How To Get Your Life Together At 30 - To Anyone Feeling Lost, Lazy & Unmotivated

00:00:00.000 | I'm 30 years old and I feel like I should have my life together by now.

00:00:05.000 | I don't like my career.

00:00:06.320 | I'm not healthy and I'm constantly stressed about money.

00:00:08.840 | Do you have any advice or simple actions I can implement in my life on a daily basis

00:00:13.040 | to make progress and head in a positive direction?

00:00:15.680 | Well, so the reason why I included this question in today's episode, which is really about

00:00:20.760 | our relationship with technology, is that I'm making the guess that the first obstacle

00:00:27.400 | to clear on the path away from the shallows in which Adam is mired and towards a deeper

00:00:34.240 | life, the first obstacle to clear away here is probably a harmful relationship with technology.

00:00:41.520 | So for people of this age, you're in your 20s, you're in your 30s and you feel stuck,

00:00:46.080 | often one of the things that is keeping you stuck is these tools, is what's coming in

00:00:51.040 | over your phone and what's coming in over your smart TV.

00:00:53.360 | The reason why it keeps it stuck is because these tools are optimized to scratch the itches

00:00:59.280 | that are core to our humanity.

00:01:01.280 | We want to connect to other people.

00:01:03.280 | We want to have efficacy.

00:01:04.560 | We want to do things that are recognized.

00:01:06.720 | We want to have standing in our community.

00:01:09.640 | We want to be inspired by beauty and on craftsmanship.

00:01:14.400 | All of these are deep human instincts that are wired to push our lives in more productive,

00:01:18.800 | deeper directions.

00:01:20.040 | But there's apps on your phone and on your tablet and on your smart TV that can satisfy

00:01:24.760 | those urges just enough to keep you satisfied.

00:01:29.160 | Okay, I guess I'm okay to keep you stuck in your status quo.

00:01:33.760 | You're texting and on social media enough that you feel like, well, I'm not literally

00:01:37.200 | alone.

00:01:38.200 | I'm talking to people.

00:01:39.480 | So you consider that it's scratched.

00:01:41.920 | You're making progress in a video game and that's just enough of scratching that itch.

00:01:45.960 | If I want to make something of myself and be recognized by my community that you're

00:01:48.560 | not forced to get up and do something.

00:01:51.080 | You're yelling at people on Twitter.

00:01:52.880 | You have a tribe on there.

00:01:55.240 | We're yelling at the libs or we're yelling at the MAGA crowd.

00:01:58.000 | That kind of scratches barely this itch of like, I want to be involved in something bigger

00:02:01.360 | than me that matters.

00:02:03.600 | The itches are scratched just enough that you stay on the couch and you stay stressed

00:02:08.400 | and you stay like your life isn't put together and like nothing is happening.

00:02:12.280 | This is the danger of these tools is that they prevent us.

00:02:17.280 | They prevent us from getting fed up enough to actually make changes.

00:02:19.760 | So this is why I want to say, let's start.

00:02:22.720 | Let's start with reevaluating your relationship with technology.

00:02:25.720 | And this is where I want you to do something like we've been talking about, like zero based

00:02:30.120 | technology budgeting.

00:02:32.000 | Get all this stuff out of your life.

00:02:33.680 | Take a 30 day break from all of these optional tools.

00:02:36.360 | No video games, no social media, no YouTube, no streaming.

00:02:39.640 | Spend those 30 days aggressively self-reflecting and experimenting with analog activities that

00:02:43.960 | are meaningful to you.

00:02:45.440 | Figure out what's going on with your life.

00:02:47.520 | Face and confront.

00:02:48.520 | This is Nietzsche looking into the abyss, what you're not happy about in your life,

00:02:52.840 | why?

00:02:54.000 | And then move past this to self-author what you want your life to look like in five years.

00:02:58.440 | So you have clarity about what you dislike now.

00:03:01.520 | You have clarity about what you would love in your life going forward.

00:03:05.320 | You have clarity through your experimentation of what really is important or meaningful

00:03:09.280 | to you, what you really enjoy and what you don't.

00:03:11.640 | And then rebuild your technological life from scratch.

00:03:15.880 | Everything has to earn its way in for a particular purpose.

00:03:18.200 | I care about this.

00:03:19.320 | What's the right way to use technology to do this?

00:03:21.800 | I care about that.

00:03:22.840 | What's the right way to use technology to do that?

00:03:25.040 | When you do the zero based budgeting, most of this stuff that's gunking up your life,

00:03:29.560 | Adam, that's keeping you quiescent, that's keeping you just satisfied enough that you

00:03:34.040 | don't get off the couch is going to be gone.

00:03:36.840 | If you recognize, hey, I'm 30, I'm 30 and a man and I want to stand up and be a useful

00:03:41.680 | member of society and respected by my community.

00:03:44.000 | When you know that's really valuable to you and you know that there's some self-incrimination

00:03:47.560 | about you not doing that and you're trying to build up from scratch, well, what technology

00:03:51.360 | can help me do that?

00:03:52.560 | You're not going to answer if you're being honest, well, I just want to make it to the

00:03:56.720 | next level in World of Warcraft or whatever.

00:04:00.840 | No, you're saying, no, no, okay, I need to actually do something here that's going to

00:04:04.640 | be meaningful.

00:04:05.640 | Can technology help me?

00:04:07.000 | Maybe it can help me find a group and connect to a group where I can then go in real life

00:04:10.360 | and join that group and make progress.

00:04:12.560 | So it's going to completely reinvent your relationship with technology.

00:04:15.320 | So instead of it keeping you pacified, it instead becomes a tool you deploy in the construction

00:04:22.080 | of a deeper life.

00:04:23.080 | All right, so once you've done that, once you've cleared out the technological pacification,

00:04:29.460 | now we can work our way through what I call the deep life stack.

00:04:33.600 | You can work your way through the layers of the deep life stack on your way towards a

00:04:37.480 | deeper life.

00:04:38.640 | We talk about this a lot, so I'll move quickly, but you would start then with habits and discipline.

00:04:43.420 | So pick a couple of areas of your life you've identified as being important and have a daily

00:04:47.480 | discipline that you follow, a habit you follow every day.

00:04:50.480 | It should be tractable but non-trivial.

00:04:54.600 | This is all about just telling yourself the story of I can do things that are important

00:04:59.200 | even if I don't have to.

00:05:01.240 | I can make progress on parts of my life I care about because I think it's important

00:05:04.880 | in the long term even though I don't want to do it in the short term.

00:05:09.360 | As part of that discipline stack, also start tracking in a central place.

00:05:13.440 | Here's the systems and habits and disciplines I follow.

00:05:15.920 | That thing is going to grow.

00:05:17.000 | That document will grow as you make your way through the stack.

00:05:19.800 | Then you move up to the values layer of the stack.

00:05:22.080 | Now you really clarify and codify what you learned during your technology zero-based

00:05:26.320 | budgeting exercise.

00:05:27.800 | What am I all about?

00:05:28.800 | You need to have a code.

00:05:31.160 | This is what I'm about.

00:05:32.920 | This code is not just here's things I care about.

00:05:35.200 | It has to be a psychological/philosophical game plan not just for how do I excel but

00:05:41.360 | how do I make it through the hard parts.

00:05:44.080 | What's important to me and what's going to pull me forward through the parts that

00:05:47.000 | are really hard especially early on when I feel like nothing's going right.

00:05:51.280 | The code should tell you what am I going to do when things are going really well and how

00:05:54.640 | I'm going to live up to that.

00:05:56.560 | You want to have your first draft of this code.

00:05:58.480 | If you're from a religious background you're going to find a lot of useful work there.

00:06:02.920 | If you're not you can find a lot of good useful work in philosophy.

00:06:05.400 | But you want to be really clear about what you're writing down here and don't worry

00:06:09.080 | about getting it right.

00:06:10.080 | That can evolve.

00:06:11.080 | Then you move your way up to the control layer of the stack.

00:06:13.480 | It is now and only now Adam that you start to get organized, get the messy parts of your

00:06:17.920 | life together, get your finances in order, get your fitness in order, get your productivity

00:06:23.100 | systems running so you're not just all over the place, get your act together and work,

00:06:27.720 | build up that career capital so people start seeing you Adam as this guy gets it done.

00:06:33.240 | He does it when he says he's going to do it and he does it at a high level.

00:06:35.920 | Why do you do that?

00:06:36.920 | Because that's going to give you leverage to start shaping your career towards what

00:06:41.440 | matters to you.

00:06:42.960 | But remember we're not getting our act together.

00:06:45.080 | We're four steps in here.

00:06:47.200 | We've already started clearing out the technological pacification.

00:06:50.640 | We've done discipline.

00:06:51.940 | We've done values.

00:06:53.760 | Only now do we have the foundation we need to actually power through the difficulty of

00:06:58.440 | organizing our lives.

00:06:59.440 | Then you get to the final layer of the deep life stack is where you're going to have

00:07:03.000 | vision.

00:07:04.560 | You begin planning to make your life more remarkable.

00:07:08.280 | The first time you go through this, you'll choose one area of your life and say, "How

00:07:10.960 | am I going to make that area of my life more remarkable?"

00:07:13.880 | Maybe it's a professional thing or maybe it's a fitness thing.

00:07:17.480 | I'm going to become incredible shape and become a Cameron Haynes style, deep back country

00:07:26.220 | bow elk hunter that's going to require me to train marathons daily or whatever it is.

00:07:31.680 | Maybe it's an intellectual pursuit.

00:07:34.280 | You're going to take one part of your life and make it remarkable.

00:07:37.480 | This is going to take you about a year and you're going to be so much better at this

00:07:40.720 | point Adam.

00:07:42.080 | Then you just keep revisiting this.

00:07:43.720 | "Hey, as technology creeped back into my life in an unhealthy way, let me re-clarify

00:07:48.160 | in zero-based budget, work your way up the stack."

00:07:50.520 | Do that once a year.

00:07:51.520 | Adam, you're like a year away from your life being a lot better.

00:07:53.720 | You're five years away from your life being something that people remark about.

00:07:57.360 | I have complete faith in that.

00:08:00.200 | But this is the new thing I'm adding now because I've realized this listening to you, my listeners.

00:08:05.040 | You have to think about the technology use like the same way you would think about perhaps

00:08:08.840 | an alcohol or drug problem if you were pursuing a deep life.

00:08:13.760 | Until you solve that, you're going to have a lot of trouble with all the other things.

00:08:18.040 | You want to start with getting that technology monkey off your back and then we can work

00:08:21.200 | our way through the deep life stack.

00:08:23.200 | All right, I think we have time for one more question, Jesse.

00:08:27.640 | Yeah, we got one more question from Julie.

00:08:29.920 | "How can I stay on top of current events while still living deep?

00:08:33.720 | It's so easy to get sucked into social media scrolling, but what about the news?"

00:08:38.400 | Well, Julie, I'm assuming you're not a network television news director.

00:08:46.520 | You're not someone who is sitting backstage at the NBC nightly news panning cameras and

00:08:54.280 | telling producers to go after stories.

00:08:56.820 | You're not a news director, so you can chill out about the news.

00:09:00.560 | You don't need to know everything that's going on.

00:09:03.520 | You're not even really learning everything that's going on in social media.

00:09:06.000 | You're getting a bunch of takes on things that are going on.

00:09:09.040 | So my first thing I'm going to say is just chill out about feeling like you have to be

00:09:12.200 | up on everything.

00:09:13.200 | You're not a news director.

00:09:15.660 | So what should you do instead?

00:09:16.660 | Just have a much more minimalist news consumption ritual.

00:09:21.060 | Take a weekly newspaper or even easier, go to Starbucks on Sunday.

00:09:25.800 | They sell the newspapers there, buy the Sunday paper, read it for an hour.

00:09:29.380 | That alone, you will be just as informed as you are now with a lot less stress.

00:09:33.080 | Now, if you don't want to do that, there are news digest emails that you can get from newspapers

00:09:40.160 | with a digital subscription.

00:09:42.160 | There's news roundup podcasts that are both daily and weekly.

00:09:45.740 | Listen to some of those.

00:09:47.520 | Put on NPR when you commute to work and listen to morning edition.

00:09:52.200 | They'll cut.

00:09:53.200 | There's a major story going on.

00:09:54.200 | You know, there's an earthquake somewhere or something's on fire.

00:09:56.160 | They'll tell you about it and that's enough and you know enough.

00:10:00.360 | Now I know this might sound radical, but let me tell you, uh, if we go back, what's this

00:10:05.160 | 2000, if we go back about 10 years, let me tell you who did adopt this approach.

00:10:09.800 | The news consumption, everybody everywhere, because it was the only way to do it.

00:10:14.760 | There wasn't social media and you know what?

00:10:16.240 | People were fine.

00:10:17.240 | This idea that in 2009 people just stumbled around blindly.

00:10:22.680 | Like I don't know what's going on.

00:10:24.040 | Like who's the president really?

00:10:25.440 | That guy.

00:10:26.440 | All right.

00:10:27.440 | I mean, okay.

00:10:28.440 | What's going on?

00:10:29.440 | Who, who, who died?

00:10:30.440 | Okay.

00:10:31.440 | Hey, I didn't know there was no place I could go where, uh, strangers were yelling at each

00:10:36.520 | other about the news.

00:10:37.520 | So how would I possibly know what was going on in the world?

00:10:39.880 | Somehow people knew what was going on in the world 10 years ago, even without social media

00:10:45.120 | services they could look at all the time.

00:10:46.920 | So just go back and tap into that 2009, 2008 version of yourself.

00:10:51.240 | You'll be perfectly informed, but I'm glad you bring it up, Julie, because this is one

00:10:54.520 | of the last traps.

00:10:56.120 | I think people that have a pretty good relationship with technology, one of the last traps.

00:10:59.400 | It still snags them as this news thing.

00:11:02.240 | It really is.

00:11:03.240 | Uh, I think it's a storyline of the services themselves.

00:11:06.320 | You gotta be connected.

00:11:07.320 | You gotta know what's going on.

00:11:08.680 | This is where everything's happening.

00:11:11.000 | It's not, there's plenty of ways to get enough news without having to be staring at your

00:11:16.720 | phone all day.

00:11:17.960 | Hey, if you liked this video, I think you'll really like this one as well.

How To Get Your Life Together At 30 - To Anyone Feeling Lost, Lazy & Unmotivated | Cal Newport

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