FEELING LOST? - The ULTIMATE ADVICE For Students & Young People | Jay Shetty

The reason why we have such low self-esteem today in the world is because people are not serving others. So they don't see the profound impact they have on others. Stillness and silence is one of my favorite ways for you to actually build that relationship with hearing your inner voice.

Navigating your life can be so challenging. And that's why in this video, Jay Shetty shares his life lessons. for finding your purpose and living a full life.

The reason why I start with identity is because I think that's the root of all our challenges. And the first step to thinking like a monk is starting at the root, not starting at the symptoms or the superficial or the surface level. But let's go to the root. If you're playing a role, if you're wearing a mask, If you're dressed in clothes that are not yours, then you end up living a life that's not yours. And in the book, I give this example of method acting. Yes, Daniel Day-Lewis. Yeah, he's amazing. I'm a massive movie junkie and I love method actors. So people like Heath Ledger, of course, from the Dark Knight series. You've got Jared Leto. So Jared Leto, when he played the Joker in, this is not in the book, in Suicide Squad, he used to send dead rats in the mail to his co-stars. He did not. He did because he was trying to get into the mindset of how someone that perverted would behave. And then Daniel Day-Lewis, when he was filming for Gangs of New York, he's actually wearing these coats that are centuries old so that he can get into character while he's off camera. Yeah, when he can feel it, right? He's not wearing watches, he's not carrying around his mobile phone. They're speaking in the accents and he talks about how he actually went crazy. Because guess what? When you fake being someone for so long, you think it's your reality. And that's what happens to all of us. We play a role at work, we play a role at home, we play a role with our family, we play a role with our friends, and then we think that role is us. Right. And we lose ourselves. And to me, that is the core reason why we're chasing things that are not important to us. We're unhappy despite reaching accolades, and we feel dissatisfied.

So what should our identity be? be then?

Our identity should start with unlearning everything that we think we know about ourselves. How do we unlearn? So the best method of unlearning is this. First, and I'm gonna get really strategic and tactical because I think that people need to know what to do rather than a concept. The first thing you do is write down everything you currently are chasing in your life. Make a list. Your goals, your dreams, your accomplishments. Anything that you're currently chasing and pursuing. Write them down. You can write down three, you can write down five, you can write down ten, depending on how ambitious you are. Second line, ask yourself, what is the source of that? Where did you get that idea? Did you get that idea from a TV show you saw? Did you get that idea from your parents? Did you get that idea from your mom and your dad, your sister, your cousin? Did you get that idea because your friend just got proposed to on Instagram? Did you get that idea because your friend just got promoted? Did you get that idea because You just broke up. Or did you get that idea because you just feel it when you do it, that you feel alive?

Give me a specific example that you had when you were 15, 18 was like a goal or accomplishment that you were chasing and where it came from.

Absolutely, so my goal when I was young was to be an investment banker. And when I really asked myself where did that come from, it came because in my community, small community in London, the most successful person financially was an investment banker. So I believed you had to be an investment banker to be successful. Right. So when I ask myself that question, where does that come from? It comes from society's version of success, not mine. And then the third thing you ask yourself is, well then what is mine? What is coming from inside of me? And if you just do that three-step process, now what you're doing is you're filtering out the noise and you're starting to listen to your voice. The thing is you've got a voice inside of you, but it's quiet. It's like Jay, like take note of me, like Lewis, you know? And it's just like trying to get through and the noise of everyone else's opinions is so loud.

So this is what you filter it. How do we start to find out what we truly want then, not based on what other people think is success. How do we listen to ourselves? If you've been chasing something your whole life, how do you say, well, actually that's not what I want. This is.

Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes we make is that we confuse inexperience with being unqualified. So because we've not tried a lot of things, we just naturally believe that we can't be that good at them. So if I've never spoken on a stage, I just think, oh, I'm probably not good at that. Or if I've never played golf, I probably think, oh, I'm probably not good at that. And so we start writing off things without even trying them. So the best method I can share with someone is take the next month, take the next four weekends in the month that gives you eight days and get really tactical. Every single day.

That's why you're playing tennis a lot right now.

Yeah, play tennis. Take the eight days, go join a course, an online course, a workshop, go and shadow a friend, go to a seminar, a conference, go to reading a book, listen to a podcast. Go and expose yourself to eight different things in a month.

Eight different things.

Eight different things in a month. And guess what? In a month you will have learned what you probably would have learned in eight years because most of us test one new thing a year. Maybe. Maybe. If that, exactly, right? Like some people don't even do that. But if you do eight different things in a month, and this is how you have to see it, if you went to eight different restaurants in a month, you ask yourself after you eat a meal, like I had that burrito or I had that taco, did I like it? Right, the first question you ask yourself.

Is did I like it?

You gotta try it first. You gotta try it first, you gotta go to the restaurant. There's no point, so you gotta say did I like it? The second question you ask yourself is why did I or why did I not like it? Like why is so important? I think too many people just go I like it or I don't like it. Why did I like it? And the third question you have to ask yourself really really simple is do I want to do it again? And if you do, that's where you start uncovering. So my point is Inexperience, do not misinterpret inexperience for a lack of qualification. I'm guessing you're doing things in your life right now that you would have written off if you didn't try. I know you've talked about with writing a best-selling book. You've talked about it with this amazing documentary. I mean, I never believed I could do half the things I'm doing today. And you know that because we met when I was just creating content on social media. And it's like now when you see things expand, you're like, you don't know until you give it a go. and ask yourself, do I enjoy it?

Yes. So I grew up very competitive. And you talk about competition as one of these, I can't remember if it's like four or five different things, and competition is one of the things that's actually like, I wish I had the page right here, but you talk about competition as like not the highest level of ourself.

Yes.

In my entire life, I was competitive, I was driven to beat other people. And in the last seven years, I have shifted so much. I'm still competitive, still want to win, but I'm not like hurt if I lose. I'm not upset, it doesn't defeat me emotionally. Whereas before it used to be like, this was my identity, winning. I had to win. Now it's like, okay, what did I learn? What did I gain from this experience? Did I have fun? Did I enjoy it? Did I inspire people even if I didn't win in this situation? In chapter two, you talk about negativity and the quote you use is, It is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. Does competition and unhappiness link together in your mind? Like if we need to be competitive to be happy in order if someone else loses, how do we manage ourself in this competitive world of winning in sports, of building a bigger business, of these different things, being number one in New York Times bestseller list? How do we manage that with this world we're in but also wanting to be happy at the same time?

Yeah, what a great question. So the way I see it is that competition in and of itself is not good or bad. And this is like the monk mindset on 99% of things, that this mug is not good or bad. It can be filled with water or it could be filled with poison. And so competition, I'll give you an example, as monks, Our competition is in how much love and respect we showed to each other.

That's your competition.

That's what you compete on.

Or how long can we meditate for?

No, no, no. I can meditate longer than you. So if any monk, and I did this plenty of times. Really? If I sat there and I thought, oh yeah, look at him, he's scratching his back. He got out. Like that moves. Your meditation just got destroyed. All the value. And so monks will never ask how long you meditate. They focus on how deep you meditate. And someone who meditates deep doesn't go on about how deep it was. But you compete for showing respect. You compete for serving each other. You compete for how well you can collaborate. And I feel like you live this. Yes. I feel like you have this- I didn't used to do that. Yeah, but the last few years- But.

You do it now. You think like a monk.

I feel like we're always trying to find a way where we can be better friends to each other. Absolutely. And support each other. And so you're competing on that. And that's a positive competition that I think you can have. So you can still use, and this is the beautiful thing about the monk mindset, you can use any thing in a positive way. Now in your second question about what does it mean about business and New York Times best seller lists and being number one, this is how I see it. If while you're writing your book, if while you're recording your podcast, if you're sitting there going, I hope this is gonna be number one, this better be number one. I hope I sell more copies than this person who's launching at the same time because that's the only way. Well guess what? Now the quality of your output right now has just dropped. Because guess what? You're now living 75% in the future and you're 25% right now. And guess what? This 25% is gonna define that future goal and result. And your happiness. And your happiness.

Whether you get the result or not.

Totally. Whereas for me, when I was writing my book, and of course I want my book to be a best selling book, of course I want my podcast to do well. Of course we don't do anything for it to be lost. Like no one does that. But what I do know is that when I'm creating, when I'm producing, when I'm writing, that's all I'm doing. See, the truth is that only 2% of the world's population can multitask. Now, the crazy thing is when- Who are those 2%? When people hear that, they think, I'm in that, oh, I'm in that 2%. Everyone thinks that they're in that. But most of us are the 98%. And the truth is there is no such thing as multitasking. What it is is fast switching between two tasks.

So the quality is just dropping. 'cause you can actually, you cannot do two things at one time.

You cannot. No one genuinely can do two things at one time.

I guess you could maybe like pat your head and do this at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you can't do something productive at the same time, right?

Or creative. And so what I'm saying is that when you're sitting here going, this needs to be number one, you are reducing that thing's ability to be number one because it now doesn't have your full focus.

Right.

So that's the difference maker, that you can want to be number one, there's nothing wrong with that, But you can't keep comparing what number one is to someone else's goal too, because everyone's got a different trajectory. Like there are some people that are kind of come in and do really well at one thing and you're gonna do really well at another. And that's why competition has to first be in your space. Like don't compete in a space that's not yours.

Right.

Because now you're just trying to be someone else again and you get a false identity.

Exactly. Exactly. You talk about the four motivations. One is fear. desire, duty, and love. And as I was reading this, fear is kind of like the making sure you have your basic needs met, right? It's like, do I have shelter? Do I have food? Am I protected? Am I safe? Living in fear, it's being driven to get out of that fear, I guess, or driven by that. Then you have desire, which is probably what was most of my life, was my main motivation, which was desire, seeking personal gratifications through success, wealth and pleasure. That's probably most of like, I don't know, any teenage boy, you know, who's just like watching the media and seeing what their friends do, they're driven by desire. Girls, money, cool toys, results, success. I don't want to generalize it, but that's what I saw a lot growing up.

Sure, me too.

Now, the last two, the third and fourth are duty and love. Duty is motivated by gratitude, responsibility and the desire to do the right thing.

Thing.

And love is compelled by care for others and the urge to help them. And I feel like in the last seven years, it's been more duty and love. It's more like mission focused. And there's an amount of happiness that I've never felt before until I reached practicing duty and love. And I remember I never was able to fall asleep at night until about 78 years ago without an hour, hour and a half of just anxious, anxiety, stress, concern, worry. And when it shifted from seeking personal gratifications to.