life is an adventure
i don't say that because it sounds good
i say it because i really believe life
is gorgeous in a way that words don't
fully capture in a way that can only be
felt
but i also say it because adventures can
be rough sometimes in a way that's not
really romantic
life is so full of uncertainty
one way to put it is that life has a way
of making me feel naked vulnerable what
we all lived through these last two
years was a bizarre period for humanity
full of enormous rapid change
and i don't think this pace of change is
going to slow down this is the world
that we live in a lot of us have felt
worn out this year i certainly have at
times so i'm making this to offer a
simple system for reinvention a way to
reset if you're feeling lost
this is the fourth year i'm doing this
and it's been fascinating to see how the
things that i say and share have evolved
over that period i believe reinvention
is a powerful reoccurring theme of life
in a world that's ever-changing and
evolving every moment in your life is an
opportunity an opportunity to pause and
reflect so without further ado
part one shadow work
the thing that i most want to be
remembered for is the love that i have
for life but i found that it's hard to
access that love and curiosity for life
when i feel consumed by fear or
self-doubt the reason for this is
because you have a set amount of energy
every day okay a set amount of creative
and mental energy now worrying and
self-doubt are energy-intensive
activities they eat up your energy the
way chrome eats up your computer's
memory this is often why so many people
end up feeling worn out because these
constant fears are eating away at you of
course overwork can also do the same
thing but i find quite often that it's
things that are going on in our heads
that have the biggest impact on our
lives
anything you can do to reduce that
worrying and self-doubt will free up
more resources for the things you
actually want to do i have found that
actively exploring the things that scare
me is always a good investment of my
energy the way to not let fear run your
life in my opinion is not by going away
from it but rather going directly
towards it and exploring it carl young
the famous swiss psychiatrist and
psychoanalyst believed in exploring the
full breadth of your feelings the
positive and the negative similar to
what i'm suggesting right now he called
this shadow work in reference to your
shadow which you must embrace
the parts of your psyche that you don't
necessarily want to explore this is kind
of like the opposite of just using the
power of positive thought he believed
that if you didn't embrace the entirety
of your being you can't live a full life
which is exactly what i believe in
relation to fear unless you make the
unconscious conscious it will direct
your life and you will call it fate so
how do you make the unconscious
conscious i turned to tim ferriss here
for a bit of inspiration who did a great
ted talk on this although he himself
credits the stoics for this idea what he
suggested was to name your fears instead
of your goals as a way to develop more
awareness about them and prevent them
from paralyzing you
i like this idea a lot in fact i'm
constantly working towards doing this i
really think it is a major element of
spiritual development and so it inspired
an exercise that i'd like to offer ask
yourself these questions what am i
afraid of right now how am i allowing
this to alter my actions and decisions
what i find helpful to remember is that
fear is not a sin to feel fear is to be
human nelson mandela said i learned that
courage was not the absence of fear the
triumph over it the brave man is not he
who does not feel afraid but he who
conquers that fear
part two get the f out of your own way
you know it's a crazy thought that i had
not so long ago i was placed on this
earth to learn how to
not be so rough with myself to live life
with an open heart towards myself and
towards others despite the gravitational
pull that is always there to go into
autopilot mode or to you know let fear
take over i just kept thinking about how
i'm constantly making things harder for
myself than they need to be what i have
personally found is that sometimes life
is about making things happen right and
i've spent a lot of time talking about
that
i think a lot of people spend a lot of
time focusing on that but more often
than not there's a flip side to that
that gets a lot less attention which is
just getting out of your own way letting
things happen all of these things become
possible if we stop
self-sabotaging all the time honestly
the idea of self-sabotage is something i
think about a lot as i've observed my
own behavior i've just realized how
often i can
create obstacles blocking me from my own
potential and so my perspective has
shifted more towards how do i just get
out of my own way instead of trying to
make things happen it's kind of like
flowing with things versus being so
rigid about a particular structure and
approach this is a multi-faceted idea
okay there are many many ways that we
self-sabotage so many of us are quite
advanced in our techniques i want to
offer an example a really beautiful idea
i pulled from the book the four
agreements which is a book written by
don miguel ruiz which you may or may not
have heard of but i do recommend the
second of the four agreements is don't
take anything personally don't take
anything personally what exactly does
that mean i like interpreting this idea
to mean that the world isn't actually
against you that we create so many
demons in our own heads we make the
world a scary unexplorable place and it
doesn't have to be that way what a
powerful thought that is they're in
their own spot in their own journey to
figuring out what the hell we're all
doing here and about themselves and
that's exactly what you're doing right
like we're all kind of in this together
in that way the actions and beliefs of a
person is a reflection of their reality
so the conclusions i pull from this are
multiple honestly one is that i
shouldn't worry so much about pleasing
other people i don't mean that to say
like go be an but honestly i've
never made a video that hasn't offended
or bothered somebody in some form or
another
trying to
be safe
is not a good use of my energy i don't
want that to be my main objective in
life as i already said people will be
offended or bothered by just about
anything at the same time i interpret
this thought of like don't take anything
personally as yet another reminder to
live life with an open heart to
essentially assume the best of others
don't protect yourself from the world
you know be vulnerable don't try to
create a fortress in the clouds you know
that's not where real life is happening
so to make this actionable back to the
journal how am i taking things
personally how can i let go of that and
remember that others actions are just a
reflection of where they're at in life
so really briefly i'd like to talk about
the sponsor of this video which is
skillshare a little bit inspired by the
idea attributed to davinci that learning
never exhausts the mind which is a big
reason why i'm such a fan of skillshare
and the platform that they've created
which is chock full of literally
thousands of classes on a ton of
different interesting topics everything
from photo and video editing to business
development self-care how to take care
of indoor plants i first took classes on
skillshare like four or five years ago
when i was learning how to edit video
and since then the platform has only
grown and matured fast forward to today
and i have now published three classes
with them as well i did one on finding
your voice as an artist online one on
how to speak confidently on camera and
one on how to intentionally document
your life which i think is my favorite
of the three i think they're all great
and i think they speak to different
interests if you're interested
skillshare could be a tool that you use
in the year 2022 to continue to learn
and grow the first 1000 people to use
the link in my description box will get
a one month free trial of skillshare
premium highly recommend it you might
end up hooked and thank you once again
to skillshare for sponsoring this video
and supporting my work in such a big way
and now back to the video part three
big and little decisions
this third part of the video i just want
to talk candidly
i find
that
the process of figuring out life
is
just this kind of constant ongoing thing
i fully expect to be doing this for
the rest of my life
kind of like how i'm trying to figure
out this shot right now with this bright
light this is why i love
charles bukowski's
famous words don't try what you're on is
tombstone and don't try sounds like
really confusing advice like
don't try what that's like the opposite
of what everybody's always telling us to
do you know but i really like
this approach a big part of the reason
why i want to distance myself from
self-help and self-improvement was the
way it becomes rigid it becomes all
about
bulldozing through things all about
forcing things to be a certain way and i
think there's something really powerful
about letting things happen letting
things be and that's how i interpret
butkowski's advice and it's such a
different sort of mindset than the one
that i used to have it's refreshing it's
like it's just energetically it feels
different feels better i don't interpret
this advice i mean like don't do
anything
um it's more like don't force life to be
a certain way so anyway this is this
thing that i think we're all like trying
to figure out all of us we're all trying
to find the right balance and i sort of
had this epiphany if you will okay
i'm always making bad decisions like all
the time like my whole life
every year of my life i've made
thousands of poorly thought out
decisions you know when i'm hungry when
i'm tired i'm just a machine for bad
decisions but every once in a while
i will make one really good
big decision and i end up being fine
like things are okay in my life and it
just made me think you don't have to get
everything right you really don't not
even close kind of like if you can make
occasional good decisions on the pillars
of your life then
almost nothing else matters
you can screw up on pretty much
everything else this is kind of like
applying the 80 20 rule to life and look
this is gonna look very different for
every person but i'll give you a couple
of examples in my own life
my own personal decision not to go to
college feels like one of those
decisions
it feels like wow i was able to use the
next four to six years
to learn so much about myself to launch
my career and the funny thing is i'm
sure there are people out there that
feel exactly that way about college
about how it was a great investment of
time and energy and that's why i'm
saying that it's really something that
you have to figure out for yourself
i feel the same way about my youtube
channel how for a long time it didn't
make a lot of sense you know i was just
following a passion
but it led somewhere and it totally
changed my life so let me put this
another way don't worry about getting it
all right you know plant a few seeds
right now
and let them grow if you start
cultivating your life that way i think
things will just work themselves out for
me at least this is a calming idea a
reminder not to be so tense all the time
because like i said i make a lot of poor
decisions i feel like i screw up on a
lot of little things and that's okay
that's human i also screw up on big
things sometimes too it happens and when
i get really tense like that everything
starts to fall apart you know it's this
like vicious cycle so to make this
concrete
what are two to three decisions in the
coming months that i can focus on and
prepare as best as i can for
what are decisions i'm putting too much
importance on
first of all i just want to say thank
you for watching this video and i'm
curious to hear what you're planning on
focusing on this year and if one of
these three sections that i included in
this video particularly resonated with
you there's a lot of exciting stuff
coming this year and honestly it's
people that hit the bell icon that will
be the first to know
that is my subtle way of asking
anyway i'm wishing you all the best and
i will see you very soon