How to Find What You Actually Want to Do
How to Find What You Actually Want to Do
- Why "what do you want to do?" is one of the hardest questions we face — and why it is okay to not have an answer
- Three practical exercises that helped me get closer to an answer — and that you can start today
- Why this is a process, not a moment — and why that matters more than most people think
The Question
If you grew up anything like I did, you heard this question early and often: "What do you want to do when you grow up?"
It came from parents. From teachers. From family gatherings where aunties and uncles would look at you with a warm smile and ask you to declare your life's purpose before you had even figured out how to do your own laundry (no shade at all — genuinely — just my experience). And it always felt like there was a right answer — something serious, something impressive, something that would make them nod approvingly.
It never really felt like I had that answer. At least, not a real one.
For a long time, my answer was "I am going to be a professional athlete." And I was not just saying it to say it. I genuinely believed it. I was a track and field athlete — competitive, driven, and fully convinced that I was going to be the next Usain Bolt, Donovan Bailey, or Stefan Holm. At least, the cards felt like they were pointing in that direction.
That answer bought me time. While I had the luxury of deferring the question, I knew what I was going to do. Or so I thought.
And then around 16 or 17, the injuries started. The kind that do not fully go away. For three years I fought it — training through pain, trying to reclaim what I had. But by 19, the reality was clear. My floor had become my ceiling. The heights I used to reach without thinking became unreachable. And I told myself that I had enough.
That was the first time the question stopped being theoretical and started feeling urgent. I was no longer the track and field star with a clear future. I was just a 19-year-old who needed to figure out what else he was good at.
The Messy Middle
I think most of us wish that finding our passion was something that just happened — like one day the fog lifts and you just know. But that was not my experience. It was gradual, messy, and honestly a bit uncomfortable at times.
I was never a particularly great student, so it did not feel like I was specifically drawn to anything. Or maybe I just started paying attention too late and was still in discovery mode. I got good grades when I tried, but I did not really know where I wanted to try — which made things a bit weird and difficult for a while.
After high school, I went to McGill to study math and computer science. The real goal was to get into McGill Law. I did not get in. I got accepted to other law schools, but I had a strange fixation with that specific program — the kind of tunnel vision you have at 18 when you think there is only one acceptable path.
I transferred to Concordia to join my cousin and chose Finance as my concentration. It was a second chance, and it felt like a breath of fresh air — an opportunity to start with a clean slate and figure things out.
That is when the reflection really began. I was 19, the athletic dream was over, the law school plan had fallen through, and I was staring at a blank page. The question was no longer "what do you want to be when you grow up?" It was "Alright — what is it that actually gets me going?"
What I Found
It took about a year of honest reflection — quiet, uncomfortable, sometimes frustrating reflection — before things started to click. I was around 20 when it became clear. Not crystal clear, but clear enough to move forward with conviction.
What I found was this: I am at my best when I am contributing to something bigger than myself — when the people around me are winning and I played a part in that.
That is it. Not very precise. Not very corporate. But it is deeply true. Whether it is being a thought partner, a support system, or just the person who helps break a complex problem into something actionable — that is when I feel the most energized, the most useful, and the most like myself. It is not just about helping individuals. It is about being part of a collective that is moving forward together.
Looking back, the signs were always there. At 14, I started working — not because I had to, but because I watched my mom work two jobs in sales just to keep things going. She taught me that serving people well was not a strategy. It was a value. And somewhere between watching her and living it, that value became mine.
By 16, I was working at Foot Locker and ended up becoming one of the top salespeople. Not because I was pushy or trying to hit quotas, but because I genuinely wanted to understand what each customer needed. What is the occasion? What are you looking for? What matters to you? I operated under a simple belief: if I deliver sincere, meaningful value to the people I serve, rewards proportional to that value will follow. I did not have a name for it at the time, but that belief has not changed in ten years.
And then there was the moment that made it undeniable. I was tutoring a student in intro to financial accounting. She had started the semester failing — genuinely struggling, unsure if she belonged. We worked together every week, sometimes more, through a structured plan. By the end of the semester, she had strong grades that were well beyond her own expectations. On our last call after finals, I could see the spark in her eyes. She said something I will never forget: "Now I believe that I can do it."
That was it for me. That was all I needed. I knew — not in my head, but in my gut — that this is what I was meant to do. Help people see what they are capable of. Move the needle, even a little. 12,000 students later through Ismahelps, I still point to that moment as one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.
There is a Japanese concept called ikigai — the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. I did not know about it at the time. I was not following a framework. But looking back, that is exactly what I was moving toward — intuitively, messily, and on my own terms.
How to Start Figuring It Out
I am not going to pretend there is a perfect answer to this. I would be doing you a disservice if I said "follow these three steps and you will find your purpose by Friday." That is not how it works. But I can share the exercises and reflections that helped me get closer to an answer — and that I have since shared with family members, students, and friends who are going through the same thing.
These are not sequential. There is no right order. They compound — the more of them you do, the clearer the picture gets. Think of each one as adding a data point to a mosaic that eventually starts to look like something recognizable.
Look at Your Past
Past behavior is a pretty good indicator of future behavior. Take a step back and look at your life so far. Not your resume — your actual life. What are the moments that genuinely excited you? The ones where you felt energized, present, and alive?
The answers do not have to be formal or career-related. They can be as simple as organizing a friend's birthday party, volunteering at a local shelter, playing a pickup game, that one class in university where you could not stop asking questions, a road trip where everything just clicked, cooking for your family, building something with your hands, writing something that felt honest, watching a documentary that made you want to learn more.
Write them down. All of them. Then look for the common threads. What do these moments share? Is it creativity? Connection? Problem-solving? Being of service? Competition? Teaching? The themes that keep showing up are your signal. They are what you are naturally drawn to.
And if that feels too hard, flip it. Think about the things that definitely did not excite you. The moments that drained your energy, frustrated you, or made you feel like you were pretending. Those are just as useful — because when you eliminate the things you do not like, you naturally create time and space for the things you do like, or for the discovery of things you might.
Look at Your Resources
What do you naturally spend your time and money on? Those are two of the most finite resources you have. Where they go is a signal of what matters to you — even if you have not consciously articulated it yet.
Maybe you spend hours reading about technology. Maybe you spend money on fitness, on books, on travel, on music gear, on clothing, on cooking equipment. Maybe you spend your free time watching videos about architecture, or cars, or history, or design. Whatever it is — pay attention to it. The things you gravitate toward without anyone telling you to are clues.
And if the surface-level answer feels too obvious ("I spend money on clothes"), go one layer deeper. Ask yourself: if I could improve this thing that I am spending resources on, what would I change? If I could spend even more time on this, what would I do with it? What about this thing excites me enough to keep coming back? Those follow-up questions are where the real insights live.
Look Around You
This is an exercise I did about ten years ago when I had no clue what I wanted. I literally looked around my room and at my phone. What was on my shelves? What was in my browser history? What apps did I use? What did I watch, read, and listen to?
I noticed that I spent a lot of time on anime, sports, cars, history, and comedy. And then I asked myself: I care about all of these things. I have opinions about what makes them good, bad, or better. And they are all businesses at the end of the day — companies that would welcome someone who cares as much as I do. So what roles exist that would let me contribute to the things I already love?
That is a bottom-up approach. Instead of starting with "what job should I get?" and working down, you start with "what do I already care about?" and work up. You marry your interests with your skills and ask: where do these two things overlap in the real world?
I want to be clear: this exercise did not produce a job offer the next day. It did not yield some immediate tactical outcome. That is not the point. The point is to start the engine. To begin a reflection that compounds over time. To lay the foundation for a longer process that eventually gets you somewhere meaningful. These are not solutions — they are seeds. And seeds take time.
The Bigger Picture
I think finding what you want to do in this world really boils down to discovery. Looking deep inside and around you to see how you naturally contribute, how you naturally spend your time, and what naturally gets you going. Then pairing your skills — or the skills you are willing to build — with those interests.
And here is something I want to stress because I do not think people hear it enough: whatever passion you land on, the people in that space would be incredibly grateful to have you.
I have spoken with senior leaders and entrepreneurs who tell me that one of the hardest things they face is finding people who genuinely care. Not people who can do the job — people who actually believe in the mission. They lament the fact that it is so hard to find true believers and excited contributors. So if you take the time to figure out what you really care about and you show up with that energy, you will rarely be met with deaf ears. The world is not necessarily short on jobs. It is short on people who are doing the thing they were meant to do.
Let Us Talk About It
If any of this resonated — or if you are going through this right now and want to think through it with someone — I am happy to chat over a coffee.
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