Did you catch the Myers-Briggs Facebook quiz going around? I’m a sucker for these sorts of personality tests. I think I’ve done every personality and aptitude test available to mankind… and all the silly cosmo quizes too. Not that I’m any wiser for it!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Like many other new graduates, after finishing high school, I was confused about what I wanted to do with my life and I didn’t want to take on a whopping student loan doing something just for the sake of it (I shared a bit about this when Alex interviewed me on his blog, Someday Syndrome). So I took a year off, to explore and decide. I say “took a year off” because that’s how it’s referred to in my family (mostly because my dad didn’t know how to explain what I was doing to his mates at work!). Here’s what I did on my “year off:”

• Part-time, year-long Introduction to Art Therapy Course (weekly evening classes).
• Ran my clothing business (I sold my hand-painted T-shirts at weekend craft markets).
• Two 4-week trips to Namibia (one was to run a leadership development group, and the other was as a mentor and “mommy” to school girls on a school tour.)
• Job-shadowed at a screen-printing company.
• Attended a variety of short art workshops run by a variety of art schools.
• Worked as a sales associate in my mother’s toy shop.
• Worked in 3 different waitressing jobs.
• Oh, and I did all of that in spite of suffering from depression (as a result of all the pressure I was placing myself under… obviously!)

By the time the end of the year was nearing, and I still hadn’t decided what I wanted to be when I grew up, I went to see a career counselor at the local university, and we did an aptitude test. Mine said I’d be good working with animals. Go figure…

How we lose touch with what we love

These days I’m doing exactly what I love doing. In my Resource Mining sessions, I often work with people on the whole thing of “what do I want to be when I grow up?” and I see other young (and mature) people all placing themselves under immense pressure to figure out what they want to do with their lives. And I notice all sorts of limiting beliefs popping up, getting them stuck:

• There is only one thing I’m meant to do, and I have to find that one thing (rather than being free to be awesome at many things).
• My one thing was predestined for me, so I have to find it (rather than just choose it or make it up because it doesn’t exist yet.)
• I have to do something related to all the skills and knowledge I’ve already developed, otherwise that investment was wasted (rather than just moving into doing what you’d love to do right now, regardless of what you invested into in the past).
• I have to find the right work environment to suit my personality and skills, which means doing aptitude and personality tests to find out what my personality qualities and skills are, and then searching for the work environment that perfectly matches it (rather than realizing that I can probably be happy, learn and make my contribution just about anywhere, I can shape new environments around what I love, and happiness and success is more about who I’m BEING than what I’m DOING)
• And that’s before we even get into all the limiting beliefs about whether you can get paid to do what you love, whether you deserve to get paid for doing what you love, whether there’s enough money for you, etc…

How to reconnect with what you love

As far as I’m concerned, we don’t need personality tests and aptitude tests (as fun as they might be to do), because we have the only test we need: our own bodies and our emotions. We can rationalize our way in and out of just about anything, but our bodies and emotions never lie.

Just relax and stop and notice what your body feels like when you think of doing a particular activity. If it feels tense, trapped and confined, then it’s probably not your thing. If it feels relaxed, expansive and free, then go for it, baby! Keep checking in with your body, “What does this feel like?” and moving towards what makes you feel more free. Ignore your chatty mind – it’ll only come up with stuff about what the “right” thing to do is, what other people will think, what would be a good or bad investment, why your dreams will never work out… Your body will take you to what you love most.

Find out through experience

You can only truly know what you love by experiencing it. If you’re telling yourself you’d love to do something, and you’ve never done it before, then that’s just a fantasy, a story you’ve made up about what it would be like to do that thing. It might not be like that at all. So, if you’re not sure what you’d love, then pick some stuff you think you’d like and go and experience it for yourself, in the real-world. You’ll either confirm that you love it (yay!) or you’ll realize you don’t love it and be free to move on to something else, having learned a bunch of stuff about that thing and yourself (yay!). You’ve got nothing to lose.

That’s how I came to be doing what I love. I gave up trying to find the one perfect career and work environment that supposedly matched my aptitudes and started listening to myself and doing what I most want to do right now, continuously asking myself, “What else would I love to do now?” and moving towards that.

You can do anything you want

The only aptitude test result that I’ve ever heard of that I thought was spot-on is the one my husband got when he did one after finishing high school. The psychologist told him, “The test results say you can do anything you want to do.”

Which got me thinking… wouldn’t it be cool to set up a career advice station, and give people tests to complete, and then tell everyone, “Your test results say that you can do anything you want to.” Imagine the freedom we could bring into the world!

Get the Bottom-line on the Work We Were Born To Do

On 1 October I’ll be releasing the Bottom-line on Nick William’s powerful book, “The Work We Were Born To Do.” If this post resonated with you, you’ll LOVE this Bottom-line!

In this Bottom-line, I explain more about the role of our beliefs and how to free yourself from social conditioning and limiting assumptions about work Tim Ferriss-style, I share some secrets for creating work that you love, I’ll show you how to know whether you need to change your job or just change the way you think in your job in order to be happy, and I’ll show you how to become more comfortable with change – a crucial skill for thriving in the world of work today.

Sign up before 1 October, and you’ll get two Bottom-lines in your first month: you’ll get the Bottom-line on Adam Jackson’s “The Flipside” immediately and you’ll get the Bottom-line on “The Work We Were Born To Do” on 1 October.

Within the next month I’ll be launching a full new website and membership site for the Bottom-line Bookclub. I’ll be making the Bottom-lines available to purchase individually, and I’ll be adding a Premium Membership level, with lots of value adds from the feedback I’ve been getting. Those of you who are already members before I launch the new site will be upgraded to the Premium membership (which will have a higher price point), but you’ll get to keep your current membership rate for life.

Click here to join the Bottom-line Bookclub

Photo by Kristina K Dymond.

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