How to Discover What You Really Want to Do?…Don’t!

Here’s an answer I gave to a question on Quora about finding out what you want to do in life.

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I find this question to be too stressful and unrealistic for most people to answer.  What you really want to do with your life is a lot of things, many of which probably haven’t been invented yet.  How can you pick one and plot a path to it?

Instead, do the opposite.  Think of things you know you hate doing or things that bore you or make you feel dead inside.  Don’t do those.  Try new things and add to that list whenever you find something not for you.  Make it your goal every day, week, month, and year to reduce the number of things you do that you don’t like doing.

Don’t think about careers, majors, titles, industries, and jobs.  Think about activities.  Stuff you do every day.  What do you not want to do?  How can you create a life where you never have to?

What you want is to not be bored in life.  So find out what things you can quit, and find a way to quit doing them.  Everything else is fair game.

That’s always worked well for me anyway.  Certainly better than trying to find out what I want to do.