The world spent years telling you what a successful career looks like. What a good life is supposed to look like.

You already knew what pulled you, before anyone handed you a salary or a job title to aim for.

As a child, you knew exactly what fascinated you. What you'd do for hours without anyone asking. What felt like yours, long before 'realistic' and 'profitable' entered the conversation.

Somewhere between school, your first job, and every performance review since, you stopped listening to that.

You are not your career. It shapes a lot of your life, how you spend your days, how you introduce yourself at parties, how you see yourself. But underneath all of that, you're still that kid. The one who knew, before anyone had an opinion about it.

And that isn't just a nice childhood memory to have.

It could genuinely change your next move. Not just your job title, your actual career, the shape of it, the direction, what you build next.

This exercise helps you find that part of you again, the part every CV conveniently leaves out.

Grab a pen and paper.

Answer the questions about who you were as a child, before anyone had an opinion about your career. Write intuitively. Don't explain. Just let your hand move.

Let's get started!

1. What were you almost obsessively drawn to as a child?

2. What could you lose yourself in for hours?

3. What fascinations have been running through your life like a thread?

4. What already felt like yours, before anyone had an opinion about it? + 7 more questions in the full exercise

Leave your name and email and I'll send you the full Treasure Hunting exercise right away. For free.

Love, Annemarijn

This exercise is part of SPINE, a self-led online experience by Annemarijn Laan.