 You know some of the most popular videos on the internet are what to do if you feel lost in your life. Now I wrote an entire damn book called Milk the Pigeon all about that one question, what do I do with my life if I feel lost. But in this video I thought I would share something on the other side of the spectrum. How do you know if you're really on the right path or if you are on the wrong path? I thought I would share three really clear signs with some stories that I think can help you today. What's up you guys? Alex Hine here. So before we jump in there's a link right below this video which is for a free journaling worksheet that can help you figure out basically what the hell to do with your life and how to get your life together. So if that appeals to you check out the link right below this video and you can download that worksheet for free. Now the very first sign that you are on the right path in life is that you just feel excited. You feel intensely lit up and turned on and just drawn by it and you're smiling a lot. It's exactly the same feeling when you go on a really good date and you're really excited about that person. So I thought I would share this quote by Paolo Quello author of The Alchemist and he said regarding the idea of your personal legend in life. You know you are not following your personal legend when you do not feel enthusiasm about life. Your personal legend is the only thing that gives you enthusiasm and you know you are betraying your personal legend when you are doing something without enthusiasm. You know my story of how I found what I'm really passionate about which is this stuff as well as Chinese medicine was basically I had been having this conversation with friends and family about where I was going and what I wanted to do and I was reading Robert Green's book Mastery and as I was reading this book Mastery you know when you get images that pop in your head just thoughts and memories and these kind of creative visualizations you have. I kind of saw myself as this old school physician, alchemist, herbalist, mystic kind of archetype and just thinking about it excited me. I mean I'm smiling right now right. Now when it comes back to the real world as I was like alright how do I actually do this I realized okay there's schooling for Chinese medicine there's four-year or five-year doctoral degrees. Now the moment that I realized that's what I wanted to do when I booked the flight to go look at the schools in California and on the west coast when I got those pamphlets of the school course catalog the feeling of excitement I cannot wait to learn and read through these classes was palpable and the second that happened it never got any less it only increased over time and I would hold on to these dorky course catalogs for these programs and read them over and over and over again every single day. That's how I knew I was on the right track because that excitement stayed with me and it wasn't transient. Now the second sign that you're on the right path in life is that you feel drawn kind of like when you're already on a path and you know where you're going versus the feeling of I'm still looking for the path. So I had one of my friends describe this to me really brilliantly and he said that you know before he found the work he was doing he kind of felt like he was alone in the dark forest where he was looking for the path to take to the next village or the next town but because it was the middle of the night and he'd never been there before and he didn't know what he was doing he couldn't find the path and so his whole life up until his mid 30s felt like he was looking for the path that feeling of feeling lost dealing confused feeling like time was ticking like his life was evaporating right before his eyes. It's a very anxiety inducing feeling to feel like you're in the woods in the middle of the night and you don't know where the path is that brings you to where you're supposed to be and he said the difference now is that rather than looking for the path feeling lost he feels like he's in pursuit because it's almost like having a treasure map to the El Dorado the city of gold when you don't have the map you're looking and you're confused and you don't know where to go and you're a little anxious and scared and clock is ticking right but as soon as you have that map now you know where you're going and you are in pursuit and that subjective feeling you have when you feel like you are now in pursuit that the confused kid in the woods looking for the path but you're on the path and you cannot wait to see what is coming up next because you know you're on the right path because you have that treasure map that's the feeling. Now the third sign you're on the right path is that you're not falling prey to the rock star delusion. Now everyone has this idea of it would be so cool to be a rock star a lot of money a lot of fame playing music for people thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in a live audience or stadium cheering you on it's got to be an incredible feeling right but everyone loves the idea of being a rock star just like everyone loves the idea of writing a best-selling book or the idea of becoming a successful entrepreneur but how many people actually like doing the work and that's the big difference when you're on the right path the process itself excites you the process of studying your craft the process of writing a book the process of painting or playing music six hours a day right being a rock star is not being on stage singing being a rock star is the everyday sitting down for six hours writing music singing learning your craft learning to play guitar an instrument better that's really what being a rock star is just like really being in medicine for a long time is you sitting down and studying six or eight or ten hours a day so if that sounds like dreadful for you don't go into that field but what i see is that people who really feel like they're on the right path in life love the process of working on their craft it's really that simple success or failure who wouldn't prefer success but regardless of success or failure people like the actual process and that's very important because everyone loves the idea of the outcome of succeeding but how many like doing the work now one final story i'm going to leave you with here is andre agacy the famous tennis player in his book open for what not to do so ever since andre was a little boy his dad who has kind of never lived up to his own olympian dreams very common story throughout history decided that he was going to turn andre into the best tennis player in the world so even as a baby they were planning where to get a house so that he could have a tennis court in the back and saying these crazy things like if andre hits i don't know what he said something crazy like a million balls a year there's no one who can out compete this kid the problem was that andre never really liked it that much and his dad though still pushed him to train and andre did all the training and even though andre became the number one in the world he was always kind of unraveling behind the scenes right you could see some of his rebelliousness in his hairstyles and his piercings and all these other kind of things where he was trying to be rebellious but he was really trying to rebel if we're being honest against the fact that his father was pushing him to become the best in a field he didn't really like now what was really interesting in his biography all these people he said he'd be at parties and celebrities would come up and be like oh dude you must love tennis right and he would always say no i really don't like it that much and no one actually thought he was being serious they thought it was a joke so andre became the number one in the world through raw work ethic but internally was always kind of unraveling because it wasn't necessarily the right path for him in terms of internally if he chose it and so whether it was his issues shortly with drugs and i think even crystal meth he always has this kind of unraveling quality in his story that i think you don't see as much when people are aligned with the work they feel born to do so those are what i think are three really clear signs you're on the right path in life and if you aren't don't worry a lot of these people who are icons in history got on the path in their 50s or their 60s but i think just making sure you recognize that knowing your path is only internal it has nothing to do with anything external or what other people say or what they think it's only something you can recognize and feel all right you guys that's what i have for today i want you to comment there below and let me know for you what other signs would you add to this list right