This week my eight-year-old had an assignment for school. As part of his All About Me project he had to create a display of things relevant to him — what’s important and how he’d like to represent himself to the class.

This project was not as easy as it sounds. For him, the learning curve was how to organise, the benefits of making a plan and understanding that leaving it until last thing Sunday night is not a great idea.

I, however, faced the real challenge. I had to tread that fine tightwire: do I let my eight-year-old (with his eight-year-old aesthetic and his eight-year-old sense of effort) do his own thing and learn from his mistakes? Do I guide and cajole him? Or do I swoop in, take over and do it all for him?

I heard my crazy self coming out with, “It’s your project you can do it just the way you want to, BUT DON’T DO IT LIKE THAT!” Such need for control came bubbling to the surface. Turns out I was making this project all about ME! In the end I just had to step away from the scissors and the glue and leave him to it. (And he did a fine job.)

But it got me thinking, what would I do if I was set a project like that? When was the last time I compiled a list of what I like and dislike and what’s important to me. As Po the Panda asked, “Who am I?”

The last time I made a list of my favourite songs for example, I was a teenager. Would A-Ha really still make my desert island discs? Nowadays I tune into the radio for convenience. I don’t even pick what I listen to.

How about my favourite meal? Pepperoni pizza? But I’m gluten-free and haven’t eaten red meat in decades. Is “any meal I don’t have to wash-up after” a valid answer?

What are my favourite things to do? I wonder if I even know. So many of my choices are decided by committee, taking into account all the people who are now affected by them.

(Can watching BBC period dramas be considered a ‘hobby’?)

Here’s a question: what do I want to be when I grow up?

Is it time to give up “movie star” as my rote answer? (Nope, still not yet.)

Then there’s the heavy stuff. What’s important to me? What do I believe in?

These things too have changed with age and experience but I’m not sure I could definitively state them. What would I be willing to commit to paper, to declare I stand for? Wouldn’t it be worth knowing?

So this is the project I am undertaking: the notes of “me”. Like Jack, I’m learning that it takes much longer than expected, and requires more effort, too. I’m keen to see the results. I’m predicting lots of Sellotape and glitter!

• Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com