People are increasingly questioning their life choices. Workers wonder whether they’re killing themselves doing work they don’t really want. Shouldn’t they be doing something more meaningful?
Priya Parker, founder and researcher at Thrive Labs, a company that helps millennials identify their real purpose in life, has noticed that many of her clients let fear guide them. “The choice to stay in many jobs is simply driven by fear,” she said in a Tedx talk.
Her clients include investment bankers, corporate lawyers, management consultants, and computer experts, who fear they’ll reach retirement and regret they didn’t follow their passions. Among lawyers, she has noticed that the biggest fear is that their choices do not match their idealism.
To help people “quit their lives and reboot,” she offered several tools and tips. Here are three of them.
Give yourself a life sentence. It’s like a mission or vision statement for individuals. Start thinking from the inside:
a) What values do I want to bring with me?
b) What do I actually do?
c) Why or to what end?
Use this sentence as a filter to decide whether everything from a job or relationship can take you closer or further from your “life sentence.” One comedian Parker worked with crafted this life sentence: “With integrity and passion, I use comedy and storytelling to expose the truth to acknowledge its significance, drawing in others, and inspiring them to be the world they want to see.” He used the sentence to quit a prestigious job, launch his own company, and start a TV show. Not bad for one sentence, yes? Don’t surprised if it takes several hours to write that sentence.
Another tool helps people overcome fears through aversion training. “Get comfortable with discomfort,” said Parker. Quitting your life can be quite awkward for yourself and everybody around you. Just describing plans that are a rejection of more conventional approaches to work can make others jumpy. Parker advises people to build their discomfort muscles. I would call this building a thicker skin.
Here are a couple of ways to go against the flow and build those muscles.
- The next time you’re in a bank or grocery store waiting in line, start singing audibly. It doesn’t have to be loud. Notice how uncomfortable it starts to get as people start scoping you out.
- Take yourself out to dinner alone. Don’t take any reading material or get your phone out. Just have your dinner.
- Walk into an elevator, but instead of turning around and staring at the door like everyone else, just keep facing the back. You’ll notice how uncomfortable everybody else gets and also how awkward you are.
These hacks will actually build your muscles for discomfort. You will feel and notice the anxiety, but keep going, Parkers said.
Here’s another tool. Write your obituary. What do you want it to say? If you want to figure out what to do with your life, work back from your death. Rather than asking what kind of career do I want to get and building your life around that, ask the question, “How do I want to have lived?” Start from there.
Each of these tips is a small step. But they’re all designed to put big change within reach.