What do you want to be when you grow up?

"What's it all about?"

Well now, let me start at the beginning. For many years, I tried to answer the question that we have all been asked at some point in our life:

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

We're usually asked this question from a very young age, and the answer is wildly different for each of us. Obviously, not everyone has the luxury of fulfilling their dreams. It must always be remembered that 'what you want to be' and 'what you can be' may differ, it's not possible for everyone to be an astronaut or the next Katy Perry. Also, the reality of a career may contradict your perception of it.

Regardless of the limitations, we must all earn our bread and butter. If you left education and are now waltzing your way up your dream career ladder, then congratulations! If however, you're still grappling with this question, like I was, I feel there are some questions one can ask oneself, and processes one can adopt to aid in the considerations:

What do you love?

I'm not just talking about 'liking' here. I'm talking about the things that keep you up at night, the things you can't peel yourself away from, the things you follow whenever you have a spare moment. Are there things you know all about, a subject, an industry, a product, a person and their work? 

If you know what you love, then that's ok.

If you don't know what you love, that's ok too. If you find yourself feeling uninspired, depressed and lost. If the only things you follow are the weather and your social media feed, worry not! There are things you love, you just haven't been paying attention to them.

"I wish I had a thing!"

After graduating and coming to terms with the fact I didn't wish to pursue a career in Photography, I felt dreadfully uninspired. I'd look at other people with jealousy and say things like,

"Oh, look at him, he's so into books. What am I in to?"

and,

"Oh, look at her, she knows all about films. I wish I had a thing!"

After much self-criticism and comparison, I came to the conclusion that I needed to visualise my interests. With the wonders of the internet, there are so many ways you can do this. Here are a few of the ones I used:

Bookmarks: Use the bookmarks on your browser to create collections of things you like.

Pinterest: Create collections of things you're interested in.

RSS Feeds: Something like Feedly will help you to build up a collection of news sources.

Instagram: Fill your feed with things that make you jump up and down.

Twitter: Follow famous people you like. Who wrote that book you loved? Who directed that film you liked the other day?

Letterboxd: Remember which films you want to see or have already seen.

After spending some time populating my collections, I realised there are a lot of things that interested me. The tools also helped me find some new and exciting things along the way.

What are you good at?

This is a difficult question to answer. Well, it was for me anyway. I think that it's easy to get yourself confused with the next question, 'What do you want to be good at?'.

For this, I sat down with a pen and paper and wrote a list of each subject I did at school, every job and every course I had ever done. I also wrote down my hobbies.

In the education subjects, I listed everything I'd achieved a high grade for and everything I still knew a lot about. 

In the career subjects, I listed all the things I'd been promoted for and the things that I had done well or knew a lot about.

Finally, I listed all the things I currently enjoyed doing, and things I did a lot of.

What kind of person are you?

To understand what kind of job I'd be good at, I felt I needed to define my attributes. Looking back through my achievements and interests, I began to draw some conclusions. The skills I have acquired throughout education and my early jobs don't all directly relate to my interests, but there are themes that weave through them.

I lend myself to:

• Working with and Helping People
• Being Creative
• Tidying and Organising
• Devising Solutions or Systems
• Learning
• Being Challenged
• Being Busy 

What do you want to be good at?

I formulated a list of topics using two main sources; the above reflections, and job searches online and in the paper.

I started with my existing expertise and desired abilities. If you are focused on only two or three subjects, it's likely that you won't have trouble prioritising or recognising achievements. If like me, you have a wide range of interests, you must adopt more processes to manage your progression.

Originally, I prioritised all subjects with equal importance. I would make a mind map (see example below) and list everything I'd like to work on.

Trying to fit that many things into one's schedule, let alone planning and tracking progress, is near on impossible. Often, I found that I didn't know what to work on and made very few tangible accomplishments. Also, the achievements I did make felt unrelated, disparate. 

I then moved on to a thorough investigation into what jobs are actually available in the world. I learned of roles such as 'Operations Manager' and 'Production Manager'. Being wildly excited by so many subjects had felt like a curse when trying to narrow them down to one or two topics. These positions require the types of attributes I'd identified earlier. 

Though I did not have enough experience for such jobs yet, I did have some co-ordinates for my career vessel. I revised the way in which I tracked my progress (see example below). Rather than each topic fighting for attention, they form a collective representation.  

Create a Learning Journal

A while back, I was flipping through the pages of my college sketchbook and was struck by how useful I'd found it at the time. If like me, you have about 10 billion thoughts spiralling around your mind at once, it's rather helpful to channel them onto paper (be that digital or actual). I have often felt like I have worked very hard thinking, but have little physical evidence of my cognitive toil. 

"So, what is this blog exactly?"

I hope to use it for a variety of things.

First, and foremost it is a sketchbook/learning journal where I can collect together my inputs and outputs. This will include things like the piece you just read, music, drawings, poetry and essays. It's a place for thinking out loud, recording progress and generally noodling.

Secondly, it serves as the first stage of my portfolio. In the future, I intend for it to be linked to my website. 

Finally, I hope it may inspire some conversations. Since leaving education, I thoroughly miss the buzz of discussing both my work and the work of others.

Please feel free to comment, question and suggest to me.