUK
Care as a Career
Based on the different attributes of sensitive people, slow-paced career options like caregiving would suit them. Caregiving career options like sociology and psychology require people who have an innate need to offer service to others. Most sensitive people fit that description, which can be attributed to their strong emotional levels.
Sensitive people are also known for their tendency to pay attention to detail. A good psychologist is one who has keen eyes and ears. By being keen, they can easily identify a patient’s problem and offer effective solutions.
Such career options can also offer space, which accommodates the introverted attributes of sensitive people. Space is an important factor for them, as it allows them to dig into their creative side. This allows them to come up with new and better solutions.
Great career options are ones that maximize one’s strengths and abilities. And that is what highly sensitive people should expect when they choose to work as caregivers.
Kevin Muthomi, FastPaydayLoans.co.uk
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