How to know what you want from life
What do you want to do with your life?
What's your purpose - the reason you're here on Earth?
What's the thing you want to do when "you grow up"?
These are the questions people ask you. Or questions you think about.
I've thought a lot about this since mid-December 2023. Especially the last few weeks.
What is truly the thing I want to invest my time into?
What is it that makes me the happiest?
What will make me the happiest?
It's difficult to know the answer. It feels like such a big decision.
"What to do with your life?" - could there be a bigger question than that - a bigger decision than that?
I'm 20 years old. You might be younger than me. Or then much older than me.
At 20, I believe I can say 99.9% don't know what they actually want to do with their life.
But I'd bet, at 40 or 50, most don't either.
Most wander mindlessly and let time pass. Wishing one day enlightenment will hit them and everything will change.
What's true is that time shifts your perspective. You gain experience. You get to try out new things. You'll have more material to base your decision on your life's purpose.
But it's still not easy, is it?
If I can be honest with you, I'm terrified of the thought of me not achieving my full potential.
What is my full potential? Nearly limitless. The same is true for you.
I don't know if there is anything after you die. But imagine if you didn't meet your potential. And then you'd meet the person you could've been after you've passed away.
That's hell.
I don't want that. That scares me. And I guess that's normal - and good in some way.
I will continue pushing to do things that move my life forward. But it also adds a lot of pressure.
Although I feel I know what I kind of want, I’m not 100% sure. And this leads to me being anxious about what path to take.
What if I make a mistake - and I don't reach my full potential?
That thought scares me. A lot.
Now mistakes are part of life. The worst mistake is to avoid all mistakes.
By avoiding mistakes and failure, you will never find that path.
Rather go and fail.
At least you learn what you don't want in the worst-case scenario.
Today, I still don't know the exact answer to my own purpose.
A purpose is a complicated topic.
A purpose isn't assigned. It is created.
A created purpose will lose its magic and drive.
A new purpose is needed.
The cycle continues.
You create the desire for things.
You create meaning for things.
Desire and purpose don't appear out of nowhere.
Today I wanted to write to you about how I am seeking clarity. And how you can too.
This is for those who are wondering what to do next. In their next chapter of life.
Or - maybe you feel lost. Maybe you think you've been on the wrong path - and you want to find the correct path.
Today, we'll go through some methods I've learned from Dr Ali Abdaal, Lewis Howes and Dan Koe on my search for clarity.
Massive respect for all those who have forwarded their knowledge forward.
1) What would you do if money were no object?
This is a question a famous philosopher Alan Watts put out there in the 1900s.
It's a question you might've thought before. But have you, really?
This is a question I've been wondering about lately. Although I was thinking "Of course I have thought about this."
But surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, my answers were different than I thought.
If you asked me 6 years ago what do I want, it's definitely not what I want today.
6 years ago I wanted to travel 24/7. And take photos. That's all I wanted.
But now I want more.
I want to travel, yes.
I want to take photos, yes.
But I also want to take care of my health.
I want to look good - and feel good.
If I had all the money in the world, I'd certainly do all this.
Travelling - perhaps even close to 24/7 if I had a team to help out with editing.
And I'd take care of myself in the gyms around the world.
What is it that you'd do if money were no object?
Think about it. Or even better - write about it.
Once you have the answer, you know what to aim for - what's your North Star.
Now you can create a path for it. It's only possible when you know where to head.
Without a clear destination, you'll get lost. And the cycle repeats.
Ask yourself consistently if this is the direction you're happy with.
But once you know a direction, you must take something else into count...
2) What would you do even if you knew you'd fail?
This is a powerful question I heard from Abdaal at the start of the year.
And it really made me reflect.
Would I take photos if I knew there wouldn't be a lot of likes coming? Or if I couldn't make a full-time income from them?
Yes, I would.
Would I write Newsletters weekly even if I gained no subscribers?
Yes, I would.
Would I work with clients if I never got paid well?
Hell no.
Some clients are awesome. But most take your creative freedom away and don't pay you enough.
When working with a certain client last year, I heard myself saying all the time:
"This is not the life I want."
I didn't have a good time working for the client. But I learned what I don't want. It's a step forward.
Another good question to ask is:
What are you putting off from trying - that you could love - but you're afraid to fail?
For me, it is:
1) Releasing a short film (I'm making one now. I’m trying to get over the perfection, lol. At the start you never can be great. The only way to get there is to just publish stuff. But I feel people will have massive expectations of you - if you have succeeded in something else)
2) I'd try out making short films where I am acting (I'm afraid of people's opinions on me acting for some reason. Maybe the bullied me is still afraid of others' opinions.)
3) Maybe I’d try out other creative outlets more. (Such as posting writing and thoughts to Instagram.)
All people have some fears. Some have bigger ones - some smaller ones.
Ask yourself that question.
What are you putting off from trying - that you could love - but you're afraid of failing?
See what comes up. Analyze it. And then make a plan to overcome that fear.
3) What is your ideal day?
This one is from Howes.
What would be your ideal day? How would it start? Who would you be with? Where would you be? What do you want to feel and create daily? Who do you want to be with?
Think about this. And write a detailed ideal day for you.
Again, if money was no object.
But also, do one how a day for you could look in 5-10 years. It's enough difficult to imagine how life will look then. Let alone something in 20 years time.
For me, asking this question changed a lot.
As a photographer, I'm "programmed" to want to shoot 24/7.
But I realized... that as I care about my sleep, sunrise photography doesn't always make sense to me.
It wouldn't be on my calendar every single morning.
I'd only go photograph when I feel like doing so. (So - when being in an inspired place - like 3-5 times a week.)
This made me able to happily make that change.
"No longer pressure on morning shooting", I told myself.
Of course, there are times when I really want to do that.
Night photography - and especially the Northern Lights, I'd happily lose some of my lifetime for. (As sleep affects it A LOT. Read more on sleep and dreams here.)
4) What is my passion?
1st let's jump back in time. Maybe to your childhood years, teens - or young adulthood. Rediscover what you loved back then. Maybe there's something you've forgotten.
(These ones are straight up from Howes' book The Greatness Mindset.)
What did you enjoy doing with your free time?
What dreams did you have of what you might love to do in life?
Now reflect on those. After that, let's jump to the present moment:
What lights you up? Inspires you? Energizes you?
When do you find yourself losing track of time because you are so absorbed in an activity and can’t wait to get back to it and do it again?
What would you love to do even if you didn’t get paid to do it?
And - fast-forward to your golden years. What might you wish you had done more of?
Now, see is there some repeating answers. Are there repeating words - or activities? What threads can you spot?
Reflect. This is how you can rediscover a passion of yours.
5) What is wrong in the world - and how can I help fix it?
Want to achieve happiness and fulfilment? To achieve that, you must help others.
If you focus only on yourself, you'll not experience the best possible human experience.
You'll miss out.
Ask yourself:
What is wrong in the world - and how can I help fix it?
This means what do YOU find a problem in the world? Not what your parents, spouse or siblings think.
What do you see as a problem? What do you wish was different?
Once you have an answer to that, you know:
1) Your passion
2) Your problem to solve
Now lastly, you just need to figure out what skills you need to develop to fix that problem.
Ideally, your mission would align you're naturally good at.
There are both natural strengths - and learned skills.
This is how Howes defines them in his book:
Natural strengths are what you are naturally good at based on your personality hardwiring.
Learned skills are what you have learned to be good at through life experiences.
For Howes, a natural strength is that he loves asking questions. (He is known for his podcast The School of Greatness.)
His learned skill is how to interview well.
My natural strength is the willingness to capture moments.
The learned skill is how to edit photos.
(To join my Lightroom Preset waitlist, click here - or answer this email by saying Lightroom - and I'll add you in.)
What are your natural strengths? Reflect. Don't go against them. Ideally, take advantage of them. Then you can see what skills to develop to complement the strength.
Now, you want to combine:
1) Your passion
2) Your problem to solve
3) The thing you're good at
That combination is your life's mission.
Or at least for this season. As I said, it changes.
In 5 years, for you and I, it might have changed completely.
We can't know. But what we do know, is that change in life is as guaranteed as taxes and death.
Be conscious of it. Once you set out a purpose or a North Star - it's not forever.
It is there to just give you direction. But you can change the destination mid-way.
6) Create an anti-vision
Decided to add this section last minute as I was listening to Koe’s The Art of Focus whilst driving a lot yesterday.
In it, he recommends you to create an anti-vision.
Sometimes it’s easier to know what you DON’T want.
Write out everything you do not want. (And the reason why for all these.)
What does an unfulfilling day look like for me?
What kind of a person would I avoid as a significant other?
How do I not want to look, feel and act?
How much money is too little to sustain my lifestyle - why is it too little? What won’t I be able to do with that money?
What environment would I hate living in - and why?
(All those questions are from Koe’s book. It’s a great book. I highly recommend it.)
Answer those questions if you feel you still don’t have enough clarity after everything we went through.
After you have an anti-vision, you can create your actual vision much more easily.
And you need one, to achieve the life you desire.
7) Where are you now?
To get to your desired destination, you must know where you are starting from.
Are the actions that you're doing now, leading you to the life you desire?
Are they leading you to be the person you want to be?
Are they leading you to how you want to feel?
If not, where are they leading you?
Be honest. Being honest is the key here. Without that, you won't be able to make the changes necessary. And this leads you to a life you don't enjoy. And that is not what we want, is it? :)
Last words
I hope you found this Letter helpful.
It was very fun to write. I got completely immersed in the writing process.
Feel free to let me know what you thought about this Letter. Or tell me what you're most struggling with if you feel comfortable.
I'd happily see could I help you. And perhaps take that topic and help everyone else on the Newsletter fam.
We're here to help each other. We're all humans - we all struggle with something.
If you enjoyed this Letter, feel free to forward it to your friend.
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Thank you for reading and your constant support.
Till next Saturday,
Hugo
