10 Ways To Figure Out WTF You Should Do w/ Your Life

Ever feel like you’re on a hamster wheel, working faster and harder, only to become more exhausted and depleted?

Or maybe it feels like you’re ready to rock a new path in life, but you don’t exactly know how to articulate that feeling (to yourself and others)?

How about this: Do you feel like most of the advice which past generations give you may have worked 50 years ago, but is so far removed from current reality that it’s nearly useless?! :o)

If you know a bit about my story, you’d know I used to feel *all* of these things until an unpredictable sequence of events lead me on the journey of a mo’fo’ing lifetime.

(Using words like mo’fo’ing is a result of writing listening to mister Marshall Mathers. Sup Slim?!)

During my journey, I found a mentor named Brian Johnson who bridged the gap between me and some of the world’s best wisdom which had always seemed too esoteric for me to touch.

And this Thursday at 1pm EST — what what — I’m so freaking hyped to be teaching a class at his new en*theos Academy: WTF Should I Do w/ My Life?!

Last year, I went out and interviewed over 30 of the world’s leader academics and thinkers about the unique challenges that this generation’s facing today. I spent 14 months on the massive project and captured over 33 hours of wisdom – directly from the source!

This class, is the best of the best (of the best) of that – distilled into a one hour crash course! :o)

Here are the 10 ideas we’ll be exploring. Join us! :o)

1. Get the scoop on what’s cracking.

Would you ever play a game without first knowing the rules? (Of course not!) But so many of us try to play the game of life without understanding the current cultural context that we’re living in. Study that shiz!

Here’s a head start: Today, we’ve got more choices than ever before in history, but with all these choices come a paralyzing amount of anxiety, uncertainty, and fear of picking *any* choice cuz we don’t want it to be the wrong one. We feel whatever choice we make isn’t just gonna impact us now, but it’s gonna dictate the rest of our lives.

Pop-culture *bombards* us with unrealistic ideas and unobtainable ideals about what it means to be happy and successful. The paradox is that this makes us feel unique, special, and deserving yet at the same time powerless, overwhelmed, and incomplete.

2. Start staring at the (wo)man in the mirror.

No need to moonwalk but let’s get moving on our Hero’s Journey. You know that unsettling uncertainty in your gut that feels like you were meant to do more with your life? The famous mythology expert, Joseph Campbell, breaks it down super simply for us in this *universal* process we all go thru called the Hero’s Journey. Essentially, this part of our life is an identity quest that’s all about answering these existential inquiries:

1. Who am I?
2. And WTF should I do w/ my life?!

(For more on the Hero’s Journey and how you can apply it to your life, watch Finding Joe. Like, now.)

3. Define success for yourself.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you were confident about *every* decision you ever had to make – knowing that it was the right choice?

Well you can be, if you authentically know yourself and what success means to *you* (not your fam, friends, culture, religion, gender, MTV, etc). One of the easiest ways to nail this is to identify your top 5 core values.

Essentially, values are the things that are most important to us. When these things are a prominent part of our lives, we feel *really* fulfilled, and when they’re not, we feel kinda hollow.

Remember, there’s no single perfect path to pick in life. But by using our top 5 core-values as our compass + guiding star (that we can *always* refer to), figuring out which direction to go in life is gonna get much, much easier!

4. Get diesel, homey.

Care about happiness? If so, you’d probably care to know there’s an entire field of social science dedicated to it. It’s call positive psychology and its implications are incredible.

Check this out: It’s a proven fact that when we use our strengths on a regular basis, we become happier. But here’s the kicker: When we use our strengths on a regular basis *in service*, we become more fulfilled. We also know that being happier leads to a greater level of success (which in turn leads to more happiness, then more success, then more yada yada yada!).

Here’s the thing that trips most of us up about finding and rocking our strengths: they often come SO naturally to us that we don’t even realize that they’re our unique strengths! Once we become aware of our strengths, we wanna get diesel by using them often.

5. Follow your bliss!

Inspired people inspire people. Look around at all the pain that the world’s experiencing – it needs inspired people to help heal it.

So what would it take for you to wake up excited, inspired and ready to serve in the mornings? What are the activities you do which energize you? How would you serve if you had all the time and all the money in the world (and couldn’t fail or be judged for doing it)?

Allow yourself to dream and don’t worry about *how* you’d actually do these things. Remember the homey Joseph Campbell we spoke about above? Well he has this great quote: “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”

6. Set goals that actually make you happy.

Imaging spending three decades of your life grinding it out and working relentlessly toward your goals, only to actually achieve them and find out they didn’t make you happy.

As sad as that sounds, it’s not an uncommon scenario. In recent years, researchers have devoted a significant amount of attention to finding out which goals will make us happier. And as it turns out, they’ve confidently concluded that a certain type of goal won’t bring you happiness: *extrinsic* goals!

Extrinsic goals focus on things outside of us. Examples of these are making money, becoming famous, and improving our image (solely for the sake of it).

So, what types of goals ARE worth setting?! Goals that are related to our basic needs, and *intrinsic* goals like:

1. Personal Growth (improving yourself or a particular area of your life)
2. Relationships (connecting with people, especially authentically from your core)
3. Contribution (serving or helping people)

7. Find where your pleasure meets other people’s pain.

Imagine if it were possible to get paid to do what you love. Well… it is! And here’s a super simple way:

Figure out what you love to do – and then see where that intersects with pain that exists in the world. The aim is to enjoy alleviating people’s pain, fears, frustrations, annoyances, and overall negative emotions.

In other words, where is there a need that’s waiting to be solved? What person, community, industry, demographic, or culture has a problem that you could help find the solution to?

Become a master of figuring out to how serve people. And when you’re enjoying the process, you’ll attract all types of opportunities that prove to be the most mentally stimulating, emotionally exhilarating, financially lucrative, and spiritually fulfilling.

8. Give yourself permission to be human

Harvard positive-psychologist Tal Ben Shahar says we need to give ourselves the permission to be human.

To be human is to experience the full range of emotions and situations which life has to offer — from happiness to sadness –- success to failure.

But there’s this weird undertone in our culture that says that it’s not okay to fail or be sad.

That’s bogus. The people who are willing to fail (+ constructively learning from the experience) are the ones who ultimately have the most success.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling sad about feeling sad in turn only feeling more sad and sad, sad, sad.

Let’s get this straight. There are only two kinds of people who don’t experience sadness: sociopaths and dead people. You see, emotions aren’t selective – we can’t just choose to feel happiness, excitement, and enthusiasm while repressing sadness, nervousness, and disappointment.  We’ve gotta give ourselves the permission to be human.

9. Fall in love… with the process.

If we wanna create an extraordinary life then we’re gonna have to take an extraordinary approach. And in an era where we’re BOMBARDED with supernormal stimuli and promises of instant gratification – it’s takes work.

Here’s the thing: Goal accomplishment is kinda like peeing – it’s more of a relief than it is a prolonged state of euphoria. Actually, happiness is much more about enjoying the climb toward the peak of the mountain than it is about reaching the top.

So if we’re willing to fall in love with the process, minimize our impulse for external validation and then patiently, persistently, and diligently dedicate the next 10 years (or 10,000 hours) of our life to creating our ideal life, we’ve got a good shot at it!

10. Every quest needs a tribe to kick it with!

It’s simple. World-class social psychologist Jonathan Haidt tells us that change only lasts when we:

• Change our environment
• Change our relationships

We’ve gotta find peeps whom we can be our authentic selves with and not feel any shame for that. This is a key component to the hero’s journey. So find a tribe – and kick it!

You Coming?

Remember: Class is this Thursday at 1pm EST. Bring pen, paper, and a question or two! :o)

en*theos Academy: WTF Should I Do w/ My Life?!