What Your Interests Are
According to Collins, if you are going to do great work, you need to have a passion for it. In this article, I’ve toned the first circle down from passions to interests to help you avoid overwhelm. In my opinion, an interest is enough since it can blossom into a passion if you get really, really good at it.
To figure out what belongs in this circle, you can ask yourself questions like:
What did I spend time doing as a kid?
What activities absorbs me so much that I forget to eat and sleep?
If money wasn’t an issue, what would I spend my time doing?
What You’re Good At
Next, you need to consider what strengths and skills you currently possess. This can be a bit tricky since they’re usually so natural to you that you don’t even consider it a strength or skill. Here are some helpful exercises:
Take a personality test. For example, the Myers-Briggs or Big Five.
Take a character strengths test. For example, the VIA survey.
E-mail the people closest to you. Ask them what they consider your biggest strengths and skills to be, and why.
Ask yourself what people tend to ask you for advice about.
What the World Will Pay You For
Finally, you need to combine what you love to do, and what you’re good at with the needs of the world. Ask yourself:
How can my unique interests and strengths can be used in the marketplace?
What jobs does best match my interests and strengths?
What problems can I solve that people are willing to pay for?
Finding Your Hedgehog
Note that having only two of the areas overlapping is a problem:
If you combine interests and skills, but there’s no demand what you have is most likely a hobby.
If you combine interests and demand but have no matching skills or strengths, it’ll probably be hard to get so good they can’t ignore you.
If you combine skills and demand but have no interest, you’ll probably end up with a job you don’t like and risk getting burned out.
Finding your hedgehog usually requires some pretty hard work and deep reflection. But when you find it, you have a very powerful position to start working on getting so good that they can’t ignore you.
And when you do that, when you start to work consistently toward getting better at what you do every day, it’s only a matter of time before you find meaningful and fulfilling work.
And that’s a pretty damn beautiful place to be.
How to Figure Out What to Do With Your Life, In Summary:
The Passion Hypothesis (find your passion and pursue it) is flawed advice that leads to overwhelm, confusion, and frustration.
The Craftsman Mindset (get so good they can’t ignore you) helps you sidestep these obstacles by focusing on becoming valuable.
Therefore: Don’t ask yourself what the world can do for you. Ask yourself what you can do for the world.
The Hedgehog Concept can help you figure out the ONE thing you should offer to the world.
Your hedgehog lives where your interests and skills overlap with what the world is willing to pay for.
If this article has got you thinking, it’s time to get out your journal and get to work. The world is waiting for you to offer your unique strengths to it. How will you become so good we can’t ignore you?
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