Finding the career that suits you to a T is hard. And often, it’s not just the fresh graduates who have a hard time searching. Even experienced workers can feel locked in a job they think is ill-fitted to them. Considering all those years spent in school preparing for a career, it’s a great waste to use up our most productive years flitting from job to job or lingering in a highly detested job because of lack of self-awareness.

But you can stop wasting your time starting today. In fact, no matter what stage of life you’re in-fresh grad, employee, aspiring career changer-you can still find your dream career. How? Use the process of elimination.

Here’s what we’re trying to get at: You may not know exactly what you want, but we’re pretty sure you know what you don’t want, and you can use this dislike factor as a jump-off point to considerably trim your career options down to the most promising ones. Try asking yourself these questions:

1. What activities put me off? If you’re allergic to crunching numbers, this is probably a signal to you to steer clear of computing-heavy careers such as auditing, accounting or statistical research. On the other hand, if you love working with words, you might do well as a reporter, editor or copywriter. Or if discovering opportunities is your thing, try exploring the potentials of working as a brand manager, marketing officer or sales executive.

2. What skills and interests don’t I possess? If you don’t have a keen eye for the arts, attempting to launch a career as an interior designer may prove disastrous. Does the sight of red blood make you green? A career in nursing or medicine may just make you sick. On the other hand, if you love tinkering with nuts and bolts, you could have a great future as a mechanical or electronics engineer.

3. What kind of environment makes me most uncomfortable? If you can’t stand being cooped up in an 8-to-5 workplace, you might rule out working as a bank officer. You could fare better doing sales or field work where you only have to report to the office every once in a while.

4. What kind of human interaction makes you ill at ease? If you don’t fancy the idea of working alone, you should find work thrilling in human resources or press relations, since you’re always in the company of other people. Or do you get a sense of fulfillment in a sharing relationship? In this case, you might be a hit as a trainor, teacher, counselor or social worker.

5. What isn’t important to me? If money is less important to you than righting wrongs, you could opt to be a lawyer in a non-government organization than one in a private firm. Are you enamored with lifelong intellectual growth? Then you would likely gain more satisfaction working in the academic field than in the corporate world.

Continue with this process of elimination, then put together the pieces of information you’ve gathered about yourself to get a better picture of the work you like, the workplace that will encourage you to bloom, and the culture that will suit you best. For example, if you like developing ideas, but hate being office bound, perform best in synergy with other people but abhor the spotlight, you might find you’re in your best element working behind the scenes, say, as a scriptwriter or as an events organizer.