I previously wrote about what I learned from understanding more about the beauty and meaning of life from my perspective.

The overarching theme that I aimed to elucidate was that life is all about doing the simple things well.

I believe another important aspect to this is figuring out what you want and generally do in life.

Throughout high school and university, I spent a significant amount of my time figuring out what I would want to do in life - from exploring a wide variety of broad and niche topics across biology to physics to economics.

The journey that I went through in terms of stuff that I wanted to do, aligned closely with what I wanted out of life.

I think there are a few steps that are necessary in terms of determining this, so I will lay it out in three simple (but not particularly easy) steps.

Step 1: Ignore what everyone else thinks you should be doing

This is not a call to become an anarchist of sorts but to listen more closely to your own internal alignment of what is important to you.

This is by far the hardest step for anyone to do.

This doesn't mean to act like you are a contrarian 24/7 or simply reject societal norms just because or do the exact opposite of what society tells you to do since some stranger on the internet told you to do something that nobody else does (this is in fact, also, an example of following the crowd).

It means finding what your inner voice deems to be correct and true based on all observable inputs and information available to you. The goal should be to increase the net amount of correct information you have in order to arrive at a decision that you deem is correct, independent of anyone else's opinions about the outcome of that decision.

To illustrate what I mean, I have a list of three examples:

1. People founding startups just to tell others that they are a CEO.
2. People joining a conventional career path for status points.
3. People who have just finished university going into graduate school (or going to industry to work) because they are confused and that's what everyone else does.

In the three examples above, note how the primary driver is what other people think or perceive you to be (or should be) based on choosing that decision.

Examples of choosing the exact same decision but not considering people's thoughts look like this:

1. People founding a startup because they found an untapped problem area that they find cool to solve and can generate value for other people.
2. People joining a conventional career path because they genuinely enjoy the work.
3. People who have just finished university going into graduate school (or going to industry to work) because they found a deep interest in a certain field.

It is exceptionally easy to have your primary driver be what other people think you should do or how they perceive you to be. This makes it significantly harder to do the next two steps.

Address this first.

Step 2: Find out what you like being good at

If you have done the first step correctly, you will probably see that you have a wide variety of interests. You will also notice that there are certain interests and skills that you are good at, that most people would find value in. This is basically what finding your Ikigai is.

In most cases, this is a relatively simple process of going deep in a wide variety of interests until you find something that seems very very very amazing to you.

You will know once you have found it. There will be an insane energy inside of you to wake up everyday and be excited to dive deeper into it. I wouldn't say this is rare to find, you just have to spend time finding out what it is. Personally, it took me almost 9 years to find this out for myself.

I don't have too much of an instructional sub-step for this. If you have done Step 1 correctly, this is a relatively simple iterative process. Be present with the journey and appreciate what it has to offer. You just simply follow things that you find to be interesting and go deep in them.

This doesn't mean that what you find is necessarily easy to do, it's something that you appreciate and genuinely love the journey of.

The feeling of finding something that you truly love will have an incredible feeling over you that makes you feel more and more alive when you go deeper into it.

Step 3: Integrate your life by being present

To effectively culminate the above, you must have an abundance mindset.

The way to do this, in my opinion, is to be fully present in the moment and appreciate life's unlimited abundance that is around you.

There is an incredible amount of things to be grateful for. Avoid scarcity mindset tropes like a mind plague.

Surround yourself with people who fill your life with positivity and are there for you, just like you are there for them, always.

What you want and generally do in life is your unlimited abundance and presence to guide you in your life's journey.

Be present and appreciate it all.