Well, I would say first, don't be afraid that you'll pick the wrong thing. Keep an open mind and research and try different things. Like some others have said, generally avoid the idea of picking something you love, unless that is something that has a good demand/supply ratio of workers. Otherwise you'll be competing with other people who love the same thing, in a race to the bottom in terms of both money and work conditions.

Here are a few things that could help:

There are probably many online articles and websites that provide additional/updated ideas and resources.

Your local public library should have a section with books on the topic of choosing a career. Ask your librarian for help.

If you're still in high school, find out if they offer aptitude testing and other career counseling. If not, check your local community college to find out if they do. Another option that's less accessible (price and distance) but that you may find worthwhile is the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (https://www.jocrf.org/)

Disclaimer: some of this advice is a little United-States focused, but you should be able to generalize it to many other countries.

Honestly? You don't. I was gonna try to be a sysadmin but I'm a product support engineer now. The point being shit doesn't always work out the way you plan. Find something you are interested in, or think about what you truly enjoy doing. For me, it is quite simply the act of helping someone get something done, and fixing various software problems. No matter what job I have, if I can do one or both of those things and make a living I think I'll be happy with it. Hope this helps.

If you end up hating your job just keep looking and find a different company or position. Job satisfaction is so many factors, e.g. how well you get along with your coworkers, how much recognition you get from the higher ups for what you do and so on. The career path you choose now might not affect the outcome that much.

When I figure it out, I'll let you know. It'll have been literally 20 years this August since I graduated and I still don't know what job I want. Got a big long list of jobs I've tried that I don't want tho.

I enjoyed my computer science classes and had a talent for it so I became a software engineer. For the first 5 years of my career, I loved it and it was a core part of my identity. These days, it’s just a job that pays the bills. I’m still good at it and enjoy parts of it but every job is going to have something that annoys you. These days I define myself by my hobbies and friends which are funded by my job.

Obviously, making more than minimum wage is ideal in life. As long as you're doing that, your career choice doesn't have to be something you love more than free Saturdays.

The biggest thing for that to become true is to learn how to save and limit spending. If you make 200k and spend 195k on luxury car leases and other crap, you're doing the same as a person who makes 45k and spends 40k. Yes the person "making more" has those things, but they're just as beholden to their job as the 2nd person, and stuff doesn't make you happy in the end.

On Reddit, I'd normally point ppl to /r/financialindependence but here there is !fire@lemmy.ml which isn't as active.

What are you interested in? What are your hobbies/what are you good at? Do something that involves that field. For me it was technology, I was always into video games and computers growing up in the 90's and by high school I knew I wanted to get into programming. After high school I knew I wanted to go into some form of programming so I went into computer engineering and am now an embedded software engineer. Do you have passion for any particular topic or area of study as a hobby?

Figure out your favorite hobby or whatever makes you feel the most fulfilled/happy. Look for a viable job/career that is related to that. Figure out the path to get into that career.

For me the best way for finding out what job I wanted out of highschool was turning 27. Out of highschool, I thought I wanted to become a teacher. That didn't work out, so I did some years (12) of various blue collar jobs, got married, had children. In the meantime I kept searching for my passion. Eventually I found it in programming. I spend a good 4 years tinkering with it until I eventually decided to go back to school. Now I'm finally loving my job and I'm again back in school trying to get my master.

Don't worry too much about getting 'locked in' to a job, you can always do a career change, it's a lot easier than you think.