Ask HN: How to find what I am really good at?
In the past years I've been quite diluted in my personal and professional life. Changed several jobs, and in my hobbies, I am jumping from one project to another. How do you stay focused? How do you find 1 thing you are really good at and stick with it? Is there a book or a blog teaching this? Although, it seems quite trivial, for me this is a huge live hurdle. Any tips are highly appreciated!
279 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 317 ms ] threadInstead, you do what you are interested in, and initially you are not good at it, and with enough time, effort, working at learning and practicing, you will become good at it.
They're different but OP isn't asking the first question.
OP is not asking "how do I find something that grabs my attention", but rather "how do I find something I'm naturally really good at". The implication is that what grabs my attention and holds it tight is out of necessity what I am naturally talented.
Sorry for questioning such a status quo assumption but I don't see how my day 1 or week 1 experience doing anything is an indicator that I'll be enjoying it in year 1 and many years later, or that it's even worth investing time to improve it. It's a nice place to start the exploration, so I'll give it that.
No, it's follow up from the grandparent comment:
1. OP: how do I find something that I'm good at?
2. GP comment: find something that interests you and put in a lot of time, effort and practice.
The natural follow up question is to ask "how do I find something that interests me enough so I can put in effort and practice over a prolonged period of time?". And this is something that OP is struggling with:
> Changed several jobs, and in my hobbies, I am jumping from one project to another. How do you stay focused?
This is what I meant when I wrote that it boils down to the same thing - if you assume that the GP comment is giving good advice, you take that advice one step further and you end up back at a question that OP is already asking.
My buddy, literally, couldn't spell "girl" in high school ("does it end in an 'e'?") and calculating percentages? Naw. But he could rebuild an engine and transmission and could identify a plane in the sky by the engine sound and then give a mini-history lesson on the plane, especially if it was involved in war. Then he discovered geology and hydrology.
Now he had a reason to spell (pride in his reports) and aced chemistry (equations and all) and regularly does calculations in his head. I posit the difference was "interest." Once something is interesting, it is much easier to learn about it. Similarly, his dad couldn't get calculus to stick until he saw applications in finance, then the door swung open.
For me, I find most things interesting and people think I'm smarter than I am because of it. However, when it comes to medical/bio stuff, I can't keep it in my head. I superficially like knowing about how sugars are processed by the body but I never remember the pathways and differences between glucose, sucrose, and fructose. It is not of enough interest to stick.
I think the real super power is to convince yourself to actually be interested in a thing.
I would like to add though that "being good at something" is not the path to enlightenment. Try "something you enjoy" instead, and you may be happier in the end. Given an initial epsilon of talent, the above adage posits that you will get better at it, and in my experience, motivation to do a task is central predictor of how good you will become at it.
I gave up a lot of hobbies because I didn't have mentor or guidance factor to help me get past the wall. You can only learn upto a certain point on your own. After that, it requires quite a lot of attention and focus to not suck.
But the context being "something you enjoy", being passionate about something usually comes with self-motivation to improve and become better at something, and usually one finds a way to get better.
The stagnation you mentioned is usually with people who aren't that passionate about the things they are practicing, or just using it as a means to some other ends.
You can also practice with purpose and get to a peak of your ability.
There is a fundamental shift of perspective that I think is necessary for people to find work that will fulfill them. More important is to look at what things you enjoy, and then figuring out what exactly appeals to you, really understanding yourself and how you tick, and how that can be applied elsewhere.
I spent much of my childhood gaming (CS, Battlefield, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Deus Ex, C&C RA2, Dune 2, etc.). It was fun, sure, and going by "look for something you enjoy", maybe I should've become a pro-gamer. But if I look at how I actually spent my time, there are much different conclusions to be drawn about what I like. I liked being in a team with a collective goal. I liked the communication (and arguing). I liked solving situational challenges. I liked being challenged. I liked researching strategies, techniques, and everything around metagaming (countless hours "wasted" on TeamLiquid). I liked learning new things and incrementally improving my skills. I liked documenting and explaining things. It's 100% clear how that translated in a career context, but at first glance, shooting people in CS was just "fun".
Most people don't find their "fun" activities enjoyable all the time. Running can be fun, but it also is tiring and sucks sometimes. Practicing a musical instrument isn't the most enjoyable, but playing in a band and nailing songs is. Lifting isn't "fun," but excelling at a sport is.
Point being that not liking the boring parts of an activity, but still finding the activity as a whole satisfying, is something that most people would consider to be an activity you enjoy.
Where I disagree is the claim that you don't enjoy programming. If you enjoy most of the component parts of an activity, my claim is that you actually do enjoy that activity.
Let's take hiking as an example. I can claim that I don't actually like hiking, I just like being outside, being in the forest, and walking. Hiking is therefore just one of a multitude of activities that could meet those desires. However, because my "likes" comprise the vast majority of the appeal of hiking, it is fair to say that I actually do enjoy hiking.
Ultimately, this is a semantic distinction. My claim is that by the commonly used definition of an "enjoyable activity," I would classify programming as an activity that you at least moderately enjoy.
What made it click for me is not pushing myself too hard. I used to run at an intensity I realize in retrospect I could just barely sustain. This worked, in that my fitness increased and I got faster, but it always felt horrible. This was the case when I ran alone, or with my partner - when we run together, we tend to subconsciously push each other to go a little faster.
Then, we started running with a much more extroverted friend who likes to talk a fair bit. This put a natural limit on the intensity, and apart from enjoying the socializing, I also felt physically better. It also worked fine for fitness, and I got a PR on a 10K race while training this way.
Now I find that even when I run on my own, I'm much better at finding a pace I can sustain comfortably, and I enjoy it!
As a casual runner, I'm very happy I've come to this realization, but I'm sure the experience is very different for someone who is either very unfit and finds any speed uncomfortable, or for someone who's training seriously and needs to push hard to attain their goals.
You want to find something that:
1. You enjoy, are interested in, makes you happy etc.,
2. You are naturally good at it, ie. you are talented, will be competitive,
3. Is appreciated by others, ie. they will pay you to do it.
The luckiest people get all three in abundance. Others have to find a balance and compromise on one or the other. 3 can be a deal breaker but you can do without much of either 1 or 2, but not both. However, you will always be at a disadvantage to those who have both 1 and 2.
For example, there is (currently) so much demand for programmers that IMO you really don’t need to be naturally gifted in order to have a very strong career.
However, want to be a professional violinist? That’s a different story.
Because of the imprecise way the op phrased his question, I think you've misinterpreted it. I agree with sibling comment (jstx1) that op is not asking about "good" as a skill-level change from beginner to expert.
Instead, the op is asking something like... "How do I find the one activity that really activates the dopamine reward feedback loop in my brain which in turn makes it effortless to stay focused on it because I'm magically in that flow state?"
And because most people who ask the above question are not clinical psychologists using precise scientific language... they end up expressing it in the lower-resolution form of, "How do find the thing I'm good at?"
But then language lawyers laser focus on the word "good" and think op is asking about skill... which leads to "well you can't get good at a skill unless you practice that skill" ... which isn't really what the op was asking.
>Instead, you do what you are interested in,
Yes, and that's the step the op is having difficulty with. Lots of people are trying to find that thing that really interests them to trigger more success in their professional careers.
I'm not a naturally great programmer. I mean, I'm not bad - I get the job done. But I know that there are plenty of folks out there for which it comes much more easily.
However - programming very consistently puts me into a flow state. My workdays pass quickly (in a good way), and for the most part I enjoy what I do. As a result I've found myself learning and growing at a consistent rate over the years.
Am I going to be the best programmer in the world? Absolutely not. But I found a career that I enjoy on a day to day basis, and I can well provide for my family.
I think a lot of people, including myself, waste way too much time trying to find the magic spot in the ven diagram between their genetic ability and a career in which they will end up a virtuoso rockstar. For most people, I think this is a waste of time. The key thing is: I don't think you have to be great at something in order for it to be a good conduit for focus.
Try things, if you stumble on something that engages your focus and passes the time, do that thing more. Especially if it pays.
Maybe someone with discipline is different from me, but I can't "stay focused", I either "am focused" or not.
I don't think anyone is supposed to look for a single thing to stick with, that sounds sick..
If you happen upon a thing and you can't let it down, you've found it.. But maybe you never will, maybe your talent is not a single thing.
Needless to say that these ideas usually didn't lead to anything and in a lot of cases where replaced by "the next great idea", leaving me with tons of projects that had received as much attention as a single day in some cases. But ostensibly, that didn't feel like a problem, because by then I had already moved on to something else that excited me... for a little while.
What never happened was actual progress, neither in any of these "project" not on my "thesis" which I was always more than happy to put on the back burner.
But then (much too late), I realized the pattern I had falled prone to. What helped me in the end to finish my thesis was the following: instead of starting any new project head of heels the day it popped into my head, I started writing new ideas down on "for later"-list. I really wanted to finish my thesis, and although I found it very hard at first, I forced myself to not implement anything new until I after I submitted.
When I was finally done with my thesis, I had probably somewhere between 20 and 30 items on my list, and I was excited to be finally "allowed" to go back to them.
Well, as you may have guessed, it turned out that none of these "great ideas" interested me any more by then. So I never actually picked any of them up. But had I started on any of them right away as it had been my earlier habit, countless hours would have been burned, and I would inevitably reached the same lack of interest.
So, my recommendation is not to jump from project to project too quickly. The problem is not dropping a stalled effort, but too eagerly starting something new. The biggest project had been my thesis all this time, and I really had to learn to stick it out.
And I'm glad I did it.
2) what activity bores you the least ? could it be turned into a job ?
3) filling in an ikigai diagram ( https://becomingbetter.org/ikigai/ ) could help you find some professional compass
I've been hearing this a lot recently, and while I don't doubt that there are people who are affected by ADHD, it seems to me that the condition can very easily be treated as an excuse. Certainly people without ADHD can get distracted, and someone with ADHD wouldn't be indistractable if they didn't have ADHD, right? So how do you distinguish between cases where ADHD is actually the cause and where someone uses it as an excuse (e.g. there was this guy on Twitter recently who claimed he could only use Twitter and not a blog because of AHDH, which sound like an excuse for some other behaviour to me)?
If you are working on software and your interest lies in physical world, start building hardware/software for it. You will suck at it. It won't make an impact. But it will free you from your lack of focus. It is just about chasing dreams! No one is stopping you from doing that. Also, take job as job and not as passion. The whole idea, if you work on what you love, then you never have to work in your life is bullshit. Once you start working on what you love, it is still work. Only difference is motivation. You will get motivation if you follow your deep desires.
Also make promise to yourself to not abandon this one desire in middle of the way. And stick with it to the end. Whatever pops up in your head after you decide on it, add it to your someday list. And keep pursuing things slowly while you are enjoying. Never forget to enjoy what you are doing!
https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/
Edit: It's a paid service the product links are here:
https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/253868/popular-cl...
I've bought both, but 99% of the value for me was in the top 5.
Perhaps someone could have helped Leonardo Da Vinci (painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, architect) with that. Maybe already you know a lot of stuff which will one day come together. Being a specialist is great if your specialisation has legs, not so otherwise.
But jokes aside I've recently found this gem of a channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/HowtoADHD I don't think I have ADHD myself, maybe "a little" whatever that means, but it has some very good advice for people that struggle with this a lot, and if it helps them, I guess it will be effective for people with less severe conditions too!
Aside from that I think the iconic essay from Paul Graham has stayed with me and helped me guide direction decisions, when I've been conscious enough to think about big picture stuff - http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html Moral of the story for me was not to "find the one true thing" as I'm sure there would be plenty in my life - its not "short" as people say. It's more "does this thing open more doors / options for me" or "does this things narrow my options" ... and choose accordingly.
Also, while it doesn't answer your question of how, this reinforces that trying to do is a very good idea. It's a podcast episode of Tim Ferris interviewing Adam Robinson (he was friends with Bobby Fischer, the chess player). The entire episode is very much worth listening to, but a key quote:
> I think the American psychologist Maslow said if your only tool is a hammer, you view every problem as a nail. I would flip that and say that the geniuses have very limited toolsets. They have a hammer and they’re geniuses in looking for nails. That’s their genius. They have a very limited skill set but they master it and apply it incredibly well. I’m reminded of the movie Karate Kid. Where it’s wax on, wax off, sand the floor and then he had that crane kicky move, and he won the California State Championship on the base of those three.
Full quote/episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSyMmleisQM&t=31m06s
Sometimes, we overthink stuff. It is okay to be however you approach things. You don't need to be exactly (skilled/good/whatever) like the people you see. I found that, if I stopped thinking too much, and stopped worrying about a specific version of me I have in mind, I just _be_ and end up doing something spontaneous, and leads me to a state I did not originally plan for.
Professionally, I studied computers, and I worked to find my way within the field. Tries being a consultant, software developer, people manager etc to realise that I didn't like any of them, and then stuck to caring for systems and how they work which has been the fascinating part all along. Now, I work as an SRE. Happy to come to work, and inching forward on being a good SRE everyday. I do have a big imposter thought when I listen to talks/ works of other SREs, but this is me. I know and can do things they probably can't.
Hobbies wise, I think the best ones are organic, and happen by a bit of chance + social effect. I ended up playing with a few wood working tools at a garage of my friends' when I was a teenager, and it was always a good memory. When I was away from home, living alone in the US, and had lot of time in my hand after work, I found a local community wood workshop and went there for a woodworking class. It gave me a good time, and I ended up visiting more and more often. I have now been woodworking for the last 12 years, and it is one of those hobbies that make me forget about the rest of the world, when I am focussing and working on a project. I religiously visit my woodshed for 5 hours every Saturday, and it is my time where I can build something tangible and feel the sense of accomplishment without caveats.
Just sharing my experience in case it helps you.
Perhaps try to nail down what the underlying issue is?
From the sounds of it you have tried various things and each has failed to click for one reason or another.
From personal experience when in those situations there has usually been something lacking or that needed changing that I tried to 'fix' by constantly changing external factors which of course failed to resolve anything since the underlying cause wasn't addressed.
An interesting exercise is to take breaks from certain areas (probably more feasible with hobbies than with career), journal regularly and think wider than you're used to. If everything you have tried career wise is in software (for example) why not pick up a book about psychology, philosophy, languages, hardware etc.
It's also worth considering that every scenario will have some form of stress attached, one of the questions to ask is what types of stress are you willing to work through to gain from.
Again this advice may or may not be relevant to you, all the best with your journey on it!
- Deep Work, and anything by Cal Newport (You can get a taste of most of his ideas for free on his blog and podcast)
- The Art of Learning. Note that he “jumped around“ at the peak of his original career, but ended up finding a common thread. To your dilemma, a major take away is that single domain can have nearly infinite novelty if you keep looking deeper
- moonwalking with Einstein: this will seem unrelated, but really listen for how The author ends up falling in love with this weird hobby. Can you find that love for anything in your life?
- Misbehaving (Richard Thaler): A young economist bumbles around for years until it starts to come together into a coherent research direction.
- The age of Wonder (Holmes): biographies of romantic scientists, know how different they all are, and also how many different phases of life they each have. I guarantee you you will see yourself in one of them, I just don’t know which
Though I do not have a book for it, my final piece of advice is to except that even the “right“ path will have some boring or even painful stretches. I don’t have a clear cut decision rule for when to stick with it, but it’s definitely not “quit immediately”. I think there’s a book called The Dip about that. Also like Adam Savage YouTube channel where you can see essentially endless hours of the sky who is definitely doing what he is passionate about, but also gets frustrated all the time when things break and such. He’s making physical things, even successful projects take many tedious hours. But there’s no question in his mind that he is going to power through.
“I believe in bumbling around long enough to not give up at things. And eventually success comes your way, because you tried to fail in every possible way, the only way that’s left is the one successful way, and always, for entrepreneurs, seems to come last." - Vinod Khosla, cofounder, SUN Microsystems
Just a couple of feel good books disguised as pop science to quickly read through ..
* Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You on the value of skills over passion and identifying what makes you valuable to others (instead of what you think), he defines "competence" as "feeling that you are good at what you do." It's a good overview of skill acquisition.
* Little Bets by Peter Sims will give you the grace to reframe your "jumping around" as a series of "little bets" of "discovery" and "inquisitiveness", not based on a particular skill or talent but on problem solving and interest, a curious, restless displeasure with how things are. A great book for wandering professional souls.
So my vote is keep jumping around, find interesting problems to you and work on them, develop some methods of having your competence evaluated by others, join (or lead!) "professional communities" to find and commune with likeminded folks, stay restless and hungry.
If on the other hand you really want to focus on one thing, sign up for a modestly expensive professional exam in the not too far future and an obligation to teach or share what you have learned for that exam publicly. I find it's a great motivator to be beholden to others to understand something well enough to motivate others to learn what you have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XmixCsWjs
What is it with these projects, hobbies, and jobs that disinterest you? What are you avoiding?
Armchair-ing: Maybe you are in the cycle of having higher expectations than what you can create? Avoiding creating a project to finish as the result is not what you had set your expectation to?
If that sounds relatable then this may help: Creative energy and motivation works like a finite resource. Instead of spending every waking minute working on your new hobby/project because a) it's fun and b) you fear that the motivation is going to fade again, you need to force yourself to only use up a little bit of that energy each day, so that you have enough time to build a habit.
It's very counterintuitive, and I had a lot of difficulties doing it. But it has worked quite well for me. Discovering a new hobby and doing nothing else for the next few days is actually one of the worst things you can do. It will almost certainly result in you losing interest.
(Also what you're describing is very common in people with ADHD. I'm not suggesting or implying anything here, but it might be a worthwhile idea to check out some of the other common symptoms and see if you heavily relate to them as well. There's a very high chance that you don't have adhd, but I thought I'd still mention it.)
You "are" "good at" nothing.
You are not a block of marble with David inside, something to be chipped away at until it is apparent for all to see.
You are a ball of clay, malleable, reshapable and shapeless, fluid and formed, able to absorb new bits and grow into something wildly different, day by day if needed.
Try some growth mindset handbooks and techniques to reframe your thinking.
So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-ca...)
Also see my sibling comment above.
I thought that was an interesting observation but I'd like to suggest expanding it to physical activity in general rather than specifically powerlifting. There are many different activities (for example HIIT, martial arts, gymnastics, rock climbing just to name a few) that will make a significant physical change in your body. When you stick to one of those activities and document your progress with data, photos, etc there's something about seeing that change happen to the blob of matter that is "you" that really expands what you consider achievable for yourself.
As an armchair gymmer, this routine lacks pull exercises for back musculature. Add row pulls or pullups!
To beat the dead horse, deadlifts definitely involve pulling but it's primarily a glutes exercise. Adding in dedicated pulls like pullups and rows will give you a lot of bang for your buck.
For background I'm in my mid 50s, never did weight training in my life before 2019. I've progressed more I thought I could and my muscle tone and strength is better than it's ever been in my life.
However none of this has changed my outlook on work, or accomplishing other stuff in general. It hasn't unlocked any new drive or energy or passion. I don't feel like a different person from before. In fact I am tired earlier in the evening and sleep more now.
I don't say this to be discouraging but personally I've never found that "just do this one thing you're not doing" will make a dramatic difference aside from getting better at doing that thing. If you want to get strong, lift weights. That's good in its own right. It may or may not change anything else in your life.
Oh, I definitely agree and do not subscribe to a "just do this one thing" philosophy. I wasn't trying to suggest that this one thing will solve all problems. Only that it is something that a person who is striving to adopt more of a growth mindset might consider trying. It is fairly straightforward to get reliable success if you're a novice here, and having tangible successes is at least useful (and very arguably important) in making a substantial change in mindset. Also, my comment was specifically generalizing to more than just the Starting Strength novice lifter program.
If the complete answer to "How to find what I am good at?" would be "You are a malleable ball of clay", then what? Go for whatever seems tempting? Go for becoming a rockstar? You might answer "If that is what you really want". Then we are back to OP's question. The shiny rockstar career might seem tempting for a few months or years. And then frustration kicks in like for 90% of wannabe rockstars.
The question what path is the right one for a person is still legit.
Also, "Be a rockstar" is not a smart goal to pursue (in that it has a high probability of failure), but playing an instrument with some level of mastery is. If you base your satisfaction on goals with a strong degree of randomness or innate ability to their achievement, you will probably be unsatisfied. Better to base goals on things you can (almost) fully control.
You, meaning anyone, could probably practice hard and join the upper x% of just about anything (setting aside things like the NBA that overvalue nature). What x is, well that is subject to debate. So is the source of motivation, and that is almost the most important thing.
[1] Peak, by K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool [2] talent code, by Daniel Coyle
My own little anecdote. I have Cerebral Palsy. This isn’t a woah is me statement. It really only affects my left hand and slightly my left leg. Most people wouldn’t even notice besides a really slight limp.
I spent 12 years as a fitness instructor as a working hobby. No matter how much I practiced, I wouldn’t have been able to do what other instructors could do. I synthesized my own none choreography heavy, fairly simple, very athletic style. But it got to the point that I knew I was the best that I could possibly be and I once my style started going out of fashion (step, cardio kickboxing) and the industry got to be more dance focused, it was time for me to hang it up. I also start focusing more on my career and my then new marriage and step sons.
During the latter part of the period when I was teaching, I also started running. I was decent - under a 10 minute mile up to a 15K. But every time I tried to push harder - either longer or faster - my slightly favoring my left leg caused my right leg (good leg) to experience problems or my left ankle to start hurting.
Even lifting weights, something I have always had an affinity for (and my CP doesn’t affect) and at my strongest I could bench press 300 pounds at 5 foot 4 and a weight of 175 pounds, I would never be able to lift what my 6 foot 3 200 plus pound step son can get to with much less training.
Growth mindset has literally nothing to do with "top notch performance", or a guaranteed way to achieve success in any and every field of practice.
It's simply a framing exercise for how you handle failure and how you approach new topics and challenges.
And I will cheerfully disagree, many top notch musicians can't sing, and many great singers are no musicians. You could have been great - you could still be great!
But effort and persistence is a much wider gulf than talent.
But even aside from the core of the argument, I find your phraseology oddly formulaic. It's ironic you're accusing the OP of having a "fixed mindset" when so much of your contributed "opinion" is clearly copypasted from books. I'd suggest opening your own mindset to forming a worldview of your own rather than following growth gurus so blindly.
Whether you blame another, view some traits as faults, idolise some concept or are blind to some thing, all are appearant in your writing and speech.
It's true, comment boards reward the "oddly formulaic" - cliches and well-worn passages carry extra weight.
They also lead to weird leaps of illogic, like your assumption I follow any growth gurus at all!
Happy to have a longer conversation offline if you'd rather address a man instead of a strawman.
So I addressed that. I didn't intend it as ad hominem against your character - I only intended to address the specific contents of your comment, so apologies for the guru comment (I just assumed you followed them since you were recommending their handbooks).