The book I’m going to discuss today is titled How to Find What You Want to Do.
When people hear the title, many might initially think it’s a book aimed at young students or recent graduates. However, that’s not the case. As the book puts it: “No matter who you are, if you want to turn your work into a career you love, you can effectively use the methods introduced in this book.” For instance, people who want to change careers after a few years of work, those in midlife facing career bottlenecks, people returning to the workforce after a break, or those contemplating entrepreneurship, job switching, or freelancing can all benefit from this book.
Whether it’s job searching, starting a business, or switching careers, from the perspective of one’s life, these are merely tools to help you achieve what you truly want to do.
Therefore, finding and defining what you truly want to do becomes very important. Often, we believe that success is primarily about perseverance, about “enduring hardship to be superior,” and so we grit our teeth and keep going, even when it’s not a good fit. But if we closely observe those who are consistently successful, we find that they are almost always running toward their passion. Of course, they work hard, but in their hard work, they aren’t merely persevering through difficulty—they are enthusiastic and excited.
Financial scholar Xiang Shuai once mentioned that, in the face of the AI wave, many people feel that mature work patterns in human society may be easily broken by tools like large language models. So, how should we leverage the advantages of humans?
Xiang Shuai quoted a line from The Naval Bible that gave her a moment of insight. It says: “When it comes to being yourself, no one does it better than you.”
So, what does it mean to “be yourself”? It means doing what comes naturally to you, what you’re interested in, and what easily leads to positive feedback. Only when we engage in such activities do we become excited, generate dopamine, and continue to express our human agility and creativity.
In today’s discussion, you will learn how to find a “path to being yourself” through three filters: what you love, what you’re good at, and what is important.
This path is called the “Self-Awareness Method” in the book. The creator of this methodology, and the author of the book, is Jinpei Yagi, who graduated from Waseda University in Japan. After graduation, he struggled with feelings of depression due to not finding meaning in his job search. To find what he truly wanted to do, he started to dive into extensive research and literature.
The surprising thing is that this process didn’t feel difficult at all. In fact, the more he researched, the more excited he became. He gradually realized that what he truly wanted to do was to explore the human inner world and share his discoveries with others.
Since then, he has focused on self-awareness and published his methods on his blog. The response was overwhelming, with a total of 26 million views. He now runs his own career consulting company, helping over 200 university students and professionals every year find what they truly want to do.
Before we begin explaining the “Self-Awareness Method” in this book, we first need to address some common misconceptions about “finding what you want to do.”
If you get stuck in these misconceptions, even if you put effort into finding what you want to do, the direction you take will still be wrong. Over the years, the author has found that many people fall into these traps. Some people naturally find what they want to do simply by getting out of these misconceptions.
The first misconception is that “what you want to do” must be something you can stick with for your whole life.
Some people discover something they’re passionate about and confidently say, “I’ve found what I want to do for the rest of my life.” Or they use the standard of “a lifelong career” to determine what they want to do.
But both of these ideas are wrong. While perseverance is a virtue, the keyword in today’s world is “change.” The iPhone was only introduced a little over a decade ago, and just three years ago, very few people had heard of ChatGPT. In such a rapidly changing era, being overly fixated on just one thing to do for the rest of your life can actually be a risk for survival.
When it comes to survival strategies in an era of change, a better approach than long-termism is to “dance with opportunities,” adapt to societal changes, and live flexibly. The mindset we should have is that, if I clearly know what I want to do right now, then I should be brave and go for it. But this doesn’t mean that what I want to do won’t change in a few years. If my interests shift, then it’s okay to switch fields—your experience in your previous field will still help you in the next thing you choose to pursue.
So, don’t think that what you want to do must be something you can stick with for your whole life. The reality is, just doing what you want to do right now is enough. The most dangerous thing is not having anything you want to do, living a life of aimlessness and emptiness. If every day you wake up to do what you truly want to do, you’ll never grow bored of it. In terms of the outcome, you will have indeed spent your life doing what you want to do.
The next misconception is that when you find “what you want to do,” you will have a sense of “destiny,” thinking that “when the feeling comes, you’ll just know you’ve found it.” This is another cognitive misunderstanding.
There’s an interesting metaphor in the book: finding what you want to do is actually like arranged marriage. What we’re looking for shouldn’t be that intense, love-at-first-sight, “thunder strikes and the earth trembles” feeling. Instead, it should be about finding something or someone that excites you and interests you, and then starting to explore and interact. Through continuous engagement and adjustment, you’ll gradually confirm if this is the right fit for you.
If you’re constantly searching for that “destined” feeling, there are several potential pitfalls:
- You might miss out on something that actually suits you very well.
- Even if you find someone you think is “destined” for you, during the process of getting to know them, if your expectations are too high, any slight dissatisfaction may cause you to feel disillusioned and think you’ve failed.
- If you initially think it’s “destined” and that you and the other person are a perfect match, you may fail to put in the effort to nurture the relationship. Thinking, “After all, we’re meant to be,” can lead to complacency, which is very dangerous for the relationship.
Similarly, thinking that “there must be a destined job for me” is like believing “there must be a destined love.” This mindset is also dangerous. There’s no such thing as a job that makes you happy in every way. Every job will have its inconvenient or unpleasant parts. At those times, patience and effort become crucial.
Managing your relationship with your career is much like managing your relationship with a partner. While there will often be tasks you have to do, you need to figure out how to find joy in them and work through them. This is a part of the journey.
So, what the book helps us discover is not necessarily a “destined” job, but rather something we can accept from our inner selves—something we have personally explored and want to pursue.
The next misconception, which is one of the biggest obstacles when finding what you want to do, is the feeling that your passion or interests might not be something that can turn into a job.
For example, some people might say: “I love board games, I love singing, I love playing games, I love reading novels, but none of these can make money.”
First, the misconception here is that we are simply equating “what we love” with “what we want to do.” Later, we’ll talk about how “what you want to do” is not necessarily the same as “what you love.”
Second, we must remember that nothing exists in isolation from society. What you want to do may reside within you, but the means to achieve it are always connected to society. When we apply the framework we’re about to discuss, you’ll see that it’s something connected to society, not just a fleeting daydream.
This thinking framework is a formula: What you truly want to do = What you love × What you’re good at × What is important to you. We’ll go into detail about each of these three components later. But first, let’s take a look at the formula as a whole.
The “multiplication” here actually means finding the intersection. You can imagine the three components—what you love, what you’re good at, and what is important to you—as three circles. When you overlap these three circles, the intersection in the middle is what you truly want to do.
The author mentions that he once read over 300 books on psychology and self-analysis, but he never found a book that comprehensively covered the three pillars of what you love, what you’re good at, and what is important to you. Most books only focus on one or two of these pillars, which is incomplete.
The significance of this thinking framework is that it helps us find what we truly want to do based on logic, not just intuition. Many people feel that finding what you truly want to do depends on luck or feeling. However, I believe that one of the most important aspects of this book is that it reminds us that this is actually a process that can be systematized and standardized. By following this formula, almost anyone can find one or more things they truly want to do.
Looking further, these three pillars represent what, how, and why. First, what you love represents your passion, which corresponds to what—the “what” of what you want to do. Next, what you’re good at represents your talents, which determines how—how you do what you want to do. Finally, what is important to you represents your values, which corresponds to why—why you do it. Once we understand what, how, and why, our true calling will become clear.
For example, to illustrate using the author’s own experience: In his process of discovering what he truly wanted to do, he found his passion—he wanted to explore and understand the inner workings of the human mind. His talent lies in information integration and communication—he’s very good at writing articles and often receives positive feedback on his blog. His value system is that people should pursue lives they love, while also contributing to the world. Thus, he identified his true calling: to use his blog to share the insights he gained from studying and exploring the human mind, helping others find what they truly want to do and embrace life.
What you love × What you’re good at × What is important to you—this intersection formula not only helps you sift through the many possible life paths, but also helps you filter the right companies when job hunting or switching careers.
You can think of these three components as three filters. When faced with multiple choices and indecision, you can ask yourself: Does it ignite my passion? Does it leverage my talents? Does it align with my values? After filtering through these three questions, the answer will become clear.
Moreover, by clearly defining these three questions, we can be more focused and confident during interviews. In interviews, the questions we commonly face can usually be addressed from these three perspectives. For example: Why choose this industry? This corresponds to your passion—what you love. How do you plan to succeed in this role? This relates to your talents—what you’re good at. Why choose this company? This corresponds to your values—what is important to you. When these three questions are combined, they can form a thoughtful and compelling self-presentation.
Therefore, the three pillars—what you love, what you’re good at, and what is important to you—not only help us better understand ourselves but also help us better express ourselves, making it easier to succeed in job hunting or career transitions.
Now, let’s delve into how to identify each of these three pillars.
When many people think about what they want to do, their first reaction is to consider what they love. However, in the application of this self-awareness thinking framework, what you love should not be considered first—it should come last. We should filter what we truly want to do in the order of “What is important” → “What you are good at” → “What you love.” Start with “What is important,” meaning your work’s purpose and your values.
Previously, when we discussed Start with Why by Simon Sinek, we mentioned that if you want to convince others quickly, you shouldn’t follow the sequence of “What is it” → “How to do it” → “Why.” Instead, you should start with “Why.” Coincidentally, finding what you truly want to do should follow the same order. First, confirm “Why,” which means understanding your values. Because doing something aligned with your values will keep you motivated, while doing something that conflicts with your values will make you dislike yourself more and more. Therefore, values are the first filter in our process of selection.
What are values? For example, contributing to the world, experiencing new things, living a colorful life, having a happy family, maintaining growth, living in the present, living a minimalist lifestyle, fully utilizing your potential, and so on—all of these are values.
Each value has an internal aspect directed toward yourself, as well as an external aspect directed toward others and society. For instance, the author’s value is to love life. When it comes to his internal self, this determines his life’s purpose: to always be someone who loves life. Externally, in terms of others or society, it shapes his work purpose: to help more people love life.
He believes that the happiest and most valuable time is when doing what you are passionate about, so he wants the people around him to experience the same. After work, whenever he sees that, through his help, clients have found what they truly want to do and rediscovered their love for life, he feels immense satisfaction.
So, how do we find our values? Again, logic—not intuition—can guide us. The book offers some questions we can ask ourselves, which can serve as crutches during this process.
For example: Who are the people or figures you respect? What aspects of them do you admire or like?
Another question: If you were to give life advice to your children or closest friends, what would you most want to tell them? What would you least want to tell them? What you most want to tell them actually reflects your values, while what you least want to tell them reveals the opposite of your values.
Furthermore, you can ask the people around you: “What do you think I value most in life?” Often, it’s hard to see ourselves clearly, but others may have a clearer perspective. You may already be living in accordance with your values without even realizing it. At this point, the feelings of others can serve as a great mirror to help reflect your inner self.
During this process of clarifying your values, it’s important to distinguish between “true values” and “false values.” Often, external forces like parents or society impose values they deem correct upon us, leading us to live according to others’ expectations, believing “I should live this way.” But these are not your “true values”; they are “false values.”
The author once worked with a client whose parents had always taught him that he had to keep progressing. So, when he grew up, he applied this standard—”I must grow”—to everything, including his job search. Even when exhausted, he would push through for the sake of growth. The author asked him if he truly wanted to grow, and he responded, “I feel like I have to grow.”
Here’s the key: “Must” or “should” grow is likely not a heartfelt desire but a false value imposed from the outside.
Later, the client realized that what he truly wanted was a life full of novelty and continuous discoveries. This was the life he loved, and it turned out to be his true value. So, the key to distinguishing between “true values” and “false values” is to ask yourself: “Is this something I want to do, or is it something I should do?”
If your answer is “I should” or “I must,” then it’s probably an expectation from others, not something you truly want. Even if you pursue it, you may regret it in the future.
Additionally, we need to pay attention to distinguishing between values centered around others and values centered around yourself. For example, values like “wanting to be rich” or “wanting to be respected” are typically centered around others. Whether you’re respected or how much money the world is willing to give you are things beyond your control. Making these the center of your values is like trying to control the weather—it will only lead to anxiety and unhappiness.
What we need to do is shift these “other-centered” values to “self-centered” values. The specific approach is to ask yourself deeper questions. For example, if you want to be rich, why? Because being rich would mean you don’t have to work and can have plenty of time for yourself. Then, what would you do with all that time? You might want to experience new things you’ve never experienced before. Would being rich be the only way to do this? No, it’s not. Therefore, your true value is to experience a life full of excitement and novelty.
Another example: If you want to be famous, why? Because you want to be respected. Why do you want to be respected? Because others will value and accept you. Why do you want that? Because it will make you happy and feel good. Can you achieve this without fame? Yes, you can. So, your true value is to have a happy life and a good sense of self.
This is how you can transform uncontrollable, other-centered values into controllable, self-centered values.
Now, let’s talk about how to find what you are good at.
When it comes to identifying things we’re good at, our first reaction might be to think of skills or talents that are often praised by others, such as musical ability, athleticism, or artistic talent. However, being good at something isn’t necessarily about those things. It refers to things that you do naturally and effortlessly, often without thinking, and are good at doing.
For example, you might be someone who is highly action-oriented and immediately acts on ideas; or someone who is especially sensitive to other people’s feelings; or someone who is eloquent and articulate; or perhaps you always strive to work more efficiently, and so on. These mental or behavioral habits are the things that we’re good at.
Because of this, what we’re good at is often not as easy to pinpoint as we think. Many times, it has become a subconscious habit, just like how we breathe naturally or eat with our mouths and write with our hands. So, we need to spend time reflecting on our behaviors and identify what we are truly good at.
Here are a few questions we can ask ourselves to help:
- What successes have you achieved in the past? How did you do it?
We don’t need to list all of our past successes; we only need to capture the ones that come to mind first or those that left the strongest impression. We can then reflect on how we achieved those successes. - If you were to resign tomorrow, is there any part of your previous job that you would miss?
That part might be something that comes naturally to you or something you excel at doing. - What do your close friends or family think your strengths are?
This is the question we mentioned earlier. Sometimes, the people around us can see our strengths more clearly than we can ourselves. - What’s the most frustrating or irritating thing that has happened to you recently?
Why does recalling things that make us angry or irritated help us discover our strengths? Because, many times, we feel frustrated with others when we think, “How can they not even do something so simple?” For example, the author has a friend who is very good with words and can easily charm others at the dinner table. After one meal, this friend said, “Look at Xiao Gang—he clearly has no ability to control the conversation, yet he keeps telling boring jokes and bringing up awkward topics. It’s so frustrating.” This friend felt this way because he himself could easily tell funny jokes or start interesting conversations at the table, so he was irritated by others not being able to do the same. Another example: Some people might say, “I just can’t stand people who can’t pick up on changes in others’ emotions.” If someone says this, it’s likely because they themselves have a strong sense of empathy.
So, when we get irritated or angry at something someone else is doing, it’s often because it’s something we can do effortlessly but they can’t. This can be a valuable window into discovering what we are good at.
Now, let’s talk about how to find what you enjoy doing.
There’s a common misconception here: if I like something, I should pursue a career in that field. For example, if I like painting, I should work in a gallery; if I like fishing, I should go into the fishing gear business; if I like playing the piano, I should become a piano teacher.
The serious risk here is that the core of what you like may not align with the core of the job you choose.
For instance, someone might have loved baseball since childhood, and his first instinct is to become a professional baseball player. If he’s good at it, great, but unfortunately, his skill level is only above average, making it difficult to become a professional player. So, he decides to find a job related to baseball. He ends up becoming a salesperson for baseball equipment, thinking that he’s finally working in the field he loves and will be happy. However, this job ends up being miserable for him. Although he loves playing baseball, he doesn’t enjoy sales. The core of his job is sales, not baseball.
Therefore, if we only focus on the field of something we like without considering the core of the job itself, we might end up in this kind of failure scenario. The solution is to deeply ask ourselves: Why do I like this thing? What specific aspect or element do I enjoy?
For example, if you like baseball, try to reflect on what specifically you enjoy about it. Maybe you like teamwork, or maybe it’s the thrill of competition, or the strategic thinking involved in the game. These are the key elements we should focus on when searching for a job, rather than just the field itself.
In general, when turning what we enjoy into a job, we should not only consider the field but also understand which specific aspects make us happy or excited.
To help with finding what you truly enjoy, here’s a list of questions that might be useful:
- Is there something you would pay to learn, even if it costs money?
- In your past experiences, have you ever encountered something or a field that made you feel “saved” by it?
- In your life so far, is there anyone or any job you’d like to thank?
For example, the author mentions that the person he most wants to thank is a teacher who once guided him. He believes that teacher shaped his life and helped him discover his passion and interest in the field of education.
These questions can help uncover deeper insights into the things we truly enjoy and provide guidance in aligning our work with what we love.
Alright, once we’ve clarified the important things, the things we’re good at, and the things we enjoy, we can use them to figure out what we truly want to do.
First, eliminate any things from your list of things you enjoy and are good at that obviously don’t align with your values or the life you want to pursue.
Next, combine the things you like with the things you’re good at. To illustrate, let’s take the author as an example: he enjoys researching self-awareness, playing board games, and fashion. He’s good at constantly learning new things, organizing and explaining information, and helping others with language.
After listing these, you can match the three things you enjoy with the things you’re good at. By doing so, you’ll find various possible career paths.
For example:
- If you enjoy exploring self-awareness and are good at learning new things, you might become a researcher studying self-awareness.
- If you enjoy exploring self-awareness and are good at helping others with language, you might become someone who teaches others how to explore their self-awareness.
- If you like board games and are good at learning new things, you might become a board game developer.
- If you like board games and are good at organizing and explaining information, you could become a board game commentator.
- If you enjoy fashion and are good at learning new things or helping others with language, you might become a fashion designer or fashion consultant, and so on.
Once you’ve generated a list of possible career paths, the next step is to use the important things — that is, your values — to filter out what you truly want to do.
Going back to the author’s example: he believes the purpose of his work is to inspire more people to love life. So, he decided that his career path would be to research self-awareness systems and teach more people about them.
At this point, we’ve essentially resolved the issue of primary and secondary careers. First, those things that most align with your values are ideal to focus on as your main career. As for the other things, that doesn’t mean you have to abandon them; they can serve as hobbies or side careers that contribute to your personal development.
Alright, by now, we’ve fully gone through the “self-awareness method” outlined in the book, completing the process of identifying what we truly want to do.
Once you confirm what you really want to do, your mind may immediately come up with some ways to achieve it or directions for your next steps. However, if that doesn’t happen right away, don’t be discouraged. Because once you’ve identified what you truly want to do, you’ll unconsciously start noticing opportunities and ways to make it happen. This is similar to the well-known psychological phenomenon called the “color bath effect,” which suggests that once you start paying attention to something specific, you’ll begin to notice it everywhere around you. For example, if you’re asked to find all the red objects around you, suddenly, you’ll see many red items that you hadn’t noticed before.
The “color bath effect” works similarly when it comes to achieving what you truly want to do. Once you’ve clarified what you want, this effect kicks in. As the vast flow of information passes through your daily life, it’s as if an antenna rises in your mind. Whenever you encounter information related to your goal, you’ll be able to sharply capture it.
For example, some of the author’s clients found what they needed while browsing forums, others found useful lectures, and some met influential people at seminars, etc.
So, the point is: while discovering what you truly want to do can only come from within, the means to achieve it are actually abundant in society. When you raise your antenna for information and actively gather it, useful people and channels will naturally appear in your life to help turn your true desires into reality.
There’s a saying I’ve come to really like over the past couple of years: “It’s not success that makes you feel good, but feeling good that makes you successful.” And finding what you truly want to do is the key to channeling all your energy toward the direction that makes you feel the best. It’s only by following this path that you can truly start the growth cycle of “the harder you work, the luckier you get.”
Fortunately, this book tells us that achieving this doesn’t require special luck or opportunities. Instead, it’s a skill anyone can start learning right now. In the long journey of life, now is the best time for you to face yourself.
