It’s great if you love doing hair—or nails, or skin care—but you don’t have to be good at it. Not yet, anyway. Improving your technical skills is what you’ll be doing the whole time you’re in cosmetology school. So think about the rest of your life skills, because beauty school graduates have a lot of options and it will help you to narrow them down if you’ve given it some thought.

Maybe in high school you were an athlete. That takes a lot of discipline. As a runner, member of the tennis team, gymnast or softball player you understand in every fiber of your being what goal-setting and practice are all about. You don’t start out hitting home runs. But you set your goals, practice that one skill over and over and soon you’re making progress. You also understand that the path has no end. There’s always room for improvement.

Or maybe you’re very good with puzzles or mechanics. You enjoy figuring out how things go together. That takes a lot of patience and trial-and-error, which could translate into becoming a terrific hair colorist, since you have to come up with the right formula for each client’s color and texture. Identify all the abilities you have, and then consider what personal qualities it takes to be good at those tasks. It will help you in choosing which beauty school classes to take and which cosmetology career direction to follow.