How to figure out what you want to do with your life

Article in 1 sentence

You can figure out your ambitions by identifying your heroes and working backwards from there

Growing up and in my 20s, I heard frameworks like Ikigai all the time to figure out your life's work: find what you love, what you’re good at, and what the world needs.

I like that idea in theory. In practice, it wasn’t very useful for me.

The problem is that when I was younger, I loved gaming, my dog, and pickup basketball. I wasn’t sure what I was good at yet. And I had no clue what the world actually needed.

So I started using a different approach: something that’s more “top down”.

Instead of asking, What should I do?

I asked, Who do I want to become like?

That shift gave me real direction about five years ago. It’s simple, but it’s been one of the most useful frameworks I’ve found:

The 3-step process for figuring out what you want to do in your life:

Step 1: Bring your north star heroes to life

• List out at least 5 people (up to 10) that you would consider as someone that you admire
• For each person, share why you admire these individuals
• Discover how did each of these individuals get to their goal (be honest)

Step 2: Create your vision archetypes (i.e. your deathbed visions of your path)

• Group each of these role models into archetypes that make sense for you.
  • Tip: use “fun” names that you can remember and maybe even…inspire you (e.g., “Holding Company Compounder” or “E Squared: Entertainer Turned Entrepreneur”)
• For each archetype, answer:
  • Who are the role models that you admire in this category (from previous exercise)?
  • Why am I thinking of this?
  • Why would I NOT do this?
  • What does a realistic version of yourself look like if you pursued this option in 1, 5, and 10 years
• Take some time away - go on a walk, run, swim, surf
• Come back to this and have an honest assessment: which of these are you most interested in modeling yourself after?
  • Let me guess…“all of them” 😁
  • This is where it’s hard and that’s okay! Try to commit to just 1, but if you really can’t choose just 1, pick a “major” and a “minor"

Step 3: Bridging the gap to your goals

• Reflect on the archetype that you picked:
  • Does the 2024, 2028, and 2034 version of yourself look like someone you want to be?
  • Are you okay with giving up the “other versions” of yourself?
  • Tip: This is the hardest step! But here’s another way to look at it: with every passing day, you choose a path: either consciously or unconsciously. With this decision, it’s a conscious, active choice
• Determine what is the easiest and highest impact thing to do now to make progress towards this goal:
  • Write down a list of activities that you can do
  • Then, t-shirt size each one on either
    • How easy they are to start
    • How much they move you closer to that future self
  • Then in order of priority, pursue the following priorities:
• Have you created your list? Now you’re done!
• JK, now the work begins. Good luck!

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