Zoom All The Way Out

Making decisions with life's "big picture" in mind

Have you ever been in a conversation with a child who just hit their “why” phase? Where an insatiable level of curiosity leads to your attempting to explain why we can’t shower outside when it’s raining? Or why it’s acceptable to eat panCAKES for breakfast, and yet we can’t have chocolate cake?

I thought I would give this a try on adults. As it turns out, this is a great exercise when making big decisions or plans in life.

I recently helped a few friends through career changes. During those conversations, I pushed hard and questioned the moves being contemplated (as one does). Why go into that field? Why get that degree? Why start that company? Does that company need to exist? Why move across the country away from your family to take that job? Is it that special? What are you really working towards? These may sound like obvious questions with obvious answers. In reality, they aren’t asked nearly enough. Sometimes it just takes that curious toddler questioning your every move to really get to the bottom of whether it’s a right strategy.

I’ve gone through these big picture conversations with friends, colleagues and with myself many times. Eventually, as you get to the bottom of the “question well,” you start scratching at the penultimate questions (around what really matters in this life).

Personally, I’ve landed on three pursuits that I believe really do matter:

First, maximize the joy, the experiences and the novelty of actually living your life. A hospice nurse named Bronnie Ware spent years with people in their final weeks and wrote down what they told her they regretted. One of the top five, verbatim: they wished they’d let themselves be happier. Not that they hadn’t achieved enough. That they hadn’t let themselves enjoy what they had. We get one run at this. If you’re not chasing joy on purpose, what exactly are you doing instead? And why?

Second, leave something behind. Your work, a cause, your kids, or just how you treated the people in your life. There's a stage in Erik Erikson's model of adult development called generativity versus stagnation, roughly your 40s through 60s. Generativity just means pouring yourself into something bigger, work, community, the next generation, instead of coasting. Erikson didn't think that required a statue or a company with your name on it. A teacher who changes how one kid thinks? Definitely counts. So does a parent who does the same for their own kid.

Third, keep chasing the best version of yourself. That’s right, Kobe Bryant and his mamba mentality. He spent a whole book trying to define what this meant and when he finally boiled it down, this is what he landed on: constantly trying to be the best version of yourself. Not a result. A process you stay in, indefinitely.

Why does it matter to chase the best version of yourself? To me, it’s the highest stakes and most important pursuit possible. We are all capable of so much. To go through life, get to the end of it, and realize that there was so much potential that you never scratched at? That’s a travesty. David Goggins has a famous story about a particularly horrid version of hell: where at the end of your life, you get to shake hands with the version of yourself that did reach your full potential, and hear how life could have gone.

You don’t need my three pillars. You need your own. But you do need some, because the alternative, as Erikson describes, is stagnation.

Next time you are reflecting, thinking big picture direction, or making big life decisions. Zoom out. What’s important?