1. Be Introspective

I start here because once you’ve exhausted all the other tips (and yourself), you’ll want to return to this one. It’s time spent reflecting on your thoughts and feelings.

Everything following this point involves being proactive, getting stuck in and working with others. Introspection will be your anchor, your point of contact when everything else becomes overwhelming. Don’t allow your wants to be defined by anything external, your definition must always be written internally. Use all that you learn from implementing the ideas below and return to an internal space to analyse and reflect, quietly and clearly.

Everyone’s optimal method of introspection will be different but generally I think it involves spending some time by yourself on an activity that allows you to be focused and alone with your thoughts. This could be on a walk, in the gym or sitting alone somewhere, it could involve writing things down, painting, playing music or meditation. Discover your preferred method and retreat within yourself when or before you become overwhelmed.

2. Surround Yourself with the Right People

Supposedly you’re the average of the five people you spend most of your time with and I think this makes a lot of sense. In school you’re forced into classes and groups with people who you may not share interests with, you might fabricate some sense of interest in more accepted parts of popular culture and for understandable reasons, getting through school with friends is far easier than going it alone. Once you hit college/university age though you have more choice over who you spend your time with, you can join societies created for those with specific interests and share ideas with likeminded people (or often equally valuable, people with opposing ideas).

This has helped me is because I’ve found myself spending more time with people a little bit older than myself, people who’ve been through the things I’m currently experiencing and are at a stage in their life that I’ll be at soon so their insight informs my foresight. Learning from your mistakes is very important, learning from other people’s mistakes can be just as valuable. When people openly share their mistakes and flaws with you they’re presenting you with invaluable gifts. There’s a wonderful line in Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy where Tashi-Evelyn recounts something her daughter says;

‘Yes, Mother, she says simple, embracing me. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.’

Surround yourself with diverse people, people working in different industries, from different racial and cultural backgrounds, people of varying ages, genders and sexual orientations. This will make all the advice that follows a lot easier and more importantly, you’ll have great friends to support you in whatever comes your way.

3. Have a Side Project

These tips all help one another and so I don’t want to give them any order of importance but this one is rather key to me personally. A side project might be the hardest of all of these to dedicate yourself to, it requires you to be proactive and to remain an active participant if you want it to be worthwhile.

A side project might mean starting a club related to an interest you have, learning to code, learning to play an instrument, another language or building something. It generally involves taking a vague interest, and developing it into something of value, not monetary value but personal value. I’ve been working with Yin & Yang for three or four years now and it’s helped me to make some great friends, develop various skills, build a network and ultimately led me to my current job.

The significance of a side project is that not only are you learning new things, you may find that you want to turn your interest into your career, for example you start learning to rock climb and six months later you want to teach it. You’ve defined something you want just by following up on an interest and doing something you enjoy. On the opposite end of that you might find that you definitely don’t want to turn it into your career and that you’d rather it remain a hobby but finding out what you don’t want is all a part of the process of finding out what you do.

Like I said, it’s not easy though. You’ll generally need to work on it outside of whatever takes up the bulk of your time, be that study, a full time job or taking care of the kids. One thing that has made this a lot easier though is the internet; instead of starting a print magazine you can now start a blog in minutes, instead of paying for classes you can learn the basics involved with a new skill through online tutorials and you can build a club/society/community through almost any social network.

4. Be Open Minded

A grumpy old bigot is one thing, a fresh young bigot with a spring in his step is something else!

You can’t expect to know what you want if you close yourself off to so many of the options on offer. Say relationships never work out for you, you’re struggling to define what you really want from a relationship but you’re spending all your time looking for “the one.” Perhaps this closed off idea of “the one” with whom everything is perfect and you fall in love with at first site is the wrong approach. Perhaps at this stage in your life you need to open your mind to ideas beyond monogamy, I’m not saying it’s what I’m looking for but don’t let society tell you how to go about your relationships.

As another example, you might hate your job and be sick and tired of the city you’re living in. What you really want is to be living on an island in Thailand teaching diving but you’re yet to see it, you’re stuck in the mind frame that travelling is dangerous and that you have to stick to the prescribed 9–5 lifestyle. What you want might just be beyond your current frame of thought, open your mind to new ideas and maybe what you really want is something you’ve been rejecting all along.

5. Don’t Settle for Comfort

When you get comfortable it’s easy to think you’ve already got what you want or you’re working towards it. A job that provides a steady income, a car to get you to that job, a home to return to at the end of the day and a partner you’ve decided you kind of like enough to settle with because you’d rather not be alone. All in all, you’re comfortable.

However you hit your mid-forties and all of a sudden you come to some realisations. Instead of sticking to the job you haven’t progressed very far in over the last ten years, you wish you’d pursued the business idea you once had. You’ve put on an unhealthy amount of weight and a gym membership would’ve cost less than running a car, comfort aroused laziness. You haven’t seen any of the places in the world you wanted to see and now your personal and financial commitments are far harder to let go of.

So many missed opportunities and so much potential can go unfulfilled because you settled for comfort and simplicity. A couple of steps outside of your comfort zone and you might realise what you really want, maybe what you really want is what you already have, I’m not trying to impose my ideals on you, but how will you ever know if you don’t step beyond and find out.

Comfort can create the illusion of fulfilment, don’t be eluded!

6. Take Every Opportunity You’re Given

They’ll come a time when you’ll need to learn to say no, when your objectives become more focused. When you think you know more accurately what exactly it is that you want you can say yes to the things that will help you towards that and no to the things that won’t.

For now, if you have the time, say yes. If you don’t have the time, make the time. If a friend invites you to their art exhibition, go. If your brothers friend needs an assistant for the day, do it. Look back at my tips and if you’re presented with an opportunity that will help you to do the things that I’m suggesting, take that opportunity! You might meet your future business partner, you might be inspired to start or join a side project, something or someone may give you the push outside of your comfort zone that you’ve been needing.

I first met the people who hired me for my current job by showing up at a press day about three years ago, to my deathly embarrassment at the time the guy I was with introduced me to them and openly said, “Aaron wants work experience, are you looking for anyone?” A few months later I did do some work experience there, a couple of years later I got a full time job. A lot of the time nothing this significant will come of something, I’ve been to a lot of press day and haven’t ended up with a job offer every time (if ever again) but the point is that doors aren’t just going to open for you, get yourself into the room and start knocking.

Once you have an idea of what you want, you can start working out a strategy for getting it. Try to think of this as a marathon and not a sprint, there are no other racers but there are a lot of people cheering you on, you set your own pace and you reach milestones in your own time.

Signing out,

An idealistic 23 year old with a lot still to learn…