What always repeats, in everything you do

(to be used first, even before the four classic questions)

When we try to work out which path to take, we usually ask ourselves "what do I like doing" and make a list: cooking, fixing the car, coaching the kids, playing music, reading. They are very different things, and they seem to have nothing to do with each other. The mistake is stopping there. Your path isn’t in the single activity: it’s in what you always do the same way while you do all of them. That is the common thread.

1.1 — Tell me 3 or 4 things you like doing, however different from each other, where you have forgotten what time it was. They can be from childhood or from now.

They don’t need to have anything in common. In fact, the further apart the better.

1.2 — For each one, don’t tell me what you did, but how you did it and what you were really after:

• Did you want it to come out perfect, or did you like making it up as you went?
• Were you after the finish, or did you enjoy the doing, bit by bit?
• Did you want something small and yours, or something on a big scale?
• Were you doing it for yourself, to be seen by others, or for something bigger than yourself?

Note: these questions are only meant as a help. The person can choose whichever ones feel truest for each activity, and doesn’t have to answer them all. This makes the answers come out more naturally.

1.3 — Now look at the answers side by side. What repeats, exactly or almost, across all of them?

That thing that repeats — not the activity, but the way — is your common thread. It tells you more about your path than any one hobby on its own.

Why this matters: if the same way of doing things comes back in completely different activities — a dinner, a mountain, a guitar — it isn’t chance. It is something stable in you. And it is more reliable than a single passion, which may have started by chance at a particular time of life.

Note: this part works better talking to someone than writing alone, because your own common thread is hard to see from the inside — someone outside is needed to help you see it.

Note: it is better to let the person try to find the common thread on their own, and to offer an idea only if they struggle. The words they find themselves are almost always more precise than any formulation the assistant could put in their mouth.

Note: sometimes the common point doesn’t emerge, even with four very different activities set side by side — and it is fine to stay uncertain. In that case it works better to offer a clear idea and ask "does that feel true, or forced?", rather than insisting the person get there alone. It isn’t a failure: not everyone finds the common thread by themselves, and the assistant can offer a first hypothesis.