What do your interests say about you?
What are your interests? What do you find yourself thinking, talking, or reading about in your spare time?
Whatever they are, maybe you should be paying a little more attention to them.
Back when I was desperately trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I spent all my free time reading self-help books and blogs. I thought if I just did enough journalling exercises, I'd stumble across the right path. Maybe you've been there, too.
When I wasn’t reading books with titles like Finding Your Own North Star (an A+ read, by the way), I was checking out books on neuroscience and psychology. I was also weirdly drawn to marketing blogs, even though I didn’t have a “thing” I was trying to market at the time.
In retrospect, it’s kind of surprising that it took me as long as it did to figure it out.
I'm sure you've guessed the big reveal already:
Eventually, I realized that nothing made me happier than thinking and talking about...what makes people happy. Where they get stuck. Why they do the things they do.
From there, I just had to connect the dots to find a way to do that as a living.
So, let me ask you:
- What interests could you spend all day doing or talking/thinking about?
- Where are you already spending your free time, attention, and energy?
- If you woke up tomorrow with no responsibilities, how would you spend your day? (Let’s assume you’re already well-rested and don’t need to catch up on sleep.)
- If you could become an expert on anything, what would it be?
I’m not saying that your answers to these questions are The Answers to what you should be doing with your life. But they might have some valuable clues you’re overlooking. Maybe your love of legos will reveal something deep and profound about yourself!
Hint: watch out for thoughts like, "But isn't everybody interested in [X]?" or "[Y] is just a dumb thing I'm into, there's no way I can make a career out of it." Give your inner critic a rest and let yourself be curious about what comes up. Let me know how it goes!
If you'd like some help sifting through the data, sign up for a chat. As you already know, talking about this kind of stuff is my happy place. Who knows what we might discover together?
Image credit: freeimages.com/Terry Eaton