What Should You Do With Your Life? Start With Your Gift

The Gift

If you want better answers, you’ve gotta ask better questions.

So if we want good answers to “What do I do with my life?” maybe let’s try a better question.

How about:

“What is my gift?”

Not just in the sense of “What is my talent?” or “What am I good at?”

But literally:

“What is my gift?”

What is the thing I want to give the world?

What do I want it to have or feel because I was here?

After all, there are two definitions of gift:

1. A thing given willingly to someone without payment.

2. A natural ability or talent.

So, what do I want the world to have or feel because I was here?

For me, that one was easy.

Throughout my life, everything that brought me joy and fulfillment was because I was spreading one thing:

Perspective.

Inspiration, essentially.

And for me, inspiration requires thinking something new.

“Think something new.”

I like that.

I’ll come back to that.

If I were you, I’d start with:

“What do I want the world to have or feel?”

And then define your answer.

I had to define exactly what inspiration meant to me.

This is the gift you wish to give.

Great.

Now, moving on.

Warning: this next section might bring up some uncomfortable feelings of confidence and/or self-belief.

Proceed with caution.

The Other Gift

Next question:

What are my gifts?

Not so much the gifts you wish to give, but the gifts you already have.

What are the things you are predisposed to do?

Talents that come naturally to you?

An activity or approach that doesn’t come as easy to others as it does to you?

What were you built to do?

For me, I think it’s words.

Communication.

Having an idea or a feeling and being able to translate it into the sentences that best communicate them to others.

Whether it’s the nature of being the son of an Ivy League graduate or the nurture of spending my childhood forehead-deep in fantasy books, I have the capability to take mental images and put them into digestible words.

So, what is your gift?

What have you been nurtured to do?

Or maybe it’s been your nature since as long as you can remember?

And before you start with all the, “Oh but everyone can do that,” or even worse, “I don’t have any gifts.”

Stop.

Incorrect.

For example:

What would your friends or family say that you’re exceptional at?

What do you find yourself drawn to time and time again?

You don’t have to be the best.

You just have to be honest.

This is the gift you are.

The Answer

So, the first two questions are the ingredients.

Now it’s time to cook.

The first question was:

“How do I want the world to change?”

The second is:

“What do I bring to the table?”

And the third is:

“How can I merge the two?”

If you want the world to be filled with more love and you have a gift for woodworking, then maybe you create homemade sculptures of people’s favorite moments.

Like photographs immortalized in wood.

Or what if you want the world to be more fun and your gift is biology?

Could you design science experiments that blow minds and excite curiosity?

This is the part where the infinite possibilities are either overwhelming or exciting.

The best way to keep yourself on the side of the latter is to remember that there is no perfect answer.

How could there be?

For me, when I had this conversation with myself, it sounded something like this:

1. What do I want the world to have or feel because I was here?

The gift I want to offer is inspiration through new perspective.

2. How do I want to take my gift of communication and deliver this perspective?

What are all the options?

What do I like or dislike about the options?

Options I liked:

* Vlog — it’s natural, relatable.

* Blogs — I can really flesh out an idea. More so than a tweet.

* Podcast — I don’t want to just hear myself banter. I want it scripted.

* Illustrations — I like how simply an illustration can make a point.

Okay.

We’re getting somewhere.

Now for options I don’t like and why:

* Livestreams — that feels too temporary. I want what I make to feel evergreen.

* Photography — there are no words. It’s harder to make a point.

* Scriptwriting — cute, but I want to make my points directly. Not hidden behind a story. I don’t want it to get lost in interpretation.

* Reddit — too much noise.

Okay, so what did I learn?

What is the gift I want to give?

Scripted points delivered in a relatable voice.

Whatever it is has to have words.

Whatever it is should have visuals.

So, what’s the best way to combine words and visuals?

Scripted videos and illustrated blogs.

Great.

Now we’re making progress.

Here’s what I ended up with:

A weekly lesson of the week in newsletter-esque blog format.

After it’s done, I’ll use it as a script for a video where I can expand as I see fit and double down on the relatability/personality component.

And that’s the gift I’m here to give.

And would you look at that?

Here you are literally reading step one in that new process:

My first piece on the Think Something New page.

What a gift.

I don’t know how many breadcrumbs this new path will have, but the point isn’t longevity necessarily.

It’s authenticity.

What can you do right now that would be honest and rewarding?

For me, it was creating a little framework to help you answer just that.

Hopefully, it has served to bring some order and structure into the chaotic world of trying to find out what to do with your time, your energy, and your life.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll end up where you want to go, but I’d bet it’d be the first breadcrumb on the path to something worth trying.

With that said, I’ll end with one final question:

If you were to take this gift you have and give it to the world — what would be the first step you could take today?

Great.

Go do it.

And I’ll see you on the other side.