Solve Life Backwards

My college advisor once told me something that would fundamentally change how I make decisions:

Solve life backwards

I didn’t know what he meant when he first said it, so he went on to explain:

It’s much easier to solve life’s most difficult problems by working from your end goal backwards instead of from your present state forwards.

His idea was to visualize your future and then move backwards through time to figure out each step prior until you reach where you are today. This concept is similar to Stephen R. Covey’s 2nd habit from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People—begin with the end in mind.

A great example of this idea in action comes from Peter Attia, a physician and longevity expert, who wanted to figure out how to be, physically, the most “kickass” 100-year old possible. However, Attia realized that the standard fitness advice wasn’t right for the job. Therefore, he designed a “100 year-old decathlon” to solve his problem. As he stated in this podcast with Tom Bilyeu (emphasis mine):

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Πηγή: ofdollarsanddata.com