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If you are having difficulty discovering your purpose in life, start by defining your favorite problems.
We often feel lost in life when we lack purpose. Traditionally, we have been trained to rely on our ideas, our passions, and our skills to find direction. While this puts us on track to find something, this mindset is horrendously inadequate and inefficient in discovering purpose.
We all have ideas. We all have a purpose. Some of us lack the former and most of us lack the latter. In either case, we must work systematically to discover these and form a cohesive connection between the two. And by systematically, I mean implementing a set of selective filters that will take us from idea to purpose with precision and effectiveness.
Most ideas are just plain bad. Some are good. And very few are great. Your objective is to find those great ideas which serve your life’s purpose. An effective way to approach this is to first define your favorite problems. You might think it’s an odd way of referring to your problems. But this filter is absolutely critical to the process.
Here is Richard Feynman, a Nobel-Prize winning physicist, describing it in his typical playful and observational style:
“You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while, there will be a hit, and people will say, ‘How did he do it? He must be a genius!”
Think of your favorite problems as a set of receptors. They take in information, sort it into relevant applications, and allow you to apply your ideas in a much more focused way to achieve your purpose.
But this alone is not sufficient. What good is your “favorite problems” filter if you are throwing any and every idea at it like a blindfolded dart-thrower? Therein lies the need for a preceding filter: asking better questions.
A set of specific and useful questions is the filter through which you will examine your ideas. You may not be actively thinking about the questions you are asking on a day-to-day basis, but every action you take, every decision you make, and every cake you bake (sorry, I had to…) is in some form generated by a question.
When you combine the two filters of questions and problems, you will have a robust vetting system in place for your ideas.
Here are a couple basic examples as a warm-up:
When a restaurant manager envisions building an efficient and seamless operation, she must begin by identifying the problems that will prevent her from achieving it.
You want to achieve financial freedom (purpose).
Let’s now apply this method to discovering your life’s purpose. In this case, you are starting from incomplete information: you lack purpose.
Instead, start by identifying your favorite problems. These are problems you often think about, which could be related to any of your deepest interests, skills, and passions. These are problems that inspire you and captivate you, ones that go beyond the scope of day-to-day problems. Write these down. Make them specific enough to be actionable, yet broad enough to think about them for years to come. To give you an idea:
For the last 15 years of my working life, I have wandered aimlessly, jumping from job to job, curiosity to curiosity, and never focusing my energies in one primary direction. I haven’t quite found my true purpose yet, but with this system, I am more on the path than I have ever been in my entire life.
If you want to begin a more deliberate approach to discovering your purpose, it helps to have an example to gain inspiration. Here are my 12 favorite problems, divided my scope:
Am I hunting antelope or chasing mice? This question originated from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. This helps me refocus on my priorities when I get bogged down in minutiae. Every action I take is put through this filter to ensure that I am consistently effective in the most relevant areas.
How can I balance my time between cultivating meaningful relationships and meaningful work? I put this tweet out recently, which sums up my passion for what I’m currently building:
While I’ve finally found a meaningful path worth travelling, I still struggle to make time for those closest to me. Perhaps this will solve itself as I become more efficient in my work, but tomorrow is never guaranteed. It must be a priority.
How can I overcome the tyranny of perfectionism? Even as I write this post, I am suffering from the effects of perfectionism. I constantly check and recheck my work, just to make sure everything is “perfect.” Eventually, I let my work out into the world, but not after hours of painstaking attention to detail.
How can I find my 1,000 True Fans? Anyone trying to build an online business should read this article by Kevin Kelly. The intimidation level of building something that sells is immense. This article is so good at lowering it and making you feel that your goals are well within reach.
What is the least crowded channel? I’ve asked this question to myself for over a decade. It is why I’m done submitting resumes, it’s why I didn’t get a master’s degree (I didn’t catch myself in time for undergrad), and it is why I’ve been able to identify entry points to otherwise “inaccessible” leadership positions and unique adventures. It is why you are reading this today.
What would this look like if it were easy? Thanks to Tim Ferriss for this one. This is particularly useful when overwhelmed, frustrated, or intimidated. When I first became a restaurant manager, it was easy to get lost in the million tasks I needed to get done. By asking this question, I was able to devise a system for reducing stress and achieving my goal in a more effective way.
How can I help change the paradigm of travel—to help people aim for meaningful exploration rather than frivolous luxury?
How do I articulate the importance and, dare I say, necessity of travel in a compelling and persuasive way?
How can I help change the paradigm of work—to look at it through the lens of meaningfulness instead of working by default (for money, approval, necessity)?
How can I shepherd people into the age of leverage and teach people that a prosperous future is in divorcing their time from their income?
How can I help change the paradigm of mental health—to look at it through the lens of community and togetherness, rather than through shame and secrecy?
How can I inspire and teach people in a convincing way how to overcome self-imposed limitations—to not just step outside their comfort zone, but to demolish it altogether?
These questions aren’t perfect, and will probably adjust over time. But they serve as a way to focus my energies in the most effective directions, and get closer to my true purpose than ever before.
I hope this helps you begin to formulate your approach to life in a more thoughtful way. Having things written down, illustrated, and listed will free your mind. You will have the mental lightness to move forward and towards a defined goal with purpose and precision.
Cultivate your vision of what you want in life. If laying on the couch eating chips doesn’t serve your overall vision, do less of that. You will now be able to calibrate your habits in service of your life’s purpose.
And remember, if nobody calls your vision arrogant, you’re probably not thinking big enough.
If you found value in this post, it would mean the world to me if you could share it with the world. There are so many people in my life and in yours who are waiting to read this message.