I’m graduating college and I don’t know what I want to do with my life.

— How to get everything you want out of life.

“If you haven’t found your passion, don’t let that stop you from living a passionate life. You don’t need to find your “passion” to live a passionate, fulfilled life.” — Anonymous

“I don’t know what I want to do with my life” and that’s okay. You’re not supposed to. I know people who are 3, 4 even 5 years ahead of you who are unhappy at their corporate jobs and still in the exact same situation as you are.

I’m not going to sell you any dreams, you may never find what people call “your passion” and you may never figure out what you are supposed to do with your life,

but you can start living a successful, passionate, happy and fulfilled life (starting today) without figuring this one thing out and in this short article, I’m going to show you how to do exactly that.

First, let’s talk about University

University was designed for those who already know what they want out of life. You want to be a lawyer? Great, here’s the fastest way to get there. A law degree.

The problem is that most 16–18 year olds have no idea what they want to do with their lives and how would they? They are 16 for fucks sake, they don’t know enough to make that decision.

So you pick a degree vaguely based on your current interests (or what you happened to have been“good at” in high school, or whatever your parents can afford) and that was it.

You specialise and mostly end up wherever this takes you. It’s a decent life, you are happy (if you are lucky), you get to provide for your family and you make your parents proud.

This is what my parents did and for the fact that they were able to pay for my education, I’m grateful they did this, because it worked.

The internet however came to fuck shit up and made everyone realise “Oh fuck! I don’t have to settle for this default path. It’s actually possible for me to live the life of my dreams”.

Then people started looking for something they call “their passion”.

They say :

“if I can only find something I’m passionate about, then I’ll work all day and actually enjoy what I’m doing, make a shit load of money, reach the top of my field and live happily ever after”

But this dream ends when you realise they don’t know what they are passionate about. They take that job as an associate at Pearson Spectre (just for now of course) or the legal role at KPMG and hope that their “passion” somehow reveals itself so they can quit their job and pursue that dream.

Sure enough, reality hits before too long and by the time life sucks out all their dreams, hopes and passions, they start thinking:

“I’m earning $45k and my boss is not so bad. I have a mortgage and another kid on the way, there is no way in hell I can quit this job now. What was I thinking anyway, I was just a foolish kid at 22, this dream thing is unrealistic”.

I hope you understand this before it’s too late for you — It doesn’t have to be this way.

It doesn’t you say! So how do I find this career, this dream, when I have no clue what I’m passionate about or what I want to do with my life?

The first thing you need to understand is that you have no passion.

I have always known what I wanted to do with my life, what I was passionate about. At 14 it was to be a priest, at 16 it was to be an Aeronautical Engineer, at 18 it was to start a car company, at 21 it was to start a tech company and at 24 I realised that what I want to do with my life is to be happy.

When people say they have somehow discovered their passion in life, what they actually mean is that they are able to wake up in the morning, happy and excited to go to work.

They love what they do at work because their work gives them a sense of fulfilment and they feel like they are living their life to it’s full potential. They are not living their passion, they are living a passionate life.

So this begs the question. How does one live a passionate life?

I was in your shoes just a few years ago, asking this question. Here’s what worked for me:

1. Decide what you want out of life

Let’s put your passion or career aside for a second. What do you want out of life? What makes you happy?

Is it money? Fame? Do you want to leave a legacy and have your name remembered for centuries? Do you want power? Freedom? This is not a time to be ashamed, you have to be fully honest with yourself.

Think about this really deeply. For me it’s freedom and contribution (because I want to leave a good legacy).

That’s what I want. To have complete control over my life and my decisions and money is one of the easiest ways to get there.

So anytime I find work that gets me closer this freedom and contribution, work that contributes positively to the world (so I can leave a good legacy), I find that I am happy when I do this work.

I do it with passion and find fulfilment in the work. I’m able to live a happy and passionate life, even when I don’t have this sense of freedom or legacy, because I know I’m doing the best thing I can possibly do right now, to take me there. I learnt this from Derek Sivers.

2. Take any opportunity you have right now that will take you in that direction.

Life is mostly about opportunities and decisions. Your entire life will be shaped by the decisions you make and the opportunities that present themselves to you.

If you decide to always be prepared so that when an opportunity comes your way — and they will come — you are ready to take advantage of it, you’ll have more wins than those who don’t.

Casey Neistat talks about this graph and I’ll link the video below, but the point is this.

Once you figure out what direction you want to take your life, the temptation is to imagine that there is this elusive straight line path to that destination.

It doesn’t work like that though.

Life is more like walking up very long staircase in a dark room with a bad torchlight. You can see only the next 2–3 steps and you have to take those steps for the the next steps to be revealed to you.

In practical terms, this means that you need to do the best you can right now and take the best opportunity you have that will take you where you want to go. And yes, that might mean the job at KPMG. But it might also mean you have to turn that job down.

Whatever you do, just take that next step (you know what it is) and constantly reevaluate your situation. With the resources I have right now, am I doing the best thing I could possibly be doing right now to get what I want out of life? Anytime the answer is no, it’s time to do something else.

As you follow this advice, let the following rules guide you:

1. Always optimise for what’ll make you happiest (because, in the end, that is what life’s all about).
2. Sacrifice short term comfort for long term happiness (so if you have to say no to that job and stay in your mums basement while you try and make your business work, now’s the time to do it.)
3. Never mistake comfort for happiness (That job might seem less painful now but what’s the long-term cost of that decision?)
4. Try as many things as you are able. Take every opportunity that’ll move you closer to your goal.
5. Make your mistakes now. The cost of failure right now to you is the lowest it’ll ever be.

Hope this helps

— felix

PS: Hit that little heart button below this article to help others find it. Thanks.

*Oh and here’s the video where Casey explains the Tarzan Method (it starts at 6:06 so you can skip ahead if you want, but the whole video is great).