The Importance of having a direction in life
I listened to a new episode of the Jordan B. Peterson's podcast yesterday while training. It is a bible-related lecture and despite being only half-way through it, concepts resonating with me flourished already.
There is a topic in particular that caught my interest deeply. It is the importance of having a direction in life and writing down where you are now and where you are directed towards, which is an exercise requiring a lot of focused attention and mindfulness (short term sacrifice) but which has the potential of being an eye opener for your life. That's because according to Dr. Peterson having a direction, a purpose in life is vital to finding meaning. Which is ultimately what in his opinion (and i find myself agreeing very much here) is the purpose of life and what keeps us sane.
Meaning, however, is not the same as happiness. It is more than that. Happiness comes and goes effortlessly. Meaning is something that is deeply embedded in your soul. It is your 'why', as Simon Sinek, author of the book 'Start with Why' would say. Consequently, the importance of knowing the state of life you are in and what drives you towards a future plan of actions, a vision for your life, cannot be overlooked.
———
An idea he also shared on this subject is how decomposing things (problems, projects, goals) into small blocks brings clarity to them and therefore makes them much more likely to happen. I guess this is a psychological technique used with clients as well. That's because often times we feel overwhelmed by something bigger than us which we cannot frame into a box. And the objective of a psychologist is to decompose that problem, give a name to it, therefore bringing it to life. Which makes it much easier to attack. But this technique can be applied to pretty much every area of life. I try to use it as much as possible.
I use it to study university subjects for instance. As a matter of fact, there is a recurring pattern in those: topics are divided into many subcategories which can be framed in a hierarchical order. For example, the topic of 'Business model Canvas' i have recently studied in Business Organization can be decompesed into small steps that make it much more manageable and clear: 1. what is a business model canvas; 2. How is it structured (how many blocks are there and their position); 3. What is the meaning of each block (e.g. customer segment, value proposition, cost structures, etc.).