027 Ten (zany) ideas to ignite discovery of your interests

If you find yourself thinking you don’t know what you’re good at, or even what your interests might be, this episode will give you 10 ideas to ignite the discovery of your interests.

 

This episode’s Inspire Me quote comes from master film-maker Stanley Kubrick:

“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”

Leary and Armin discuss the mistake many people make: becoming discouraged because they don’t know what they are good at. That’s the wrong focus. It takes time to become good at something. Instead, the focus should be on discovering your sustainable interests. Then build skills around your interests.

Joining Leary and Armin on this show is Tali Sanderson, a college career counselor, and herself a veteran at seeking to uncover her own sustainable interests. Tali shares her story of the difficulty she’s had in identifying her interests and how that’s affected her.

Leary and Armin discuss the four habits to finding your interests from Episode 14:

1. REFLECTION. Taking time to reflect, pray, and read.
2. SOCIALIZATION. Networking intentionally with others.
3. EXPERIMENTATION. Developing an learning and action oriented mindset.
4. OBSERVATION. Tracking your responses to your experiments.

Leary, Armin and Tali offer 10 ideas (some zany) to ignite discovery of your interests:

1. Ask your friends, and those that know you well, two questions:
   • If you were going to refer someone to me to help them, what would you tell them about why/how I might help them?
   • If you could introduce me to the person in your network that you think would be most interesting for me to meet, who would that be and why?

Or, ask your friends the same questions Tali did.

2. Sign up for Twitter and follow some amazing people. Follow Guy Kawasaki for awhile.
3. Take a class from a community education center, college or university.
4. Take the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory.
5. Download and peruse the NAICS industry classification code list from the Census department.
6. Browse a bookstore or library magazine rack.
7. Go on a blog tour by signing up to receive posts from people you find interesting on the internet.
8. Shadow someone on their job.
9. Take a missions trip with your church or another missions agency.
10. Find a Yellow Pages (hardcover issue) and scan through it to find descriptions that pop out at you.

The Challenge Me for this episode is to pick one of the ideas above, or make up your own, and do it. Please leave us a comment below to let us know what you tried.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

• How to cultivate your personal vision, Episode 14 of Reinventure Me.
• How reading can lead to your next great beginning, Episode 23 of Reinventure Me.
• How to network like a pro, Episode 16 of Reinventure Me.
• How your mindset affects your next great beginning, Episode 4 of Reinventure Me.
• Why now is the best time to start journaling, Episode 24 of Reinventure Me.