Ask Your Best Friend Three Questions to Learn Who You Are Outside of Work

Even if you’re one of the lucky few who truly love their job, you probably don’t want your identity to be defined solely by what you currently do for a living. Jobs and careers change, but there are some core skills and characteristics that you utilize—or at least have in your possession—regardless of what you do to earn money.

And yet, it can be difficult for some to recognize these traits in themselves, and figure out who, exactly, they are outside of work.

In a recent article for Fast Company, Christina Wallace, a senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard Business School, shared the three questions she asked other people to get a clearer picture of the unique set of skills and experiences that people associate with her, in or out of work environments.

Here’s what you can do to replicate her experiment.

Find people to ask

First, figure out who would be able to provide you with the insight you need. They should be people you trust and whose opinion you value, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to have known them for years.

You do, however, want to choose people you have collaborated and ideally connected with in some way—whether on a project at work or in a volunteer group, in a social club, or on a friendship.

While Wallace asked nearly 100 people to answer her questions—and got about 70 responses—you don’t have to go so big. That said, having a variety of people from different areas of your life will yield more comprehensive answers, thanks to having broader range of perspectives.

Questions to ask a friend or colleague to learn more about yourself

Now that you have your people, figure out how and where to ask them your questions. Wallace met up with her contacts in person to chat over coffee, but if that’s not feasible for you, a phone or video call would work too. Email or text should be a last resort: People tend to get a bit formal and hold back when they’re writing something, compared to when they’re talking to someone out loud.

Here are the three questions Wallace asked her contacts:

1. When have you seen me happiest?
2. What do you come to me for?
3. Where do I stand out against my peers?

Analyze the responses

As Wallace points out, the goal of this exercise is to “see yourself like others see you,” so take in all the valuable insights you receive. When assessing the responses she received to the questions, she found that they were relatively consistent, whether they came from someone she worked with for decades, or had known only for a few months.

She also noticed that rather than citing specific industry expertise, her contacts identified the general “mindsets, skills, and settings” where they had seen her thrive.

Like Wallace, keep track of the patterns you identify when people answer your questions. Ideally, you’ll come away from the experience with a better understanding of who you are both in and out of work.

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