I think it’s fair to say that I’ve done quite a lot of personal development over the last ten years or so, trying to figure out who I am and what I’m best at. In doing a million different courses, reading a load of books and having several coaches, I have come across a couple of really good questions that helped me in my quest to pinpoint what my talents and passions are. So I thought I would share these on this blog post.

The first question is “what did you love doing when you were a child?“

I remember really enjoying the projects we did at middle school. We’d have a specific topic to research, and we’d have to put together a book that included written pieces and images, mount each piece of work on coloured paper before putting it all into the final book. (And when I say written, this was before computers, so it was all handwritten!) At the end of it, we had created something.

Similarly I loved writing my summer holiday diaries about our travels around Sweden in a camper van (at least I say now I did – at the time I’m sure I complained about it!). We’d write a couple of pages about what we’d done that day and stick in or draw pictures. Again, creating something tangible.

So the thing I loved doing when I was a child was creating books – diaries or collections of information and stories.

The second question is “what would you do even if nobody paid you for it?“

I should probably be careful in how I answer this one, as people do actually pay me for this (often mixed in with other activities) and I want them to continue to do so! 😁 But seriously, this is a question whose answer has probably evolved over the years and had other layers and context added to it, but still with the same essence behind it.

The first example that springs to mind is when a friend confided in me that she wanted to start a business, and told me about the vision she had for it. My natural instinct was to ask her loads of questions, share all the information and contacts I had that were relevant, and offer to help her if she needed any of my expertise. (She did set up the business, it evolved from the original vision into something else, and she continues to be successfully self-employed.)

And on another occasion, a family member wanted my help “with social media to promote an event”. I knew I didn’t have time to set up and run social media accounts for the event even though it was only for 6 months. But what I did was step back and think about whether social media was the right channel for what they wanted to achieve. So I sat down and wrote some thoughts, which were effectively the basis of a communications strategy. These thoughts enabled them to spot some other opportunities that would achieve their goal more easily than the original social media idea. (And the event went ahead and lots of people heard about it and attended it!)

So the thing I would do even if nobody paid me for it is to take a big, sometimes vague, idea and work out how to make it happen, listing out all the elements to be considered – what I call “untangling” and what others might call planning!

In conclusion

Both of these questions hold all sorts of interesting insights, especially when combined with coaching and other personal development exercises. I should add that it’s taken me many years to see what the answers to these questions actually mean, and even within the last couple of weeks I have had another layer of insights to add to this knowledge.

And also to note – while knowing the answers to these two questions is very helpful in directing where I’m going, they are by no means the definitive end point, and I know this will continue to evolve over time.

Interestingly, you can see that one of the activities above involves creating from my own imagination and experiences. And the other involves taking someone else’s idea and creating a structure around it. So the energy is very different.

But I’ve realised that I do need to do both of these things to feel completely fulfilled in my work and creative life. It’s one of the reasons I continue to be self-employed and to spend time writing this blog as well as working with other people to help them progress their ideas.

What were your answers to these two questions? Have you ever thought about things from this angle before? I’m interested to know whether these are useful.