The journey of exploring talent is two-way: digging deep into your soul and looking for opportunities outside. Because all of us live in two worlds: one is the inner world, which exists because of your existence, and it is your inner consciousness, including feelings, thoughts, emotions and feelings; The other world will not change because of your change. It is an external world including other people, all kinds of things and different environments. Whether we live or die, the outside world always exists. You can only perceive the outside world through your inner world. You can perceive the world through your senses and know the world through your values, feelings and attitudes.
In order to discover talent, you need to understand these two worlds, dig deep into your talent and enthusiasm, and look for opportunities in the surrounding environment. In fact, there are three interlocking steps in discovering talents, and you should try to practice each step.
First of all, you should know yourself better. You should spend time with yourself and ignore what others think of you. But for many people, it is easier said than done, because few people can live in complete isolation. We spend most of our time with others: family, neighbors, friends and colleagues. There are only a few people close to us, most of whom are nodding acquaintances, or in between. As we get older, we should take on more responsibilities and play more roles. Like others, we are always influenced by others' opinions and demands on us.
We live in an era where there are too many "noises" and interferences, and the world is becoming more and more restless. Nowadays, no matter how much we exaggerate the influence of digital technology on people's thinking, life and work, it is not an exaggeration. In 20 10, Eric Schmidth, then CEO of Google, predicted that the amount of information we create every two days is almost equal to the sum of information created by human beings from the beginning of civilization to 2003. Cisco researchers found that by 20 10, the data contained in the Internet was equivalent to the information contained in a book on a shelf about 58 billion kilometers long, and it was also equivalent to 10 times the distance from the earth to Pluto. Every five minutes, we may create an "information storm", which is equivalent to all the information in the entire Library of Congress. Of course, there may actually be more.
This convenience makes our attention constantly attracted by new technologies, and we pursue quick response instead of in-depth thinking and critical reflection. If the role we play is disturbed by the outside world, then we can easily lose ourselves. In order to discover our talents, we must rediscover our true selves. To do this, we must create some independent space and time to get along with ourselves, feel our own authenticity, and shield others' expectations and all kinds of noise. One way is meditation.
Meditation seems simple, but you need to calm your mind slowly and immerse yourself in peace. Only in this way can we get rid of worldly troubles and let the true self get a moment's peace. The biggest challenge of meditation is to stop thinking, which is its purpose. We usually think that intelligence means logical thinking. It's good to think, but you don't have to think all the time. Thinking and consciousness are not the same concept. Eckhart tolle once wrote in the book "The Power of Now": "Overthinking may imprison our consciousness."
The confusion of thoughts is like snowflakes and noise interfering with the signals on the TV screen. One of the purposes of meditation is to reduce confusion and experience deeper consciousness. Since ancient times, people have compared the fluctuation of thinking to the ripples on the water surface. Only through the calm lake surface can we see the underwater scene.
For many people, meditation is not easy. Fortunately, however, there are many ways to achieve meditation. Some methods need quiet environment and places, while others don't. For many people, yoga is a good way; And some people can enter meditation as long as they breathe quietly and relax.
1. Sit comfortably, straighten and relax your shoulders and back, and close your eyes.
Take a deep breath through your nose, hold your breath for a few seconds, and then spit it out slowly.
3. Focus on breathing and slowly repeat the above actions for 4 to 5 times.
4. Breathe naturally, keep it for a few minutes, and feel the emotional changes when breathing.
If you have some messy thoughts, don't stop, just pay attention to your breathing and then relax.
After 6.5 ~ 10 minutes, open your eyes and relax quietly for a few minutes.
I suggest you try several different methods and then choose the one that suits you best. Even if you spare a few minutes every day, you may be able to establish contact with your true self under your body.
If you find yourself, you must re-examine yourself. The poet Arnaez Ning once said, "I can't see the true colors of the world, I can only see myself." What she means is that no one will remain objective. We always observe the world around us with our own subjective will, and our subjective will will also be influenced by the external objective world. Humans can't always observe the world directly, but interpret our experiences through ideas, values and beliefs. These concepts, values and beliefs are closely related to our personality, cultural environment and times of life. In all areas of life, whether we take action depends on our feelings and thoughts. The attitude of us and everyone around us may have an impact on the process of discovering talents, more or less, for better or worse.
Let's start with self-assumption now. You may feel that you don't have any special talent and love, and so do many people, but they finally found it. You may always think that you don't have any talent for what you like, so you give up the pursuit for fear of failure or stupidity; Or, you think you are too old to try. These ideas are all the reasons that prevent you from discovering your talents. Finding our own talent may challenge others' understanding of us. Our understanding of ourselves is often influenced by the views of family and friends. Moreover, we are also a part of the big culture, and each culture has its own specific way of thinking and principles of action. According to your gender, age or specific roles and responsibilities, your choice will be influenced by some norms and taboos in culture. In order to find talents, you must break the rules. Seriously thinking about your talent, thinking about your successful experience and expectations for the future, this is the basis for discovering talent.
Tools 1: mind map
Mind mapping is an intuitive way to present and classify information. Mind maps generally have a core concept or theme, and then you can use lines, words or pictures to connect this core concept or theme with related concepts and information. When creating a mind map, you should write the core concepts or themes in the center of a piece of white paper, mark them with a circle, and then draw some bifurcation lines from this circle to represent some related concepts. The number of bifurcation lines is up to you, and each line can be divided into two or more thought lines.
The founder of modern mind mapping is Tony Buzan. He and his brother barry buzan co-authored mind mapping, which is the best instruction manual for creating mind mapping. In addition, there are many cases and methods about mind mapping on the Internet for reference. Mind mapping can give you a kind of creative freedom and open up new ideas for you. When creating mind maps, keep in mind the following principles:
1. The description of each line should be as concise as possible. It can be a word or a phrase, because mind mapping must be intuitive first.
2. Treat keywords and non-keywords differently, for example, use uppercase, lowercase or bold, non-bold format, etc.
3. Each keyword or picture should have its own bifurcation line.
4. Bifurcation lines should be as long as the words or pictures they want to express.
The bifurcation line should be an irregular curve, not a straight line or a right angle. Because one of the purposes of mind mapping is to establish an organic relationship network.
6. The bifurcation line derived from the core concept should be thicker at first, and then gradually thinner when connecting sub-topics or sub-concepts.
7. It's best to use color-coded mind maps, which look better and make it easier to distinguish different levels and concept types.
In this way, you can try to draw your own mind map!
Tool 2: Vision Board
Vision board is a collage of your wishes, expectations and dreams. Vision board can classify and present the wishes in your life. Making a vision board is a relaxed and healthy process, which can make people feel happy.
When making a vision board, you must carefully screen the magazines you have prepared, pick out the content related to your hobbies, and then cut out the photos, pictures or words that you completely agree with. You can also look for it online. I suggest not to use your own photos in this stage of training, which will make the vision board a bit complicated, because these personal photos represent your past, not your future.
If you have some pictures to choose from, you have some options, because the most common visual board is to stick all kinds of pictures on cardboard with glue. Although this is also good, I suggest you use some more flexible methods. Because as you slowly discover your talents, even after you find them, your hopes and visions may change, so you can adjust your vision board at any time. For the convenience of adjustment, I suggest using thumbtacks, adhesive tapes or glue. But as long as it's convenient for you, either way will do. Use your imagination!
How to use the vision board is entirely your personal choice. You should always put it in an obvious place so that you can see it at any time. If you think the vision board is a very personal thing and you don't want others to see it, just make sure you can see it when you want to. The main function of the vision board is to show the life you expect in a visual form. So enjoy it and use it to really express your thoughts! Don't give in to other influences, because you are creating your own vision of life!
Tool 3: Automatic Writing
The core of vision board and mind map is to encourage you to keep visual and relevant divergent thinking, and to avoid you from going all the way to darkness on a certain point of view. Breaking the conventional way of thinking, you can know yourself from a new angle. Of course, you can also think only in language, especially in free writing practice, without adding any judgment and self-awareness. This method is "automatic writing"
The purpose of automatic writing is to understand our own thoughts and feelings independently, unplanned and unconstrained. In this process, we will unconsciously control the content of writing. Automatic writing is not to present the mature views of yourself or others, but only to write down everything you can think of, and then to play freely through free association. You don't have to stop halfway to correct mistakes or check, or plan what to write next. Through the vision board, you can collect all kinds of impressions and feelings. Through mind mapping, you can make any association in the process of writing.
To practice automatic writing skills, you can find a place to relax and prepare enough paper, markers and other things that can make you feel comfortable. Think about what questions or topics you want to know first. Here, we take "my passion" as the key word. Without further extension, let's start with this word and write whatever comes to mind. Try to keep writing for 5 minutes without stopping to review. After practicing slowly, you will find that you can write continuously for longer and longer. It is best to pause every 10 minute, 15 minute or 20 minutes.
Don't worry about writing, punctuation or formatting errors. This is to let you write down your thoughts and feelings as freely as possible. Automatic writing is an undisturbed self-expression process. If you are finished and ready, please start reading what you have written. You can circle the words that touch you the most and use them as the starting words for the next automatic writing.
Julia Cameron's best-selling book The Artist's Road suggests that everyone can write automatically after getting up every day, which she calls "morning notes". Morning notes don't need to focus on a specific thing, but drive messy information out of your mind before the day begins.
Julia Cameron described: "Morning Notes are three pages of rough manuscripts, or' stream of consciousness', which is the first thing I do when I get up. It is neither right nor wrong, nor elegant art, it records everything you think, and only you can see it. Except for occasional passion, most morning notes are negative, fragmented, repetitive or boring. The job you are worried about, the troublesome laundry, and the strange eyes of your friends all hinder your creativity. These factors disturb your subconscious mind and your plans for the whole day. Then leave them all in the notebook in the morning and go to work refreshed! "
Julia Cameron suggested writing morning notes the first thing after getting up, so you should keep a pen, notebook or paper beside your bed so that you can start writing as soon as you wake up. Next, you can start writing your morning notes. Julia Cameron made it clear that you can write for three pages or 20 minutes if you want. She also suggests that you don't go back to read what you wrote after writing, because that will make these things linger in your mind and interrupt your thinking. She even suggested that you tear them up as soon as you finish writing them. If you don't want to tear them up, just put them in a big envelope and put them where others can't find them. Of course, it can also be written in a confidential diary. No matter which way you choose, morning notes can effectively clear away your troubles of the day and let you greet the new day with full spirit.
If we want to understand our inner world, we must understand the outer world. You should try different activities, go to different places and meet different people. You should expose yourself to new opportunities and test yourself in different environments. If you have something you want to try, do it boldly. If you are still curious about something that you have been afraid to do, you should also try it. If you don't try new things, you will never know what you can do.
Of course, you can't try everything The role of meditation and reflection is to find out the most important experiences for you and then turn them into reality.
Environment is very important, so is personal background and life experience. No matter where you are now, the most important thing is not what you have experienced in the past, but what you can create in the future.
Shielding interference, changing angles and being brave in trying are the three core steps to discover talents. You can also combine these three steps into one step and complete it at one time. But if you really want to find your own talent, I suggest you don't do it, because it's like trying to lose weight after exercising once. If you want to lose weight successfully and keep in shape, you must do repeated exercises for a long time. Therefore, when exploring talents, we can have a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us only by constantly focusing, constantly exploring and seriously reflecting on these three aspects.
The purpose of this method is to help you evaluate your current living conditions and your feelings.
1. On a large piece of paper, list a series of keywords or recently collected pictures, which can include meetings, emails, shopping, socializing, commuting, studying, watching movies, etc. Everyone's life is different. What does yours look like?
2. Mark your collective activities with pens of different colors, such as entertainment, socialization, hobbies, sports and exercise. Here, you can use the classification method that you can understand most easily.
On the second piece of paper, you can circle these different kinds of activities in turn. Use the size of the circle to reflect the length of time you spend on this activity every week. If you work three times as long as your leisure time, then the circle representing work should be three times as long as the circle representing leisure. Put each keyword or picture in the corresponding circle.
Think about how you feel about these different kinds of activities. Do you prefer work to exercise? Do you prefer socializing to studying? You can use three different colors to show how much you like it: "Like", "Doesn't matter" and "Don't like it".
Draw a big circle on another piece of paper and divide it into three parts, indicating the proportion of time you spend on these three things: like, don't care and don't like. What will this pie chart look like?
6. Take some time to think about the pie chart you drew. How do you feel? Do you want to make some changes? Why? What changes can you make now? What other changes will take longer? Do you know what you should do in the future? If you can't answer these questions now, it doesn't matter. You can do it soon.
Finally, I suggest you read this book. Composition is only a part of the book, and there are many other training methods in the book, which are very useful.