Every year, I start the year with a phone call to my close relatives to greet them a happy new year. During the call today, my cousin asked me "I don't know what to study in University. Nothing stands out to me" (Translated from Japanese).

Can you give me advice on finding my passion?

It's an age old question of finding out one's life passion. Luckily, I happened to be quite ready to answer this question since I had recently read the book "Designing your life" by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

Instead of regurgitating what I recall from the book, I tried to approach the question as if I was a counselor. First, I wanted to appraise the vulnerable situation that my cousin has put himself in. Exposing yourself as being 'lost' is not easy, so I explicitly acknowledged his courage. I wanted to show that I am someone who he can be comfortable sharing vulnerabilities with and that it is okay on to share more things with me that he may have previously kept hidden either conciously/subconciously.

Secondly, I wanted to make clear that not knowing your passion is the norm. Those that know what they want to pursue early in their life are the exceptions. The book mentioned that less than 20% of people actually know their passion and how to fulfill it. I imagine that a lot of people may put unnecessary pressure on themselves believing that they are behind.

Thirdly, I wanted to find out how long he has thought about the question.  If he were early in this quest to find his passion(s), my value as a counselor would be to share my experiences to provide more references he could use to guide his own decisions. If he had already thought a lot about this topic and has tried a couple of things, I would be most useful listening to his experiences and sandwiching my comments as he talks. This makes sense to me because I shouldn't ask a marathon runner 'how is the race so far' at the 50m line.

Only after acknowledging his vulnerability, mentioning of a potential dysfunctional belief, and assessing his own outlook, I took a stab at answering the question myself. This way I make my answer as tailored and valuable to the receiver. It requires more effort but that is what it takes to give good feedback.