What am I Doing With My Life? Part I

Right now I’m in the crux of a big decision: what am I going to do with my life? I have a good job and a great relationship. Things are going swimmingly, but I don’t feel like I am getting any closer to my primary goals. When I get stuck in this space I usually end up re-evaluating my future and revisiting my life plan. Since everyone deals with these kinds of questions, I think it makes a good first decision to tackle here.

In these kinds of situations I find it helpful to sit back and take a look at all the possible things I could do. I’m going to use a decision making technique from The Thinker’s Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving called Pros-Cons-Fix. I have four options I’m considering:

Get and MBA (or a PhD in Economics or Computer Science)

As an aspiring entrepreneur, the titles of MBA courses really excite me. Courses like “Strategic Negotiation” and “Technology Entrepreneurship” sound absolutely fascinating. But then there are a lot of posts like this one from Guy Kawasaki that say that an MBA doesn’t help an entrepreneur at all.

I’ve combined the two school options since it really amounts to going back to school. This option would help in that it would further equip me with additional skills that would help me toward my Primary Goals, but would probably further delay getting a business up and running, and there may be faster ways of gaining even better experience, such as taking the entrepreneurial leap.

Join the Peace Corps

A very attractive option. It would give me hands on experience with entrepreneurship and microfinance while working with people in need and getting the chance to experience a different culture. A very adventurous option. I’ll apply to the Peace Corps regardless of what I decide now, because it’s a small time investment and it gives me the option of going when next summer rolls around.

Apply to Ycombinator

Ycombinator is a startup funder and so much more. In truth, I’ll apply here anyway for the same reason as I’ll apply to the Peace Corps. If I can get in it will jump start my entrepreneurial ambitions, but it’s more of a bonus than a necessity.

Stay where I am for another year and then reconsider my position (status Quo).

This is the default position, and though it sounds mundane, it has a number of advantages, like giving me time to build a prototype of my web app and build skills by working on my own projects. Plus, it has the greatest flexibility in terms of being able to change my future plans without any repercussions.

There are 5 steps to the Pros-Cons-Fixes method:

Step 1:

First take out a piece of paper. Write each option in the decision you’re facing across the top. Next, consider each option separately, writing down as many positive things about that option as you can think of.

My table looks like this:

Life Choices: Pros

To be honest, at this point they all seem good. School would force me to do the extra work to increase my skill set and allow me to keep a steady income, Peace Corps is an opportunity to experience great new things, Ycombinator would also be an amazing experience even if nothing came of it, and staying at my current job provides lots of time if I am sufficiently self motivated to make something of it.

In the next post, What Am I Doing With My Life? Part II I look at the rest of the method, and consider a different perspective in What Am I Doing with My Life? Follow Up.

-zot