Right now I’m trying to think of strategies people can use to discover their Skills, Interests, and Goals. The image is from the time I spent thinking about my own path.
Some notes from my current thinking:
Strategies/Exercies for Discovery
Self reflection exercises
Journaling
- Proprioceptive Writing
- To carry out this practice you simply find a place where you will not be disturbed for twenty-five minutes; you light a candle, turn on Baroque music, and place a stack of unlined white paper and a pen in front of you. The candle is meant to create a sacred space for your writing and to help you focus, and Baroque music has been shown to induce the alpha brain frequency, which is the level of mind commonly associated with meditation.
- Morning Pages
- As the name suggests, Morning Pages are to be done in the morning; the waking mind is more open to free-form writing and can more easily jump from one subject to another without the constraints set by reason.
Oblique Strategies – Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt
- Use an old idea. State the problem in words as clearly as possible. Only one element of each kind. What would your closest friend do? What to increase? What to reduce? Are there sections? Consider transitions. Try faking it!Honour thy error as a hidden intention. Ask your body. Work at a different speed.
‘Ideal World’ exercises
Questions for Discovery
What are your skills?
- Simply ask about skills
- Ask about schooling/job skills
What are your interests?
- What excites you right now?
- Try something and react to it – recommend new thing
What are your goals?
- Jobs similar to ones that you want, but are not ones that want.
- How would you describe your ideal work place?
Things I’ve read that are inspiring/informing:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-04/why-people-stay-in-jobs-they-hate
https://www.themuse.com/advice/help-im-stuck-at-a-job-i-hate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/opinion/dalai-lama-behind-our-anxiety-the-fear-of-being-unneeded.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Jessica, I think your multiple approaches to discovering passion could be super effective. Having gone through several stages of this process- I think you’ve identified some valuable tactics that illuminate something worth remembering; discovering one’s passion is first, about learning oneself and secondly, about pushing out the “clutter” of the external world to allow “oneself” to take center stage in one’s internal world. Some questions I frequently asked myself throughout my own journey were, “What did I enjoy doing as a child?” and “What skills are involved in doing [XYZ]?” Interested to see how you would present the above info to a user and how time will factor into your methodology (i.e. Is this going to be a regiment?)