What to do when you don't know what you're good at
I was looking through my Google Drive the other day and stumbled upon this form where people could send in questions for me to answer when I was actively doing Twitter spaces. I saw this question:
For someone who doesn't have a clear career path and doesn't really know what I'm good at. How do I navigate life after school?
Here’s my attempt to answer that
How to uncover what you’re good at
1. Ask people
Ask the people closest to you questions about how they perceive you, what they think you're great at, what things or skills they associate you with when they think about you, and what they think you are knowledgeable about.
You can use their responses as the start of a self-reflection exercise to examine yourself on the things that people often ask you for help with and the things that you're find yourself helping a lot of people do often.
Doing this will give you a kind of signal into what you're good at. Interestingly, you may not be consciously aware of because it comes so naturally to you so you may not think of it as important.
2. Explore as much as you can
Take the first opportunity that comes your way as long as it doesn’t conflict with your values and morals. That way, you can start filtering your interests to give you a frame of reference for things that you're good at and things that you are not, which will help streamline your opportunity search in the future.
Being in school and not knowing what you're good at typically comes with less pressure, which gives you room to figure things out. In this phase, you can choose to:
Go online, explore things, and look for free or paid courses on anything that remotely sparks your interests
Try your hand at things and see what sticks for you
Go to community meetups and events
Join webinars that are in line with your interests
Learn about things and possibilities that exist
After school, you can also still explore if you don't have a lot of financial responsibilities. You can take your time to explore opportunities and apply to jobs that remotely spark your interest or that align with what you studied at the university.
Explore as much as you can by volunteering, freelancing, taking courses online (free or paid), putting your hand up for any kind of opportunity that you see around you, whether it's full-time freelance or part-time, volunteering. Try even the things you don’t think you’d be good at or like
A lot of people think that you must have your whole life planned out before finishing university but this is not everybody's journey: some people stumble along the way by trying out different things and they find their path in the process.
I started out with writing, social media management, content management, content creation, I wanted to become a therapist, but I stumbled into UX and have been in it for over 7 years.
3. Understand that opportunities are not always a full-time job
Opportunities do not have to be a full-time job, they could look like: An individual looking for someone to work on a project with them or volunteering. Ensure to just put your hat in the ring for it, apply, reach out and ask to be involved even if it's volunteering (if the pay is not an issue for you and you have room to do free work).
Do these things to explore and find things that you're truly interested in because most of the time you don't really know what you're good at until you start doing things, and you can become good at things that you're not “naturally good at” by learning and practice.
Don’t worry too much about a career path, because for most people, their career paths tend to change and shift. Just focus on connecting with people, learning, finding opportunities and putting in your best effort so you continue to open more doors and create more opportunities for yourself.