By now you should be starting to develop an idea of what you don’t know you know, but just in case, we are going to do a few activities that will start to put your creative side to work. We’re going to build a life resume where you can identify life events, both professional and personal that will help to determine what you’re passionate about.
Start this process by building a list of all the jobs you have held starting with the very first one. It’s critical that you include every job, as this will be used as a catalyst to recognize areas of opportunity.
Here is a list of questions to answer for each job:
- Did you like the job?
- What did you do well in the position?
- What needed improvement?
- Why did you leave the job?
Now build your entire educational experience, starting with kindergarten through continued education, including work related continuing education programs.
Your early education is extremely important, that the time where you were most creative and can be a major impact on entrepreneurial activities.
As a child, our dreams knew no limitations, as adults we tend to be skeptical of everything and less likely to make our dreams come true. We need to essentially become more childlike so we have more future opportunity.
Consider the following questions:
- What group activities did you participate in? Feel free to include activities you still participate in today.
- What sports did you participate in? Feel free to include sports you currently participate in.
- What subjects did you do well in? What subjects did you do poorly in? What subjects did you want to do well in?
Sometimes the stuff we do poorly will actually cause us to have more passion and interest in it. If we can find a solution to improve the learning curve, we get the satisfaction of overcoming our weakness and helping others to do the same.
Next, think about activities that you have happening outside of school, such as church, social groups, friends, family and anything else you can think of. What’s important to you now, and in the past?
- How did you meet your spouse?
- What types of activities are your kids involved in?
- Are you involved with any boards?
- What clubs do you belong to?
- How do you spend your leisure time?
As you work through this exercise, you may find yourself thinking about this topic at the strangest times such as in the shower, lying in bed, driving to work or even sitting on the can! Make sure you have a pen/paper or recorder available to capture your ideas all the time. You never know when that perfect idea will hit you. I’ve got extensive experience having these type of visions happening at all the above mentioned times and nothings worse than forgetting them and then trying to remember later.