What Do You Actually Want? | With Dr. John Delony

I can't tell you and I know you've experienced this too whether it's whether it's a single mom with three kids just trying to figure out what day it is or it's a multi-multi-millionaire who's got resources that far exceed anything I could imagine I've I've rarely rarely sat down across from somebody and had them be able to articulate what do you actually want they cannot answer that question and they fill it with addictions they fill it with Hobbies they fill it with uh dopamine Chase they fill it with so much stuff and nobody can answer that question what do you want because I we just don't have a culture that has a shared vision of where we're headed we have a culture of you're hurting in somebody else's fault and let's let's start pointing fingers and man we've got to circle the wagons on a shared Vision moving forward yeah because there's what do you want no that's not a question anybody asks it's what do I don't want and why am I feeling just uncomfortable then if it's what you don't want you're driven by negative emotion if you're if you're running from not to if you're driven by a vision that's positive emotion because approaching something positive in a Visionary manner generates positive emotion if you're only fleeing from things you don't want then you're constantly in a state of anxiety and depression that's how it works because where did that go where did we lose a shared Vision why can't somebody put a flag on the ground and say this is where we're headed that seems to be gone yeah well that's a complicated question you know I mean I would say that's the consequence in the most fundamental sense of uh of of the death of God in the most fundamental way it's the death of it's the death of a sense of higher order Unity eh now it's also a very complicated question if you ask someone what do you want if you could ask your wife that what do you want you'll probably freeze her into immobility because it's really like asking how do you want all of your life to go please summarize and one of them yeah well it's quite it's a lot you know and one of the ways that you can deal with that which you undoubtedly know as a as a as someone who's conversant with cognitive behavioral techniques is you can ask people more micro questions too about what they want so you might say well well we did that on The Dating front already right we talked about that we talked about how you might think about how you want your meal times to go we only talked about dinner time but you could talk about breakfast and lunch as well and then you could and there are other micro domains that are very crucial that you can also consider it's like so you could ask yourself well if you could have the education you wanted what would that look like if you were on if you had the jobber career track that would motivate you just hypothetically what might that look like sketch out a bad plan um if you had some friends do you well first do you want some friends and if so how many and and if you had friends and the right number how much time per week would you like to spend with them and if you had some time outside of work and familial responsibilities what might you like to do with your time that you would really like to do and the thing about these questions is that they're they're real questions you know there's this gospel statement that if you knock the door will open and that if you ask you will receive and if you search you'll find if you seek you'll find and people who are faithless in some sense think about it as kind of a Hallmark greeting card approach to the world it's just well you just ask for things and they appear it's like no that isn't what any of that means it means nothing that you want will manifest itself unless you aim for it and you won't aim for it unless you know what it is and you won't know what it is unless you ask yourself and then you might say well why don't you ask yourself and the answer is well maybe no one ever explained to you that you needed to which is a crucial issue and then maybe you don't also trust yourself you know because you might think well if I let myself know what I wanted given my bloody track record I would do everything I could to screw it up so I'll just keep myself opaque to myself so that I don't fail at something that's truly important and then I can always I can always Regale with myself with the idea that why didn't succeed but I didn't really try had I really tried I might have succeeded whereas if you let yourself know what you want and then you try you also set the preconditions for failure so it's risks right but the alternative is well you don't know what you want so it is a meditative practice like okay if I could have what I wanted imagine the world was constituted so that the entire planet wouldn't explode in an apocalypse if I got what I needed and wanted yeah right it's like what would that be you know what time okay so is this is this is this a cognitive well I don't want to use jargon is this a thought exercise or is this a feeling exercise because here's what I'm seeing across the country I thought it would feel different when I finally got that associate Vice President John yeah I thought I would feel a certain way when I got a car I thought if I could just get to her to date me I would feel a certain way and people are are realizing in Rapid fashion I thought if my politician won I would suddenly feel a certain way here's a great I I testified in a court case against somebody years ago a former student of mine um got into some significant some really terrible things um and he got a long jail sentence and the next morning I woke up and I read what the judge had written and in the sentencing and I he the judge used some of my words and I remember feeling sick to my stomach and I called the mentor of mine a psychology friend uh professor of mine and asked her I said man I feel gross and she said John nobody wins here and I had this perception that I was going to feel a certain way when Justice was done and the right thing happened and I realized man I'd thought this through cognitively but I had not managed how are you going to actually feel because nobody wins somebody's life is ruined over here somebody's life is still ruined over here I think we have to I don't know let me uh you're you're infinitely um you've got infinitely more wisdom than I do on this but I find that the cognitive exercise is helpful but it really is important to sit down and say okay how are you gonna feel five days after you've bought this car that you think you have to have [Music] well the lack of a red wave during the midterms lead to more Reckless spending by a more emboldened Administration higher taxes deeper inflation if you are unsure how the next two years will unfold talk to Birch gold group about protecting your savings with gold Birch gold makes it easy to convert your IRA or 401K into an IRA in Precious Metals so you can own gold and silver in a tax sheltered account here's what you need to do text Jordan to 989898 to claim your free info kit on gold then talk to one of their precious metals Specialists they will hold your hand through the entire process with an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau thousands of happy customers and almost 20 years of experience converting IRAs and 401ks into precious metals IRAs Birch gold can help you protect your savings too text Jordan to 989898 and protect yourself with gold today that's Jordan to 989898 [Music] okay so the first thing is is that the probability that you'll be happy because you've accomplished something in any permanent sense is virtually zero and the reason yes thank you for saying that well the reason for that is that isn't what positive emotion is for positive emotion is to indicate that you're making progress towards a valued goal yes now that's the driver right not not the Finish Line exactly well and that's actually pharmacologically separate right because a satiation reward which would be the accomplishment of something calms you and stops that program from running so for example once you've become vice president if that was your goal then the whole pursuing vice president program comes to a halt now the problem with that is it leaves you without a goal and it also leaves empty space which you immediately have to fill and so often people feel disquiet because now they don't know what to do and they miss that rush because they're no longer pursuing something and so it's very important to know that positive emotion is experienced in relationship to a valued goal and then the question becomes well what's the most valuable goal to pursue and that's really a metaphysical and a theological question in terms of the mechanics of feeling so imagine that you're negotiating the structure of a date with your wife and you're developing a shared vision and so you say well on Wednesday nights once a week we're going to go for dinner and maybe you specify the restaurant and you're going to make the arrangements and I'm going to get dressed up and then we're gonna go see a movie and you're gonna pick the movie and and then we're gonna have a romantic interlude afterwards and we'll we'll run that and see how it goes and then what you want to do is you want to picture that and you want to watch how your body reacts on the emotional level and and that's a that's a bit of honesty it's right and you can see well if we went to this restaurant oh I don't really like that restaurant I think it's kind of expensive I had a bad time with waiters I don't think I'd be happy there then you say those things to your partner you say well I'm thinking this through I'm imagining it and here's the objections that are coming up maybe they're wrong maybe I've got this wrong but I'd like to hear your input because you know we want to get this right should we reevaluate my feelings about the restaurant or should we think about a different restaurant and that should be a question because you don't know maybe you're just stupid about the restaurant or you're cheap or you're afraid to go there because you don't have the right clothes I mean you don't know right but if you want to get your feelings in line you develop the vision and then you you you apprehend the vision with your feelings it's kind of what you do when you go to a movie and you fall into the fantasy of the character you know you embody all the emotions and you evaluate it that way and so and and the other problem with that more goal directed approach that you described is like I think people should plan and they should develop a vision you have to develop the vision and then be somewhat detached from it because it needs to be updated right and modified and Pull It Loosely yeah yeah you hold it Loosely yeah that's right because you're fallible and maybe you can come up with a better plan not every minute because you'll drive yourself mad that way but but now and then or I I I I I was obsessed as a young higher education professional with becoming a college President until I sat down at the senior leadership table and I realized I I don't want that life I don't want I don't want that that life I don't want 24 7 365 and the politics I don't want it asking for money I don't want that life and I didn't have I didn't have a backup plan I didn't know what to do I was right like you nailed it I was completely rudderless because I'd made the finish line the the goal going all the way back full circle to the how you open the conversation I think that becomes really important to lay out an identity and reverse engineer who do I want to be who do I want to become and the goals end up you know it's like the old days um when you went to grad school a PhD was simply a a it was a a high five on a journey of of continued learning I'm gonna continue going down this rabbit hole and now it's become a destination and people walk out and announce themself as educated because I've I've crossed this Finish Line just because you get across a you run a marathon or walk America that doesn't mean you're fit right doesn't mean you're healthy well we did we talked about the necessity of goals and so there's higher order goals and and you need the higher order goals because they integrate you and a goal of becoming a college President is a higher order goal then no goal at all in just sitting in your bed and eating Cheetos right it's a better plan than no plan at all but but and this is where things become profound and serious and I would say even in in a religious sense because what's religious is about what's profound and serious in some sense by definition so you might say well who should I be and you might think well I should be the college President I should have this car I should have this house those are all very particularized versions of yourself and the problem with them is is that their concrete and final actualities and not processes and so here's a good Vision that's a high order vision and I think it's the vision that our whole culture is founded on I should be the person who genuinely confronts the problems and challenges that confront me in my life so that's that's a that's an attitude of active and voluntary engagement right I'm gonna do that's what identity yeah yeah and yeah that that's a nice it's an identity of process as well it's like I'm going to be someone who doesn't shy away from the challenges of life yes okay and I'm a guy who confronts it right right and so that's Saint George and the Dragon and that's that's a precondition for therapeutic transformation because in order for you to improve you have to identify the problem the dragon and you have to be willing to face it voluntarily and so you say to yourself I'm going to do what I can to develop the courage to confront the problems in my life voluntarily that's who I want to be and then another element of that is oh I can't do that without telling the truth I have to be willing to see what's in front of me and I have to be willing to admit to myself what I think and feel and I have to be willing to communicate that and so you could say well that makes you that makes your goal something like to think about it archetypally you talked about jungian approaches earlier is that that makes you into a truth-telling hero and then maybe underneath that it's like well could I become College president could I be successful in my business could I be successful in my marriage it's like that's all well and good and those are more concretized goals but the the highest order goal has to be something like an approach rather than a final state

Channel: Jordan B Peterson Clips

Views: 53,411

Keywords: psychology, philosophy, Jordan B. Peterson, Jordan Peterson, JB Peterson, jordanbpeterson, jordanpeterson, personality, understandmyself, selfauthoring, neuropsychology, jordan peterson clips, jp peterson clips, jp clips, jordan peterson podcast clips, jordan peterson live, jordan peterson livestream, jordan peterson shorts, jordan peterson tiktoks, jordan peterson motivational clips

Id: Wf4c_o-PI4Q

Length: 15min 6sec (906 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 06 2022