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How I’m moving forward during uncertain times
Recently, I’m going through some kind of midlife crisis.
Maybe that doesn’t speak to you right now, but I believe at one point or another, we all go through something similar: a feeling that what we do just doesn’t matter anymore.
I’m not in my midlife yet, but I see myself approaching 40 faster than I thought I would. Heck, I still remember being scared of turning 30. It turns out, the 30s can be quite amazing!
In any case, by the time we get close to 40, there are some things we have been used to doing for many years. For me, that’s programming. I’ve been programming since I was about 13 years old.
That’s 27 years of doing the same thing.
Now, I’m lucky because programming is a very varied thing. The end result is always a new product. But the act of programming itself becomes easy and semi-automatic after a while, even if you keep trying new technologies as I do.
So recently, I’ve come to realize that the things I used to enjoy the most, like programming, writing, and being a nomad, have become more of a chore than something I want to do.
Have you ever felt this way before?
That’s problematic because that’s exactly how I make a living — by programming and writing.
I don’t feel like doing it.
Every time I stare are my screen to do it, I feel bored. I feel like what I do doesn’t matter.
So when I realized that, I did something that helps me get back on track — a Think Day.
A Think Day is a day where all I’m doing is jotting down notes in a journal. I go to a cafe, bring pen and paper — and then it’s just me and my notes for the next 8 hours or so.
During Think Day, I often find myself writing between 15–40 pages of notes (medium-sized notebook).
And to be clear, before starting, I have no clue what I’m going to write about. We often don’t realize how much we keep in our heads. Think Day is a great opportunity to let it all out.
So what do I typically write?
I often like to start with two things:
What do I want to get out of this Think Day? I like to list 3–5 outcomes I’m looking for.
I do my table of life. I rate how I’m currently doing (and why) in different pillars of my life.
Example of a table of life from an app I had built some years ago
Doing my table of life usually guides me in my thinking. I ask myself why I’m doing so poorly in a certain category? How can I improve it?
For example, for my most recent Think Day, I had never rated “business/career”, “personal growth”, and “finances” so low in the past 5 years or so that I’ve been doing tables of life.
That guided my reflection.
It got me thinking about an exercise I used to do a lot: Ikigai. It looks something like this:
That may look intimidating at first, but when you break it down into a simple process, it’s really not that hard.
Here’s my process when doing it:
List:
What you love doing
What you’re good at
What the world needs
What you can be paid for
2. Find the intersections. List:
What you love doing and you’re good at
What you’re good at and can be paid for
What you can be paid for and the world needs
What the world needs and you love doing
3. Find your Ikigai. Hopefully, at this point, there’s at least one thing that intersects everywhere. It’s the thing that:
You love doing it, you’re good at it, the world needs it, and you can be paid for it. That’s your Ikigai.
My result didn’t surprise me at all. In the end, I got the same result I’ve been getting for the past 5 years or so.
I love helping people acquire skills
I’m good at imparting knowledge and assembling groups of people
I can be paid for teaching and organizing groups of people who can share knowledge
The world needs to get more skilled (for various reasons)
The Ikigai is that I must help people get more skilled. The only thing that changed is that I might not do that through programming or writing.
Getting to this Ikigai made me brainstorm new ways I can get people to learn more skills. My first avenue was an online community of learners and teachers.
I think it’s a decent idea I’m willing to explore in the near future.
Where I got my big “ha-ha!” moment was when I thought about opening a professional “school” in Montreal, where I live.
I know many professionals who are already sharing their knowledge in various ways. They either do it for free or get paid, but when they do, it’s not on their own term.
I want to help them be able to share their knowledge on their term. I want them to create the content they want to create and impart that knowledge to people who really want or need it.
I want professionals to be able to learn exactly the skills they need to get better at what they do. I want them to do so without breaking the bank or wasting time.
So at my “school”, professionals with tons of hands-on experience would teach very specific skills in short sessions.
Anyway, the point isn’t to explain my whole concept. It’s also not to convince you that my idea is good (because it very well might be a bad one). My point is that I got to result I feel excited about.
I think about my “midlife crisis” and I can say that at least I’ve got some idea of how I can get through it. Now it’s just time to act without fear of failure.
I will create an action plan this week and start acting on it. That’s the only way I will get through this.
What about you?
When you have a huge change you want to do in your life, how do you usually succeed in doing it?
Is there a huge change you want to do in your life right now? Or maybe it’s not something you want to do, but your environment is almost forcing you to?
Do you know where you sit in your table of life? How about your Ikigai? Any idea what it could be?
Whatever it is you’re going through, I know there’s a way forward. I strongly recommend doing a Think Day to get more clarity. Try it and see how it goes!
You can do this!
— Danny