Each exercise below corresponds to one direction of the Growth Compass. They’re designed to be completed in under 30 minutes and to produce something concrete — not just insight, but a clear next step. Pick the one that matches where you are right now, or start with whichever one pulls you in.
Not sure which direction fits? Take the quiz to find out.
Discovery: The Curiosity Audit
Goal: Identify what genuinely interests you right now — separate from what you think you should be interested in.
Time: 20–25 minutes
Steps
Step 1 — Brain dump (5 minutes). Write down everything you’ve been curious about in the last 6 months. Don’t filter. Include topics you’ve googled late at night, conversations that made you lose track of time, skills you’ve considered learning, ideas you keep coming back to. Aim for at least 15 items.
Step 2 — Sort into three categories (5 minutes). Go through your list and mark each item:
H = High energy — thinking about this excites or energizes you.
M = Medium — interesting, but you’re not sure how deep it goes.
L = Low — you wrote it down, but honestly, it’s more of a passing thought.
Step 3 — Look for clusters (5 minutes). Among your H items, do you see any themes? Maybe three of them relate to creative expression or two involve helping people solve problems. Maybe several share a pattern of building things from scratch. Write down any themes you notice, even if they’re rough.
Step 4 — Pick one to test (5 minutes). Choose one H-rated curiosity — the one you’d be most willing to spend 2 hours on this week. Don’t choose the most “practical” one. Choose the most alive one. Write down one specific action you can take in the next 7 days to explore it further.
Expected insight: You’ll see what you’re genuinely drawn to versus what you think you should care about. The themes that emerge from your H items are your real starting point — and they’re often different from what you’d say if someone just asked you directly.
Want to go deeper? Read the full Discovery direction page and try the 7-Day Discovery Sprint.
Action: The 48-Hour Experiment
Goal: Break the planning loop by committing to one small action and learning from what happens — not what you imagined would happen.
Time: 15 minutes to set up, then 48 hours to run
Steps
Step 1 — Name the thing you’ve been putting off (3 minutes). Write down one action you’ve been thinking about taking but haven’t. It could be starting a project, having a conversation, applying for something, publishing something, or trying a new skill. Be specific. Not “work on my business” — instead, “send three emails to potential collaborators.”
Step 2 — Shrink it (3 minutes). Whatever you wrote, make it smaller. Find the version you could realistically start and finish within 48 hours, even if you only have one hour of free time. The point isn’t to complete a grand vision — it’s to generate real data from real action. If your action was “send three emails,” shrink it to “write and send one email.”
Step 3 — Set your window (2 minutes). Decide exactly when in the next 48 hours you will do this. Write down the day, the time, and roughly how long it will take. Put it in your calendar or set a reminder. This step matters more than it seems — vague timing is how good intentions die.
Step 4 — Do it and record what happened (5 minutes after). After you’ve completed the action, spend five minutes writing down: What actually happened? What was harder than expected? What was easier? Did you learn anything you couldn’t have learned by planning longer? What would you do differently next time?
Expected insight: Action produces information that thinking never can. Most people discover that the thing they were avoiding was either easier than feared or hard in ways they didn’t expect. Either way, you now have real experience to build on instead of theoretical plans to refine.
Want to go deeper? Read the full Action direction page and try the Smallest Viable Action framework.
Reflection: The Experience Sort
Goal: Extract the lessons from your recent experiences instead of just accumulating more of them.
Time: 25–30 minutes
Steps
Step 1 — List your last 10 significant experiences (7 minutes). Think back over the past 3–6 months and write down 10 things you did, tried, started, or experienced that felt significant at the time. These can be professional or personal — a project, a class, a trip, a relationship shift, a decision you made, a habit you tried. Don’t overthink “significant.” If you still remember it, it counts.
Step 2 — Sort them into three columns (8 minutes). Create three columns and sort your 10 experiences:
Energized me — I felt engaged, alive, or motivated during or after.
Drained me — I felt depleted, resentful, or disconnected.
Taught me something — Regardless of how it felt, I learned something that changed how I think or act.
Some experiences will appear in more than one column. That’s useful information — something can drain you and still teach you something valuable.
Step 3 — Look for the pattern (5 minutes). Study your “Energized” column. What do those experiences have in common? Is it the type of work, the people involved, the level of challenge, the autonomy, the creativity? Write down 2–3 conditions that seem to be present when you’re at your best.
Step 4 — Write one adjustment (5 minutes). Based on what you see, write down one thing you could change in the next month to have more of what energizes you and less of what drains you. Make it specific and actionable, not aspirational.
Expected insight: Most people realize they already know what works for them — they just haven’t looked at the evidence. The patterns in your “Energized” column are a direct signal about what kind of work, environment, and challenges suit you. The “Drained” column shows you what to stop tolerating.
Want to go deeper? Read the full Reflection direction page and try the Weekly Debrief exercise.
Purpose: The Direction Draft
Goal: Articulate a working draft of your purpose — not a final answer, but a clear enough direction to guide your next decisions.
Time: 25–30 minutes
Steps
Step 1 — Gather your raw material (7 minutes). Answer each of these quickly, writing the first things that come to mind:
— What topics or problems can you talk about for hours without getting bored?
— What kind of work makes you lose track of time?
— What injustice or broken system makes you genuinely angry?
— When people come to you for help, what do they usually need?
— What would you keep doing even if nobody noticed or paid you for it?
Step 2 — Identify the overlap (5 minutes). Read through your answers and look for where they intersect. There’s usually a zone where your interests, your skills, and your frustrations overlap. You don’t need to find one perfect word for it. Just describe it in a sentence or two.
Step 3 — Write a rough purpose statement (8 minutes). Using this template as a starting point, fill in the blanks:
“I want to help [who?] by [doing what?] because [why does it matter to me?].”
Write at least three versions. They don’t need to be polished. The goal is to get different angles on the same core idea. If three versions feel like three completely different directions, that’s fine — it means you need more information, and you may want to revisit the Discovery or Reflection exercises first.
Step 4 — Stress-test your favorite (5 minutes). Pick the version that resonates most and ask yourself:
— Does this feel true, or does it feel like what I think I should say?
— Would I still care about this if it were hard and thankless?
— Can I connect this to at least two experiences from my past that already point in this direction?
— Does it give me a clear enough direction to make my next decision?
If you answered yes to most of those, you have a working purpose. It will evolve. It’s supposed to. But now you have something concrete to build from.
Expected insight: Purpose doesn’t arrive as a lightning bolt. It shows up as a pattern — a recurring theme across the things you care about, the problems that bother you, and the work that energizes you. This exercise helps you name what’s already been forming in the background.
Want to go deeper? Read the full Purpose direction page and try the Pattern Mapping exercise.
What to Do After
These exercises are starting points, not finish lines. After completing one, you may find that you naturally want to move to a different direction. That’s exactly how the compass works — discovery leads to action, action leads to reflection, and reflection reveals purpose.
If you want to understand the full framework, start with the Growth Compass overview. If you want to find your current direction, take the quiz.