You need goals and vision. Stop wasting your Life.

Don’t let what you are stop you from being what you could be.

If you are wasting your life, it is painful. It is painful to recognize that. Then it is painful to think, oh my god, look how undisciplined I am. I don’t know anything. I can’t use a schedule. I can’t stick to a calendar. I don’t have any aims. I don’t know anything about the world. Maybe, there’s a part of me that’s bitter because I haven’t got everything already and I’d like just like to say to hell with it.

Don’t waste your damn life

by Jordan Peterson

1. Do you not know what you thought you knew?
2. Are you not who you think you are?
3. Do you not work hard enough?
4. Are your values not organized properly?
5. Do you misuse your time?
6. Are you in the wrong field?
7. Is the way you are construing your life completely inappropriate?
8. Are you acting out what your parents wanted you to do and you’re pissed off about it - so you’re only running at 40%?

Just quit wasting time - by your own definition. This isn’t like next week’s Enterprise - this is your life.

The goal: You are going to have a life in 3 years that justifies its suffering

What we ask people to do is, think about your life along six dimensions. The goal is this. You're going to take care of yourself. You're going to have a life in 3 years that justifies its suffering. That's the goal. You can invent the damn life but you have to think what you would be satisfied with - so you wouldn’t be all bitter and resentful.

You need a vision. You have to figure out what you want and what you do not want.

1. What do you want from yourself?
2. What do you want from your family?
3. What do you want from your friends?
4. How are you going to educate yourself?
5. What do you want for your career?
6. How are you going to use your time outside of work?
7. How are you going to handle drugs and alcohol and other temptations like that?
8. How are you going to keep yourself mentally and physically healthy?

These are open questions. You get to answer them. You can have whatever you want. But you have to figure out what it is. It has to be realistic and you have to figure out what it is. So, develop a vision.

What’s your own personal version of Heaven in 3 to 5 years? Write it down.

What is your own personal version of Hell in 3 to 5 years? Write it down. Your bad habits, your resentment, your bitterness, your procrastination. What if all of that gets completely out of hand and you augur down and you’re in? What does that look like? Everyone knows that. Everyone can look into the future and think - well, if I keep going on this dark path this is where I’ll end up.

Then, you’ve got little Hell outlined for yourself to run away from. You got a little Heaven outline for yourself to run towards.

Then, you are motivated. Because, sometimes you’re just hopeful. I would like a good thing to happen. Yeah, but, I’d like to drink half a bottle of whiskey tonight too. So, which is it going to be? Well, just being hopeful about the future is not enough. Then, you think, oh I see. There’s that little hell thing that I outlined that’s waiting for me. Maybe I’m afraid of taking the next step forward because it is demanding and challenging. Yeah, I’m afraid of that - but I’m way more afraid of where I might end up if I don’t get my act together. People should be afraid of that.

Set out a path towards a goal

1. You need a goal and you need a path because that provides you with positive emotion.
2. You set up something as valuable - you decide that you are going to do that instead of other things - thats the sacrifice because you are sacrificing everything else to pursue that - you experience a fair bit of positive emotion as you watch yourself move towards the goal.
3. The better the goal, the more and rich your experience is going to be when you pursue it.
4. That is one of the reasons for developing a vision and for fleshing yourself out philosophically. You want to aim at the highest goal you can manage.
5. As you move towards your goal, you have to accomplish certain things that you thought might frighten you - maybe, you have to learn to be a better speaker, or better writer, better thinker, or be better towards the people around you. You have to learn some new skills and maybe you are afraid of that.
6. If you pursue a goal, it is going to stretch you - it will put you up against challenges.

Tags

1. Habits - Confront harsh challenges and difficult things to transform yourself
2. Unproductive habits - Not Having Goals