"There's probably like 5 things I can do today that can make tomorrow slightly better" Genius.

Goals do not appear from nowhere. The trap behind the idea of 'life goals' is that we wait for something to happen, some mission or quest to appear in front of us, but while we wait, we forgive ourselves for being completely useless. We avoid studying, trying to be more talkative with strangers, taking on projects that we aren't that passionate about, and for all that we have that hidden excuse up in our heads "When time comes, I will show how powerful and motivated I am by achieving what I truly call my life goals". And over time, something just doesn't feel right, nothing appears, we start to give up, feel hopeless, directionless. But when you come to think of it, the many different tasks that you avoided might have been a path to series of engaging, truly meaningful goals that you strive for. The trap is basically, we want our goals to appear infront of us, but they don't, because we don't engage in solving our little goals, that might have been the true path to finding our passion.

Sometimes you clean the room, and sometimes the room cleans you

You know that thing that happens when you tell your parents a joke or ask them a simple question and it turns into a full-blown, 30 minute, moral lecture? I have to imagine that that happens in the Peterson household far too often lol. Jordan's son: "Dad I saw a snake today!" Jordan: "You know, snakes are the symbolic representation of the archetype of the unknown. You see recordings of this in biblical literature dating back to......"

This is reminding me of my dad telling me 99% of what we do is fighting back against the chaos and 1% is active progress.

It reminds me of a quote: "Start by doing what's necessary, then do what's possible, then suddenly you'll find yourself doing the impossible."

It's not like I don't do what I need to My apartment is clean and organized I have 3.8 GPA and will soon be graduating in less than a year I just feel like I have no direction, purpose, or motivation It's a problem that I've been facing for the last 3-4 years of my life, and I started to seek professional help recently Don't even know why I'm writing this truthfully I guess it helps me

I've been sober for about 5 months now but I've been having intense cravings these last few days and just going through a rough time. I was having cravings just like 15 minutes ago and then I watched this and I realized that I needed to vacuum a small portion of my room that had cat litter on it. I did so and for now the cravings have subsided and I feel some peace.

Jeez. I really need to clean my room.

Past few months I've been overly stressing about my purpose in life, but I think we get too caught up in people who say they've _always_ been passionate about a certain thing, and _always_ knew they were meant to pursue it, and that puts us off guard since many of us, myself included, don't feel that way towards anything. In this scenario, I think it's up to us to make our own purpose. Which is hard, because how do you know it's the right thing to do? I've always been way too concerned with getting things right the first time, but sometimes you just gotta let life happen. What looks like craziness to me now is just my story unfolding.

Society: You should follow your own dreams and passions. Don’t let others decide your goals Me: I don’t have any Edit: I made this comment a year ago. A year later, I finally found my passion.. I would always put away my dreams aside because I was afraid that I would fail someday. Now, not anymore. I hope you’ll find your dreams/passions too

He's spot on with this one. If you can't find a mountain to climb, look around you. Your messy room is full of mini mountains. Look at yourself, make it your goal to fix yourself up. Strive to take a sword to the little demons and in the process, you'll become better at wielding the sword, so when the time comes you'll be ready to take up the bigger challenges (which you'll probably find amongst all the smaller ones anyway). If you haven't found a purpose or passion already, it's because you're either distracted by sin or you're too weak to wield that sword. So get out there and start swinging.

Step 1: Clean your room & fix immediate problems in your life until you feel a sense of order and stability Step 2: Look around you, inside your sphere of influence, and change things that need improving Step 3: By creating that rythm and stability you will widen your perception and will be able to see things that will lead you to your goal, your vision. Then follow it.

Been stuck on the “clean your room” phase for three years now. I have a super clean house, but still utterly directionless in life and no idea where I wanna be even in two years

I feel like I don't have any dreams or hopes for the future. I dont even know where I'll be a year from now... and it just feels like I'm lost..

Peterson blows my mind every time I hear him speak.... No one has had such impact on me.

Once you cleaned up your room, go clean other people's room.

Dr. Peterson's wisdom and articulation is made exponentially more powerful combined with the incredible humility he possesses.

the way this man speaks, his cadence, his body language is so captivating and leader like. it's an honor to listen to him.

Listening to him is like a father giving you actual life lesson At this point my eyes started tearing because i realised my father would never try to talk to me like that. Even though some peoples have a situation worse than mine sometimes i wish he never appeared in my life

Two days back I cleaned up my motorbike. I washed it, dried it and polished it. It was long overdue. There has to be some subconscious association between physically cleaning something and cleaning your mind. Because after doing that I felt peaceful all day. Maybe even cleansed. The interesting thing is I had not known about the existence of Dr. Peterson let alone hear his lectures until yesterday.

I am kind of in a rut. Most days I was cleaning up things around me to distract myself. Now I am doing home workouts after such a long gap of not doing any exercise. After watching this, I feel hopeful that I'll find meaning in my life again. Something that gets me out of bed each day or purpose. So this video has been really healing to watch. Thank you!

I remember watching this video 5 years ago and thinking that this makes so much sense. It was my go to video when feeling purposeless. But unfortunately, this doesn't work. It just turns you into an automaton that looks like he has everything figured out (clean and tidy house, groomed, nice clothes, decent job, etc), but you are just daily ticking off boxes on your to-do list that consists of tasks that you "should" be doing. But no sense of purpose, meaning, no actual goals arise. It reminds me of a post I've seen on some ADHD-dedicated page on instagram: "Living with ADHD is like constantly completing side quests without ever touching main story". The only difference here is that people watching this video have no idea what the main story is.

I needed this so badly…I’m autistic and I don’t drive and my family is going through harsh times and I’ve been there for them both emotionally and physically so much that I lost sight of my goals and felt aimless for years. It gets hard making time for myself but this is a good way to look at problems. Just keep chipping at them and keep patting yourself on the back to push through. Sometimes we need to be our own hero.

So it seems like he is saying create a to do list of anything and everything that needs to be done and start knocking things off of that list. Don't procrastinate. Take action immediately. Clean your room.

My girlfriend took this advise too literally lol so now she's always keeping the house tidy and clean but it didn't really improved her life or anything in terms of making better decisions or working towards an improved tomorrow. What happened was she procrastinated on the other things she should be doing by cleaning the house instead (but at least we got a clean house haha)

I've watched so much Jordan Petersen and I've never once understood a word he's saying

Anyone else feel like they follow all the advice they hear and still don't know? I see people commenting "find the things that drain your soul and your purpose will emerge". Or start by doing small things in your life such as making your bed in the morning to become more motivated, and it just doesn't happen. Anyone else feel like no matter how much soul searching they do, there's just nothing there? I've tried going out of my comfort zone, tried new things, and nothing is there. Maybe some of us are just meant to have this kind of fate. Maybe there is no secret

This may be it for me. I'm 34. No goals no aspirations no dreams. They all died at 21 with my fiancee. I gave up. I let my life become a mess, unorganized, uncontrolled, madness. I'm struggling now to find out who I should be for myself and my family of 5. I live in chaos. My room is a mess, my house is a mess, my kids are learning from my mess.... and I'm struggling to become the man I know I can be. I have to tame my room, which is a jungle. Then I have to tame my living room and kitchen.. then the yard.... then I can show not only the kids but myself that I can be the master of my destiny. Then... I truly believe I can find the path but its not mine to find yet. I'm not disciplined enough. I'll revisit this comment in a year. Setting a google event.

I heard it once that " How you do anything is how you do everything" If you feel reluctant to cleaning up your room how do you expect to clean up your life? I have read about this Indian sage by the name of Pawhari Baba. He used to give all his love , his dedication , his attention ,his heart and sole to cleaning his one piece of utensil that he owned. His ideal was to give the same amount of attention and dedication to cleaning his utensil that he gives to preaching his philosophy to his disciples.

This is gonna be a mood killer. So, i'm 27 and i still don't know my passion, i don't have goals, or motivation. I don't have specific things that i'm good at. And even though i know it's a stupid thought sometimes i can't help but think maybe i would've become somebody if my parents decided what i should be, or even better if i was born in a rich family and given high expectation to be a successor someday, i would probably had alot of pressure but at least i would have purpose. Unlike now depressed with no goals.

That was exactly the mindset I had when I moved out of my parent's house for college. I was afraid I was going to fail to live on my own so I did my best at taking care of everything, even if I didn't particularly want to or even if I was tired. The fear was greater than the laziness. But then the first semester started and it kept going and eventually lockdown happened and the laziness kinda took over because I was not that afraid anymore of living alone. I'm trying to fix things up again and I think it might work if I just keep watching these videos to set my mindset right again. I need a goal to aim at so that I can build a purpose, a reason to actually get out of bed, a mission. And doing as little as cleaning up my room is enough to put some confidence and energy in me to get some momentum for the rest of the work ahead.

I know people make memes out of his 'clean your room' thing but its honestly such a good advice! I've noticed your environment really affects your mood. If my room is messy and dirty I feel depressed and feel like doing nothing.. but once I clean it up and open the windows to get some fresh air, I suddenly feel so much better!

I'm 22 and I don't know what to do with my life. I feel that I'm reasonable enough to make good decisions even though my mind is clouded right now, but at the same time, I'm afraid of taking risks and most of all I'm scared of falling in the common trap of living a boring/common and stressful life if it makes sense and if it matters... I graduated college almost one year ago and it seems that my life has been going in no direction ever since. I had better expectations regarding my future but I forgot that my fate is mostly in my hands and I am the one who can change my life... easier said than done even though I have some kind of moral and financial support from my family. One cause might be my depression, even tho I'm not sure I have one because I sometimes feel really good when I distract myself with other things. I am not honest with myself and I hide my bad habits inside my mind, trying to bury them deep. One other cause might be my vision about that world... I see no purpose in most of things and I feel like there's no real meaning in this Universe and I feel that people give it a meaning just so they can keep going... I'm afraid that the nature of this Universe is really dark and our existence means nothing to it. I'm a mess... I beg myself to see things clearly and put my life in order. This comment is more like a page in my diary and I'm more than pleased to share it with whoever might read it... I feel a bit releaved.

I’m so drained out that don’t even have the energy to write about my feelings and what I’m going through

How fortunate we are to have Jordan Peterson in our world, and the internet for us to watch these lectures

I think Jordans response still prompts the reaction of "holy shit cleaning my room? That's the meaning of life? Chaos order bla bla bla? That's so limiting and boring!!!" In my experience, I was so oblivious to the obsessive amounts of self critical overthinking, complicating every idea into a catastrophic and overwhelming sensation that I couldn't interact with people or be a valuable member of society. I had such a foggy view of what I wanted out of life, since I kept telling myself how much easier it would be to just submit to my personality temperament and resist making any meaningful changes. It wasn't until I literally started cleaning my room on a regular basis that the mental fog started disappearing. I noticed my mood, which isn't by itself a good measure of how meaningful your life is, getting better which let me see opportunities instead of obstacles. It all sounds so vague and probably myopic, but the truth is that as humans, we cannot and will not ever understand the scope of this complex world. We are limited creatures who must create order in the context of our tiny chaotic lives in order to not only biologically clear the brain fog, but to find meaning despite a strong argument for the legitamacy of nihilism.

That's definitely the most unique answer I've heard to the question "what should I do in life"

This video is amazing. Truth is you can’t start with the end in mind, maybe just vaguely, you have to start in the middle. And you don’t know what needs to be done until you start doing it.

2:48 "You have to look around you. Within your sphere of influence, the direct sphere of influence and fix the things that announce themselves as in need of repair"

Wrong , wrong , wrong ! If you don't have any goals the first thing you need to do is give Tai Lopez your Money !

I have been waiting forever for this one. The biggest problem that prevents me from sorting myself out.

This is from the 2nd video from his Biblical Series. The full lecture is even higher in information density than the first one and I enjoyed it a lot (link is in the description). For more information and live tickets look here: jordanbpeterson.com/bible-series/ If you don't know what he meant by Future Authoring Program: bit.ly/selfAuth (Bite-sized Philosophy affiliate link)

In the immortal words of Aerosmith, “Life’s a journey, not a destination.”

I'm so glad he asked this question, since this was the #1 question I had about Self Authoring.

Jordan is more of a father than my dad will ever be. Thank you, lobster god 🙏🐸

I just realised that he didnt actually answer the question at all

It's funny that I literally searched for "I have no goals", found this video and realized that it's so true. 1. A friend of mine once was together with someone and they got more and more stress. With the increasing stress and discussions they had with each other, their appartment tended to be more and more messy. One day they reached a point where they didn't even bring out the trash. It basically displayed their current relationship status which was over shortly after. 2. When I feel bad and look around, I basically can see that based on how my room looks. Sometimes it looks very bad and then I can also feel that I am equally messy inside. It's quiet interesting - I won't tell anyone tho because then they come with "broo you feeling bad today??" 😂😂

Some people just stuck with cleaning the room over and over. And then look down on those who actually do other things.

I’m freaking out because I am at the lowest point in my life in every aspect. I still got no vision and it feels so hopeless. I feel like I wasted so much time and I let myself go… I want to overcome this but it feels impossible. Wouldn’t even know where to start and how to build a base.

Cleaning your room helps! Checked after 8 months of fight with depression. Thanks Dr.!

This is a really enlightened answer to the question. The lack of having a goal is more likely a symptom of other issues, there's no way to answer the question for someone directly.

Basically it was a 5-word all-around piece of advice: Clean up your room bucko!

It is remarkable how at the beginning of the video he starts to answer the guy's question by going on what seems like a tangent, about biblical moral prohibitions and how to raise children, and yet this just naturally flows into his explanation afterward for _why_ to 'clean your room'. I say this regardless of the content itself; it is deliberately conceptually arranged so as to build to that answer, but in some ways the answer by itself would not stand on its own. In this case it would, but the rest is his justification, and cutting that out would easily lead to the question of "why is this the right way to think about it", which means he should have just said it anyway. This behavior was originally infuriating to me - in his first talk with Sam Harris it took him such a long time to get to the point, I lost him, and I feared he simply Could Not Spit It Out. I do still think he could be more compact of delivery, but when you get into the right mode of listening to him, the signal-to-noise is already so high it's like everything he says is novel information. And here's the other thing: Peterson is (deliberately or not) training a long attention span. Bite-Sized Philosophy, and all the other curator channels who have sprung up to cut out the gems of his content, are providing a valuable service in extracting those bits and are doing a fine job. But even within these snippets we get a well-structured point like this one, where to understand the answer you have to hold in your mind all these key abstractions that go together and add up to the last one. And Peterson _knew_ this sequence was his line of attack immediately after the guy was done asking his question! That means he was listening and composing his answer at the same time, _and_ it was tailored to the right context. I just shudder to think how compactly he might communicate to someone he doesn't think he has to teach first.

Life is better without goals.

Love watching Jordans talks. The man has so much Charisma and seems really genuine. I always come away with an "I can do it" attitude after watching him talk. Everyone can learn so much from this guy!

Cleaning your room is a divine act. WHOA DUDE

Just live your life one day at a time, in an honest, true and kind way. You will be doing better than 99% of people. Eventually you will find your vocation and then you can pursue it.

He basically says that you need to put some order in your life(clean your room), fix bad things and you will get to a point where you stop fixing what's bad and start to actually make a vision of what you want to do, you start to make progress on making good things instead of fixings bad things

Didn’t answer the question

One big aspect of getting to know yourself and finding out what to do in life is in my opinion to socialize. With all the technology this point is really getting lost in our generation I think. As an example: I’m a student, 10th semester into my bachelor, so not particularly the most achieving kind mainly because I’m having a hard time studying classes I don’t like. I’m getting over that right now with the philosophy to take responsibility for yourself, but that another point. Anyway I got fired from the perfect student job, home office with a good pay, because the firm has some financial troubles. Last week after studying 12 hours and working out for 1 and a half, I just went to sit in the park and relax by myself for an hour before bed. I went on to text some people I haven’t seen in a bit and one of them was sitting in a bar, 5 minutes from my home. So I went there, talked a bit and one guy I worked with 2 years ago walks out of the bar. We chat a bit and it turns out he’s working there, in this cute bar with beautiful waitresses just next to my flat. I tell him what’s going on, he offers me to talk to his boss. End of the story: I’ll be working in that bar, starting next week, one week after getting fired and still earning my salary for this month from last job. Moral of the story: my room is clean, I found in good job in less than a week, maybe I got lucky, but people of action are favoured by the goddess of luck. So don’t google what to do, get out there and actually socialize, you will meet people who help you figure out what’s good without even knowing that they did so. And enjoy the journey!

I've watched a video that having a "better system" (routine) is more important than "better goals" so i guess it is okay to not have any goals as long as you have a working system that helps you :)

The hand gestures are strong in this one

I feel totally lost. But I am going to work on myself. I am leaving this here for myself to come back and update what progress I've made.

This guy has helped me out more than any therapy I’ve ever done , god bless

For the closed minded people who just got the message "just clean your room" what this guy is trying to say is if you start by cleaning your room you manifest a healthy mind by being more organised and erase chaos from your life. You have a clear mind and begin to understand having a clear mind helps you monitor you life your behaviour your finance your relationships. Monitor yourself and you'll see a clear path your goals become clear. Clean your room. It's order vs chaos.

I started cleaning my room for Jordan Peterson! It's taking me a while, but I'm finding myself straightening things and digging things up that I haven't messed with in forever. Its harder than I thought it would be too I'm on day 3 and I already feel happier though! Thanks Jordan.

All the religious connections aside, it's good advice. At 35y of age I've just started doing this and I have less anxiety over how much of a loser I am. I just do small stuff, but a little bit more every day and even if I'm still a loser I know I'm doing something to improve.

At the end of the video I cleaned my room in its entirety. I feel better.

I'm actually 17 and I think I could achieve almost anything but....I just don't have any idea of what to do ....this feels awful...I don't want to live a life and realise in the end that it wasn't the one I wanted to live.....

that is a brilliant answer... Cleaning up the room is like putting chaos to order. From then, we can proceed to slightly bigger chaos to be put in order

This is absolutely right! You can take action today and strive to improve a little bit more tomorrow. This small daily progress can make a significant difference between today and tomorrow. It's one of the lessons we learned from our life coach, Lisa Haisha, during her Soul Blaze class, and it has truly led to positive shifts in our lives. Thank you for sharing this, Mr. Jordan.

Nevermind my room, my entire apartment is a fucking mess. This guy is brilliant btw.

Mom taught me to fear the other side of this cleaning thing more than chaos. Our house, in time, became immaculate. You couldn't really sit on the sofa. If you read a magazine - you'd better do something with it even if you're gunna be right back. Came to feel an unease even living in Moms house. To a large degree, she didn't keep it clean as much as it ran her life and obstructed the lives of others.

Somedays just getting up is a goal.

If you have a meal, place, family, this question already luxurious.

I'm an atheist and you are the first theist that actually taught me something priceless! Thank you so much Jordan!

Is there anyone like me who haven't figured out what to do in life?

If you're here. I'd like to share something. I am 31. Never worked. I've fallen extremely ill and lost my entire 20s, family, dreams, education, and friends. I've been rehab and got clean from drink. I'm now all alone and after 10+ years I have now got to the point of wanting to learn to drive. Next I want to get a job helping young teens not make my mistakes. I can't help my illness.....but I let that rule me and time passed me by. I couldn't have done alot, but I could have done something. I'll do it now. Something in me snapped. I hope it does to you too. I don't need a job that pays me lots. I need a job that makes me happy to be out of this bed.

he seems so encouraging when the guy was asking the question in the beginning i was genuinely touched

I just came up with an idea, how about a Telegram group where each person defines their goals for the week, at each week's end that person will be asked if he had completed his goal (or goals) and he will be required to answer. If the answer is negative there will be a discussion about that person, not tyrannizing him but helping him.. The group could also be broken to private conversations of people who are more comfortable with each other alone rather than the whole group. I'm not sure how to implement that fully but I think starting with a group of like-minded people will be great, please let me know what you think about this.. I'll post it on some other of JP's videos in case it gets swallowed in the comments

I'm sick of cleaning my room. Done it so many times already, there is no gain, just a continuos grind

It's not the act of "cleaning your room" thats powerful, its the recognition that the rooms needs cleaning and that you have the power to affect change thats profound..

JP wakes up on the wrong side of the bed: "Just embrace your chaotic side, ya know?"

The problem with cleaning my room is, it will get messy again very soon.

I think people don't understand the metaphor behind "clean up your room". While it can be followed as a word-for-word advice, what it really means is "remove disorder from your daily lives".

Damn!!! That mufa said 'handle your shit at home, and then everything else'll fall into place!' That shit spoke to me. Much love!

I actually used to look around my house and think, "what can I clean up today?" just to make my environment more habitable and comfortable, from cleaning the dishes, to tidying the living room and even hoovering the communal landing. Normally it was one thing per day, but if I was feeling charitable it'd be more than that, especially to relieve some of the stress on my mother. Now, though, I never think that at all, as every day that I would clean up, whatever I had cleaned would be messier or just worse off the next day, to the point I just think, "oh what's the point?" whenever I see clutter. And as inspirational as this was, I know the motivation's not going to last.

KZfaq be calling me out through recommendations, str8 savage

I'm 21 years old and about to graduate this year. I major in computer science and even though I'm doing pretty good at it, I did an internship last year for 12 months in a startup company, but I felt like this is not the kind of life that I want to do for the rest of my life. Even though I'm about to graduate in a couple of months from now, I don't feel any joy like most of my friends. Only fear that I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing something that doesn't make me feel alive till I retire and continue living a sad life. I'm so confused right now and I'm so scared of having this conversation with my parents who will probably be big mad and disappointed at me

The goal is to distinguish between chaos and order in our lives.

This guy’s advice giving skills is on another level!

Start with cleaning your room & move on from there to ever-greater endeavors. Admiral McRaven is even more specific, he says: "make your bed each day."

Wow. That was actually really helpful

never felt more hyped to clean my room

I love the way he put this overwhelming issue into perspective. I simply enjoy his style so much ! Thanks for uploading this short version.

My place is always clean and still got nothing

I cleaned my room... i still don't know a career path for me. Im doomed to be another working class slave... working a 9to5 that i hate. I have no idea what i want to do.

I find that most goals have a way of announcing themselves. Ya just gotta be willing to see them.

Once i cleaned my room , i found myself to be productive before that I couldn’t focus and had to suffice with going to cafe or library . And then i tried to make my room more desirable to be in then i found myself to be more confident and i have no clue why ! Suddenly i am better of study and work on my desk rather than a library which was basically impossible few month a go , i am in less conflict and distracted much less which was impossible before and above all that i am more reliable !! I can rely on myself when i accept a responsibility and you can’t possibly think how good it feels