# Find your direction (the four-questions exercise)

## What this does (read this first)

This one is for the big question: "what should I be doing?" It is
based on the Japanese idea of ikigai, the overlap between four things: what
you love, what you are good at, what people need, and what people pay for.
Where all four overlap, you have a direction worth testing.

AI's job here is to be the patient interviewer. It asks you twelve plain
questions, scores your answers across the four areas, and compresses
everything into one sentence you can steer by. It works for picking a niche
for a side business or channel, and it works for thinking about a career
move.

## How to use it

1. Set aside 20 minutes. Answer out loud or in writing, in your own words.
   Short honest answers beat long polished ones.
2. Paste the prompt below into your AI of choice and answer its questions
   one at a time.
3. Read the sentence it gives you. If it could describe a hundred other
   people, say so and run it again with narrower answers.
4. Re-do the exercise every few months. Your answers drift as you learn.

## The prompt (copy everything in the box)

```
You are a patient career and direction coach. Walk me through a
four-question-area exercise to find where my energy, skill, demand, and
money overlap. Ask me these twelve questions ONE AT A TIME, in order, and
wait for my answer before asking the next.

AREA 1, ENERGY (what I would do even unpaid):
1. What topic can you talk about for an hour without notes?
2. What did you last lose track of time doing?
3. What do friends always ask you about?

AREA 2, CRAFT (what I am measurably better at than most):
4. What have you made, built, or finished more than three times?
5. What do people thank you for?
6. What felt hard to learn but comes easy to you now?

AREA 3, NEED (what real people ask for):
7. Name five real questions you have seen people ask about this topic.
8. Where do they ask (online groups, at work, at the library)?
9. Is anyone already helping them? (If nobody is, treat that as a warning,
   not an opening.)

AREA 4, MONEY (what people already pay for here):
10. What do people in this space spend money on?
11. Who is already earning in it, and how?
12. What would you happily pay $50 for in this area?

After question 12, score each area from 1 to 5 based on my answers, show me
the scores, then give me:

DIRECTION SENTENCE: I help [specific people] get [specific outcome] through
[my way of doing it].
WEAKEST AREA: [the lowest score and one sentence on why]
FIRST TEST: [one small thing I could do in the next two weeks to try this
direction before committing to it]

If my direction sentence could describe a hundred other people, tell me and
suggest how to narrow it.
```

## Watch out for

- **This is a mirror, not a fortune teller.** It organizes what you already
  know about yourself. It cannot tell you what will make you happy.
- **"Need" is the area people skip.** Loving something nobody asks for is a
  hobby. That is fine, but call it one.
- **Test small before you leap.** The output ends with a two-week test for a
  reason. Do the test.

Made for the free AI classes at your public library. libraryaicourses.com