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Why You Feel Lost in Life

2024-01-19 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali, Tintin · recording, 23:07 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Goals, purpose and life design · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present

In the first video of a mini-series on feeling lost, Ali gives five methods with journalling prompts for working out where you want to go in life: the service you would offer the world, reducing the effect of fear, your dream life (ideal Tuesday and ideal week), role models, and writing your own obituary, which he live-coaches with his team member Tintin.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why people feel lost: not knowing where you are going, where you are or the path; wayfinding

  • ★★★ Ali says people feel lost in life for three reasons, like someone lost in a forest: they do not know where they are going, where they are, or the path from one to the other. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Ali says none of the hundreds of very successful people he has interviewed, nor the thousands he has given talks to, know what they are doing with their lives. (overstated) — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Ali says you do not need your whole life mapped out: clarity about what you want is a moving target, and his exercises serve wayfinding, an idea from the book Designing Your Life. — 00:00:58 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)

  • ★★ Ali defines wayfinding, from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans's Designing Your Life, as working out where to go without a clear destination, as Christopher Columbus sailed the Atlantic in a general direction. — 00:01:27

    “wayfinding is the process of figuring out where to go, even when you don't have a clear destination in mind.”

  • ★★ Ali says finding your way in life is about your direction rather than a fixed destination, and you can always change direction whenever you like. — 00:01:27

  • ★ Ali announces a mini-series: this video gives five methods for where you want to go, the second looks back at the past to see where you are, and the third turns it into a plan. — 00:02:09

00:02:38 — Method one: the service you would offer the world, the future TED Talk prompt

  • ★★★ Ali's first method for working out where you want to go in life is to brainstorm what service you would like to offer to the world. — 00:02:38
  • ★★ Ali's future TED Talk prompt: imagine yourself 20 years from now giving a talk at the main TED conference that deeply moves the audience, and ask what you are talking about. — 00:03:07
  • ★★★ Ali says a meaningful mission and a sense of purpose in life generally involve service; serving yourself by chasing riches, fame and money is not the recipe for a fulfilling life. — 00:03:37
  • ★★ Ali says service need not be world-changing or grandiose: a talk on being a good parent or teacher can be just as inspiring as one on curing cancer. — 00:04:06

00:04:59 — Sponsor read for Huel

00:06:20 — The talent service prompt and the funeral prompt; write your answers down

  • ★★ Ali's talent service prompt: if you had all the money and time in the world, how would you use your talents to serve others? — 00:06:32
  • ★★ Ali says we enjoy our work much more when we use our natural talents and strengths, which makes the path towards our North Star more sustainable. — 00:07:01
  • ★★★ Ali's third service prompt: imagine someone whose life your work changed speaking at your funeral, and ask what they say your work did for them. — 00:07:30
  • ★★ Ali hopes people at his funeral will say his work helped them achieve their potential, do more with their lives, see what mattered to them or build a life they love. — 00:07:30
  • ★★★ Asking himself the funeral question a few years ago, Ali realised practising medicine was not his thing: being a teacher who helps people build a life they love appealed to him far more than saving lives. — 00:08:00
  • ★★★ Ali urges writing down the answers to these life-direction prompts, ideally by hand, rather than doing them in your head, as you cannot solve a complex equation without writing it down. — 00:09:00
  • ★★★ Ali's second method is to reduce the effect of fear: almost everyone limits their thinking out of fear of failure, fear of judgement or self-doubt, which keeps them inside what they have already done or what society expects. — 00:09:00
  • ★★ Ali's fearless dream prompt asks what you would do if you knew you could not fail, thinking across health, work and relationships or what you would like to learn, try and experiment with. — 00:09:00

00:09:11 — Method two: reduce the effect of fear; fearless dream, failing anyway and deferred dream prompts

  • ★★ If Ali knew he could not fail, he would make his own productivity app for people to log their tasks or calendar every day. — 00:09:46
  • ★★★ Ali would love his own one-man stage show touring the world, like Derren Brown meets Jay Shetty, mixing magic, music, mentalism and life advice. — 00:10:15
  • ★★★ Ali did not realise he wanted a one-man stage show until he asked himself the fearless dream question, and he is now working towards it. — 00:10:15
  • ★★ Ali would not make a productivity app he knew would fail, but would still make his one-man stage show even as a commercial failure, because creating it would be valuable in itself. (hedged) — 00:10:15
  • ★★ Ali's adjacent prompt asks what you would do even if you knew you would fail, which shows what suits you in the process rather than the outcome. — 00:10:56
  • ★★ Ali's deferred dream prompt asks what dream you have always had but never pursued, why it is a dream for you, and what is stopping you. — 00:10:56
  • ★★ Ali says you need not answer all the life-direction prompts: answering the one to three that resonate with you will give you more clarity about where you want to go. — 00:12:11

00:12:23 — Method three: envision your dream life with the ideal Tuesday, the ideal week and the future self prompt

  • ★★★ For the ideal Tuesday prompt Ali imagines a year ahead, far enough yet tangible: waking at seven, a workout with friends, some deep work, lunch with someone, dinner with a wife and kids. — 00:12:34 · ideal Tuesday, deep work (concept)
  • ★★★ Ali's favourite method is the ideal week: create a new Google Calendar called "ideal week" and block out your dream week, from waking and work to friends and date night. — 00:13:03
  • ★ Ali has no children yet; he hopes that once he does, time with them and his family will feature much more in his ideal week, as values change over time. (hedged) — 00:13:33
  • ★★ Ali's future self prompt: imagine you have achieved everything you ever wanted, and ask how you have changed and what qualities and achievements define that future you. — 00:13:33

00:14:02 — Method four: other people as role models; you can't read the label from inside the bottle

  • ★★ Azul told Ali this whenever Ali was racked with imposter syndrome while writing Feel-Good Productivity, feeling he had nothing useful to write. — 00:14:02 · imposter syndrome, Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali's book Feel-Good Productivity has become a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. — 00:14:02 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)

  • ★★ Azul (quoted): Ali's writing coach Azul told him that you can't read the label from inside the bottle: you cannot see yourself from within. — 00:14:34

    “you can't read the label from inside of the bottle.”

  • ★★ Ali's fourth method uses other people as role models: it is very hard to know yourself, but much easier to see the qualities you admire in others. — 00:14:34

  • ★★ Ali's role-model prompt: whom do you most admire and why, or, if you became an amalgamation of three to five people, who would they be and what would you emulate? — 00:14:59
  • ★★ Ali admires Tim Ferriss, whom he has never met, for seeming to do what he wants and explore his own interests without worrying about numbers, audience or commercial incentives. — 00:15:36 · Tim Ferriss
  • ★★ Ali would love to make videos about what he wants rather than what will do well on the algorithm, and calls this an ongoing battle. — 00:15:36 · Tim Ferriss
  • ★★★ Ali's fifth method, begin with the end in mind, is to write your own obituary, a broader version of the funeral prompt. — 00:16:05

00:16:13 — Method five: begin with the end in mind; Ali coaches Tintin through writing his obituary with ChatGPT

  • ★★ A couple of weeks earlier, at his annual planning workshop for people who pre-ordered his book, Ali live-coached his team member Tintin through writing his obituary. — 00:16:34
  • ★★ Tintin would like to be remembered for being present with the people he loves, joyful, open and playful, never too serious about life. — 00:17:01
  • ★★ Tintin would like to inspire others to do the things that scare them, something he says he struggles with himself. — 00:17:30
  • ★★ Tintin says he has known for a couple of years that he wants to contribute to the world of education. — 00:17:59
  • ★★ Tintin would like people to say he made great contributions to education through books and articles, public talks, work with schools and possibly government policy. — 00:18:24
  • ★★ Ali suggests writing out notes on how you want to be remembered and putting them into ChatGPT to draft your obituary, or writing it yourself. — 00:20:35
  • ★★ Ali has written his own obituary many times in the last few years and finds it very helpful for working out his North Star. — 00:20:35

00:21:00 — Why sitting with these prompts helps; answers are a rough first draft

  • ★★ From his reading, the psychologists he has interviewed and his own life, Ali says the more we sit with these prompts and look within, the clearer our sense of direction. — 00:21:55
  • ★★ Ali says your answers to the life-direction prompts are a rough first draft that does not bind you to a career path; thinking about the future shows what you value now. — 00:22:24

In the description and comments

  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): To a viewer studying photography who does not know how to get from A to B, the channel says this is a knowledge problem: search, read and ask people who have made the same journey. — creator comment

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Mentioned

Central: wayfinding · writing your own obituary

Also: People: Azul (coach, mentioned from 2021) · Bill Burnett · Christopher Columbus · Dave Evans · Derren Brown · Jay Shetty · Tim Ferriss · Tintin

Projects: The Feel-Good Productivity Annual Planning Workshop

Works: Designing Your Life · Feel-Good Productivity (book)

Organizations: TED · The New York Times · The Sunday Times

Concepts: deep work (concept) · funeral technique · ideal ordinary week · ideal Tuesday · imposter syndrome · meaningful mission

Products: ChatGPT · Google Calendar

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