15. Bring clarity to your own life

Hi everyone, this is Reza Mehmann, and you’re listening to the 15th episode of the Project Mindset podcast. So, in the last episode, we had a fascinating interview with Daniel Schäfer. Many thanks to Daniel for letting me interview you; it was incredibly interesting. The topic was the personal “why,” or rather, finding your personal “why.” I think there were some valuable takeaways, especially regarding why this question is even relevant. Why do we even ask ourselves about our personal “why,” and in a nod to the book *The Cafe at the Edge of the World*, which deals with answering the question of one’s own purpose in life?

I think, based on this book, we’ve gained a pretty good understanding of how relevant it can be to understand your “why” and then to take action to get closer to your goals, to your “why.” Daniel briefly touched on what his personal “why” was. I thought he made that incredibly transparent. He said it was to inspire and entertain people. I think that was also very close to the more business-oriented themes he had in his life, his startup, which he successfully built.

Your personal “why” can change.

I think he wanted to continue doing that in his private life as well, inspiring and entertaining people. But I also thought it was cool to understand, and to see him understand, that one’s personal “why” can change. I strongly believe that’s the case. For example, you might finish your education or studies for a while and be completely focused on your career, and then perhaps the time comes when you have children.

Then the “why” changes. So, you’re no longer doing it to advance your career, but perhaps to have financial security for your children and family. I completely agreed with him on this point, where I think we diverged a bit, because it’s about values, or rather, value systems. Daniel said that values ​​are hardly changeable in a person. I might agree with him to some extent, but I actually believe that values ​​can change. I think everyone has to decide that for themselves.

I’ve noticed that whenever I’ve validated certain things about myself with other people, or with other people, I’ve also been more open to changing certain attitudes I held. But I think everyone has to decide that for themselves. I actually need to think about this topic again myself. What I can definitely agree with, as Daniel also said, is that recognizing your “why” and doing nothing is fatal. I think everyone has some kind of happiness account.

What contributes to one’s own satisfaction

And when you do things that contribute to this happiness account, you’ll become happier over time. And if your own “why” contributes significantly to this happiness account, but you don’t do anything to get closer to your “why,” to your goal, because you procrastinate or postpone it, or whatever, then you can become relatively unhappy. But let’s get to today’s topic. It’s about clarity, specifically clarity in your own life about what’s truly important to you.

And for me, I have to admit, I didn’t have that clarity for a long time. What’s actually important to me? And, of course, the follow-up question: why am I doing the things I’m currently doing? When I finally started writing down which topics are relevant to me, the structure or framework of my life became a bit more obvious and transparent. So I think everyone can do that for themselves.

Write down the important areas of life

What are the 10 or 15 topics that are most important to me or to you? I think many would agree with the topic of family, for example, or friends. Of course, health is also important. For me, health is also a big issue, especially weight. I have to look at a cheeseburger sideways and I gain two kilos. Exercise is also extremely important to me. I have certain goals I want to achieve. A list of these topics—including job and career, for example, or what has recently become important to me—is extremely important.

That’s definitely something I’ve added, but also the awareness of including knowledge, skills, and abilities as an important area of ​​life. This has given me incredible clarity about where I currently stand with these topics and what I need to do to further develop them. So, my life topics, or life areas, or life categories, also include other things like investments. By that, I also mean, for example, retirement planning.

Other areas of life and their importance

This also includes the topic of networking. I really enjoy networking with people, so I’d like to remind you again if you’d like to contact me anytime. Another area that’s definitely on my agenda for the future is home, specifically making my home more comfortable so that my wife, my children, and I myself feel at ease. These are all areas of my life that I’ve written down for myself. They’re not prioritized yet; they’re simply the areas I want to focus on.

Obviously, I have to do something to get closer to my standard of living, my dreams, my goal. And once I had that figured out, I gave myself grades to understand where I stand, what the status quo is. And when I gave myself those grades, I naturally considered, okay, what would I have to do to get a top mark in that area? So, when you give yourself a top mark, you actually start thinking about what the goal is.

So, for example, with my family, what are my goals? Do I want to build a close relationship with my wife? Do I want a close relationship with my children? What do I want to teach them? Or take sports, for instance. I’m passionate about playing basketball. Do I just play it for fun, or do I have specific goals? Do I want to improve my shooting percentage? Or is this really relevant? That’s what the podcast is about, the topic of mindset. Where do I stand in that regard right now?

Honestly assess your own position

Am I actually happy with my mindset? Do I always achieve everything I set out to do? Mindset-wise, I mean? What would my ideal mindset be? That’s how I came across the topic of gratitude, which is particularly relevant to me. I realized at some point, hey, I’m not really the grateful type for all the things I have. And I’ve gathered from various conversations that gratitude is a super important topic for becoming happier with yourself.

And that’s when I realized, okay, I have to give myself a relatively low grade on the topic of gratitude. What do I need to do to get a better grade? So I worked out individual strategies and set reminders in my calendar. I recorded a separate episode about this, which you can listen to again if you like, so I could work on the topic of gratitude. And when I went through these points—and this wasn’t a process I completed in a single day, it actually took many days or even months, where I kept checking in, trying to understand where I currently stand, where I want to go, and also validating my progress with other people, especially my loved ones—

Talk to trusted people about it

Hey, are these actually the relevant topics for me? Is anything missing? Do you see any challenges I need to address? You gain so much clarity about your own life this way. And I can recommend everyone try it. Just write it all down, establish the status quo, give yourself a grade, don’t be too hard on yourself, and then define what that grade of 1 actually is. Where do I actually want to be in the future? And another relevant question for me at some point was: what have I actually done in the last few months and years to make progress in these areas?

I have to admit, I personally found that question very difficult because I realized that in certain areas I hadn’t done much in a structured way to make progress. And that was a real eye-opener for me: wow, if I continue to do so little in these areas, I’ll never reach my goal. For example, if I want to work on my “my time,” what have I done in the last 100 days—or 3 months, or 6 months—to make progress in that area?

The last hundred days reflect

Or if I want to develop a new area of ​​knowledge, for example, I want to understand more about IT, what have I actually done in the last 100 days to make concrete progress? If that’s difficult to answer, then you know where you need to start to make progress. That’s why the topic of clarity has been incredibly valuable to me in my life. And, to come back to the topic, in the interview with Daniel Schäfer, I had the impression that he had a special clarity about what he wanted in life, where he wanted to go, and how to get there.

Alright everyone, as always, a relatively short episode today about clarity. I hope I was able to give you a little more insight into what I mean by clarity. And of course, I wish everyone the clarity in life that they need to be happy. As always, if you have any questions about the topics I discuss, just write to me at hallo-at-project-mindset.de. And one last request, as always: Of course, the channel can only grow if you leave me a like or a review.

Conclusion and exchange

Anyway, I’d be happy if you talked to other people about listening to this. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. I’ll be back soon with the next episode. And don’t forget, mindset is everything.