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What To Do With Your Life

2026-08-15 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 19:47 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Goals, purpose and life design (also: Work and career) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Sponsor segment present, His medical past, Family

Ali gives his three-part method for figuring out what to do with your life: define your life areas and what you want and do not want in each (and why), list your dreams without limiting yourself, then explore a life vision with journaling prompts: the Odyssey plan, a TED talk 30 years from now, a life of service, and your own eulogy.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — What to do with your life; step one: define your life areas

  • ★★★ Ali's first step for figuring out what to do with your life is to define the life areas you care about, because life as a whole is a very vague, enormous question. — 00:00:26
  • ★★ When people ask what to do with their life, Ali says, they are often really asking how to find work they love that makes a lot of money and is fun, and whether to get married and have kids. — 00:00:55

00:01:21 — What you want and don't want in each area, with his health as the example

  • ★★★ For each life area, Ali advises defining what you want over the long term and what you do not want. — 00:01:21
  • ★★ In health, Ali says he would like to have enough muscle, live to 100 in good physical, mental and emotional health, play with his kids and grandkids, have energy every day and avoid injuries that could derail him. — 00:02:06
  • ★★ In health, Ali does not want to do a lot of exercise he does not enjoy, and getting super muscular is not a goal for him. — 00:02:35

00:03:04 — Applying it to work: a money number, what you don't want, characteristics rather than job titles

  • ★★ In the work area, Ali says it is worth defining what a good amount of money means to you and putting a number on it; as you get close to it the number will change, and that is okay. — 00:03:34
  • ★★★ When working out what work you want, Ali advises not trying to pick a specific job or business yet but understanding the characteristics you are optimising for and what you want to avoid, which gives a sense of direction. — 00:04:02
  • ★★ Ali says job titles and specific businesses will change a great deal and AI is already changing everything; decades ago people could not have imagined Lehman Brothers collapsing or Fuji no longer dominating cameras. — 00:04:41

00:05:05 — Sponsor read for a free business-idea tool built with Perplexity Computer

00:06:09 — The lifestyle you want from your career

  • ★★ Ali suggests deciding what lifestyle you want from your career: flexible work on your own terms, or a high-powered job such as a corporate lawyer's where work is the centre of your life and other things are sacrificed; there is no right answer. — 00:06:38

00:07:04 — Why do you want it: the feeling you are hunting for

  • ★★★ Ali advises asking why you want each thing: we generally go after something because we seek a feeling, so ask what feeling you are hunting for, such as security, safety or certainty. — 00:07:29
  • ★★ Ali says big money goals sharply limit your options: almost no careers pay a million dollars a year, and insisting on a billion-dollar company rules out most businesses, such as a local coffee shop. — 00:07:29

00:08:43 — The vision board, and journaling on a plane

  • ★★ Ali suggests making a vision board of pictures of the lifestyle you want, because words alone are unlikely to move you to act; his vision board is his desktop wallpaper. — 00:08:43
  • ★★ Ali's vision board signals that he wants at least three kids, shows a martial artist for the flexibility and mobility he optimises for in health, a squash player, and an app screen because he likes making and designing apps. — 00:09:12
  • ★★ Mapping your life areas takes a few hours of sitting down and journaling, Ali says; he likes to do it on a plane without Wi-Fi in a blank Apple Notes document, for example flying from Hong Kong to London. — 00:09:40 · Hong Kong, London

00:10:10 — Superfocus in private beta

  • ★ Ali's team is working on Superfocus, a productivity app to help you figure out what to do with your life; it is in private beta. — 00:10:10 · Superfocus

00:10:31 — Step two: define your dreams; the answer is a snapshot that gives a direction

  • ★★ Ali first did the dream-listing exercise at Date With Destiny, a six-day Tony Robbins seminar all about figuring out what to do with your life, and calls it one of the most powerful exercises for him. — 00:10:31
  • ★★ In Ali's dream exercise you write for a solid 20 minutes as much as you can about what you want from life, starting with what you want to have and to do. — 00:10:31
  • ★★★ Ali's second step for figuring out what to do with your life is to define your dreams, crucially without limiting yourself. — 00:11:34
  • ★★ Ali's dreams include learning Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and snowboarding, visiting the Maldives and Timbuktu, and experiencing more psychedelics. — 00:11:34
  • ★★ When listing your dreams, Ali advises dropping "this is going to be too hard" or "not realistic" and thinking big and broad about what would be cool. — 00:12:04
  • ★★ Other dreams on Ali's list: organising a ski trip and a co-working trip with friends each year, a cruise with friends, hiking to Machu Picchu, and living for a month in a van he remodels himself. — 00:12:04
  • ★★ Even once you figure out what to do with your life, Ali says, the question will come back probably at least every three months; then look at your list of dreams, life areas, life vision and vision board and ask whether they still feel aligned. (hedged) — 00:12:43
  • ★★★ What you want will always change, Ali says, so any answer is only a snapshot: at 32 his answer differs from the one he gave at 22 and probably from the one he will give at 42. — 00:12:43
  • ★★★ At 22 Ali still wanted to be a doctor, and his work wants were about anaesthetics, maybe emergency medicine or plastic surgery, maybe part-time; once he left medicine, all of that dropped away. — 00:12:43
  • ★★★ Ali's work wants now centre on building a cool lifestyle business, working with people he enjoys, and teaching people to improve their lives and learn the skills for financial freedom; in ten years that may change. — 00:13:33 · lifestyle business, work optional

  • ★★★ The point of the snapshot of what you want, Ali says, is to give you a direction rather than a clear destination: what matters is the direction. — 00:13:33

    “what matters is the direction, not the destination”

  • ★★ Aiming for a $10 billion startup leads to very different actions now than aiming for a chill lifestyle business working three days a week and making 100K doing what you love, Ali says. — 00:13:59 · lifestyle business

00:14:17 — Step three: life vision: the Odyssey plan, the TED talk prompt, the service prompt, your own eulogy

  • ★★★ For the third step, a big-picture life vision, one of Ali's favourite exercises is the Odyssey plan's three questions: what your life looks like five years from now if you continue down your current path, if you had to pick a completely different path, and if you took a path where you did not care about money or what people think of you. — 00:14:30
  • ★★ Ali has done the Odyssey plan many times over the years; his wife did it about two days before this video (around 13 August 2026) while working out what to do with her life in relation to certain work projects. — 00:14:59 · Izzy Sealey
  • ★★★ Ali says you do not get clarity on what to do with your life just by watching a YouTube video: you get it by taking its insights and doing the work of inner exploration and journaling. — 00:15:31
  • ★★ The benefit of the Odyssey plan, Ali says, is that it forces you out of your current paradigm to say what you would do if you did not care about money or about what society, your parents or friends think of you. — 00:15:31
  • ★★ Ali says the Odyssey plan often shows how limited we are by the need to make money and to please people around us; you need not follow any of the plans, but it helps you think more broadly. — 00:16:04
  • ★★ Ali's TED Talk prompt: imagine that 30 years from now you give a proper TED talk that gets a standing ovation and tens of millions of views, and ask what you would be talking about. — 00:16:04
  • ★★★ Ali's service prompt: imagine you have all the time and money in the world but must spend about 40 hours a week using your skills and talents to serve other people, and ask what you would do. — 00:17:13
  • ★ Ali's own answer to his service prompt is often teaching. — 00:17:13
  • ★★ After finding the work you would do to serve others, Ali says, you can often find a way to make money from it if you need money: not in every case, but more often than if you had not asked the question. — 00:18:12
  • ★★★ Ali recommends writing your own eulogy or obituary to get a real feel for what you actually want to do with your life. — 00:18:41
  • ★★ At Ali's annual productivity summits, people sometimes write their own eulogy or obituary, and in the Zoom chat they say they are crying or feel so much clarity. — 00:18:41 · Zoom
  • ★★ Since we are all going to die and a few decades later no one will remember us, Ali says, keeping memento mori in mind can give a sense of how we actually want to live. — 00:19:10

00:19:26 — Final thoughts

In the description and comments

  • ★★★ Ali's three-part method for figuring out what to do with your life: break life into areas, map what you want and don't want in each, then zoom out to your bigger dreams and vision through journaling exercises. — video description

Threads in this video

  • refine · How do you find your purpose or what to do with your life? — Ali's three-part method for figuring out what to do with your life: break life into areas, map what you want and don't want in each, then zoom out to your bigger dreams and vision through journaling exercises. (video description)
  • restate · How do you find your purpose or what to do with your life? — For the third step, a big-picture life vision, one of Ali's favourite exercises is the Odyssey plan's three questions: what your life looks like five years from now if you continue down your current path, if you had to pick a completely different path, and if you took a path where you did not care about money or what people think of you. (00:14:30)
  • refine · How do you choose a career? — When working out what work you want, Ali advises not trying to pick a specific job or business yet but understanding the characteristics you are optimising for and what you want to avoid, which gives a sense of direction. (00:04:02)
  • refine · Should you set goals, and how? — Ali advises asking why you want each thing: we generally go after something because we seek a feeling, so ask what feeling you are hunting for, such as security, safety or certainty. (00:07:29)
  • restate · How do you design the life you want? — Ali suggests making a vision board of pictures of the lifestyle you want, because words alone are unlikely to move you to act; his vision board is his desktop wallpaper. (00:08:43)
  • refine · How do you design the life you want? — Ali's second step for figuring out what to do with your life is to define your dreams, crucially without limiting yourself. (00:11:34)
  • refine · Should you journal, and how? — Mapping your life areas takes a few hours of sitting down and journaling, Ali says; he likes to do it on a plane without Wi-Fi in a blank Apple Notes document, for example flying from Hong Kong to London. (00:09:40)
  • milestone · Superfocus, the productivity app Ali's team is building (2025) — Ali's team is working on Superfocus, a productivity app to help you figure out what to do with your life; it is in private beta. (00:10:10)

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Odyssey plan

Also: People: Izzy Sealey · Tony Robbins

Organizations: Fujifilm · Lehman Brothers · TED

Concepts: artificial intelligence · Emergency medicine · lifestyle business · memento mori · Plastic surgery · vision board · work optional · writing your own obituary

Places: Hong Kong · London · Machu Picchu · Maldives · Timbuktu

Events: Date With Destiny

Products: Apple Notes · Superfocus · Zoom

Also centred on Odyssey plan: I'm Moving to America 🇺🇸 - Life Update · 20 Lessons that Improved My Life · How To Figure Out What You Want To Do With Your Life · How to Make Productivity Healthier · How To Build A Life You Love · How to figure out what you want in life ✍️

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