Ask HN: How to find what I am really good at?

An interesting exercise is to take breaks from certain areas (probably more feasible with hobbies than with career), journal regularly and think wider than you're used to. If everything you have tried career wise is in software (for example) why not pick up a book about psychology, philosophy, languages, hardware etc.

It's also worth considering that every scenario will have some form of stress attached, one of the questions to ask is what types of stress are you willing to work through to gain from.

Again this advice may or may not be relevant to you, all the best with your journey on it!

“I believe in bumbling around long enough to not give up at things. And eventually success comes your way, because you tried to fail in every possible way, the only way that’s left is the one successful way, and always, for entrepreneurs, seems to come last." - Vinod Khosla, cofounder, SUN Microsystems

Just a couple of feel good books disguised as pop science to quickly read through ..

* Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You on the value of skills over passion and identifying what makes you valuable to others (instead of what you think), he defines "competence" as "feeling that you are good at what you do." It's a good overview of skill acquisition.

* Little Bets by Peter Sims will give you the grace to reframe your "jumping around" as a series of "little bets" of "discovery" and "inquisitiveness", not based on a particular skill or talent but on problem solving and interest, a curious, restless displeasure with how things are. A great book for wandering professional souls.

So my vote is keep jumping around, find interesting problems to you and work on them, develop some methods of having your competence evaluated by others, join (or lead!) "professional communities" to find and commune with likeminded folks, stay restless and hungry.

If on the other hand you really want to focus on one thing, sign up for a modestly expensive professional exam in the not too far future and an obligation to teach or share what you have learned for that exam publicly. I find it's a great motivator to be beholden to others to understand something well enough to motivate others to learn what you have.

If that sounds relatable then this may help: Creative energy and motivation works like a finite resource. Instead of spending every waking minute working on your new hobby/project because a) it's fun and b) you fear that the motivation is going to fade again, you need to force yourself to only use up a little bit of that energy each day, so that you have enough time to build a habit.

It's very counterintuitive, and I had a lot of difficulties doing it. But it has worked quite well for me. Discovering a new hobby and doing nothing else for the next few days is actually one of the worst things you can do. It will almost certainly result in you losing interest.

(Also what you're describing is very common in people with ADHD. I'm not suggesting or implying anything here, but it might be a worthwhile idea to check out some of the other common symptoms and see if you heavily relate to them as well. There's a very high chance that you don't have adhd, but I thought I'd still mention it.)

Because of the imprecise way the op phrased his question, I think you've misinterpreted it. I agree with sibling comment (jstx1) that op is not asking about "good" as a skill-level change from beginner to expert.

Instead, the op is asking something like... "How do I find the one activity that really activates the dopamine reward feedback loop in my brain which in turn makes it effortless to stay focused on it because I'm magically in that flow state?"

And because most people who ask the above question are not clinical psychologists using precise scientific language... they end up expressing it in the lower-resolution form of, "How do find the thing I'm good at?"

But then language lawyers laser focus on the word "good" and think op is asking about skill... which leads to "well you can't get good at a skill unless you practice that skill" ... which isn't really what the op was asking.

>Instead, you do what you are interested in,

Yes, and that's the step the op is having difficulty with. Lots of people are trying to find that thing that really interests them to trigger more success in their professional careers.