10 TED talks to help you find your calling in life

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A boost of motivation for the week ahead! Lifehacker has collected TED videos to help you understand yourself and decide what you want out of your life and career.

1. How to stop making ridiculous excuses

All people want to follow their dreams, but only a few are willing to work long and hard for this. Professor Larry Smith reflects on the absurd excuses that prevent people from realizing themselves in the profession.

2. How to get better

Carol Dweck explores the "growth mindset" - the idea that we can develop our brains' ability to learn and solve problems. In this speech, she proposes to change her attitude towards difficulties: do not say “I did not succeed”, say “until I did well”.

3. How to find a true calling

Some people cannot answer the question "who do you want to be?" not because they have no hobbies and interests, but because there are too many of them. The writer and artist Emily Vapnik encourages people who are attracted to different fields not to become narrow specialists.

4. How to deal with temptations

Joachim de Posada talks about the famous marshmallow experiment. Children who can put off pleasure until later are more likely to achieve their goals in the future. Self-discipline is a determining factor in life success, and even toddlers understand this.

5. How not to give up on the way to your goals

When we decide to do something important and implement a grand plan, our first and natural desire is to share it with someone. But psychological experiments have proven that telling someone about your ideas makes them less workable. Entrepreneur Derek Sievers advises keeping your plans under wraps.

6. How to decide what to do for the rest of your life

Artist Candy Chang turned an abandoned house into a giant blackboard with one unfinished sentence: "Before I die, I want to …" The residents of the area wrote it down in a day: someone would like to plant a tree, someone would like to hug a loved one or sing in front of millions. Think about what you would write on such a board.

7. How to find a job to your liking

Anyone who is unhappy at work should watch this show. The problem is that a lot of people just go with the flow and don't even try to change anything. If you lack happiness, it's time to think: without what business you cannot imagine your life?

8. How to overcome any difficulties

At the age of 19, Amy Purdy lost both legs below the knees, and now she is a professional snowboarder and two-time world champion. Amy encourages people to stop seeing life's difficulties as insurmountable obstacles, and instead start dreaming and move forward no matter what.

9. How to find a balance between the two sides of your personality

David Brooks talks about two personalities who coexist in us: the first yearns for career success, and the second - for love and peace in the soul. The problem is that balance is very difficult to find. You always run the risk of becoming a calculating careerist or, conversely, being a person of high spiritual qualities, but not realizing yourself.

10. How to enjoy your work

It’s not money that motivates you to work well, but the feeling that what you’re doing has some meaning. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely talks about important psychological experiments and how to help workers become happier and more productive.