AI Made Me Lose Direction. Here's How I Found It Again.

0:00 If AI has made you question whether it's even worth learning anything anymore, whether it's worth committing to a skill, a career, a hobby, when AI might just do it better or faster, this is the process I actually use to find direction anyways. And I'm not talking about finding your passion or your life's purpose. I don't have either of those figured out. I'm talking about something smaller and more useful than that. This is the same process that got me out of feeling completely stuck and directionless when graduating high school, and it's the same one I've had to use again now because AI has quietly taken away the part of my software engineering job that used to make it feel worth doing. This is the exact process which has led me to pursue a direction of my own, both in my professional career and on the side as I've uploaded 10 YouTube videos consistently in 90 days. And it's added real happiness and direction back into

0:46 my life. So, here's the actual step-by-step how I go from feeling stagnant to having somewhere to put my energy, even when it feels like AI could make any skill pointless before you even finish learning it. Now, AI has taken away a lot of the natural chances I used to have to use my creative energy day-to-day, both creative and technical problem solving, the two things that drew me to software engineering in the first place. Now that I'm working full-time in a job that's changed how we code, a lot of it is now sourced to AI, I felt stagnant, like that part of my brain isn't growing or stretching the way it needs to for me to feel fulfilled. So, I had to go through this process again. And to be clear, the goal here is direction, not purpose, not an end goal. When AI makes you indecisive or hopeless about learning something, remember, staying stagnant is worse. So,

1:33 any bit of direction here is worth a lot. Step one, list your interests, big or small, past or future, dead or current. No filtering, just get it all down on a piece of paper if that helps, but be honest with yourself. Just list out all your interests that you have. A quick note, if you generally don't have any interests right now, that's usually one of two things. Either you've got more urgent priorities in your life that need your attention first, which is valid, or you're not bored enough to be curious. I've got thoughts on the second one and might make a separate video on it, but for now, let's assume you've got some interests, even if you're not sure what to do with them. Step two, sort them. Sort which interests you've actually put time into, the ones that you've learned, researched, or some taken some sort of action on, versus which ones you've just simply thought

2:19 about. Sort them into two buckets. Step three, for each one that you've actually invested some time and effort into, ask yourself what it actually gave you. Not what you made or the outcome, just the feeling. What accomplishment or need did it meet in your life? That feeling isn't unique to one field. A painter, a carpenter, a mechanical engineer can all get it from building something physical out of nothing. Maybe for you it's finance or medicine that suits your interests, and that gives you a completely different kind of purpose. Maybe it's helping people directly, or building a name for yourself, or just getting an idea out into the world. Whatever it is, sit with it and sit with that feeling, not the outcome. Then, write one or two sentences for each interest, naming that feeling, not the output, not where it could lead, but

3:05 what it gave you as a feeling. Was it a relief from boredom? Was it a sense of control? Was it being seen, heard, valued? Was it solving something? Was it making an idea tangible? For me, I kept landing on things that gave me a creative outlet, expressing ideas, making something from nothing. Yours might look completely different. Step four, group your interests by feeling, not by category. Just like what I said about asking yourself what did those interests give to you, what that feeling was, try to group them in a way. I grouped web development, coding, graphic design, digital art, and video editing, not because they all produce something visual, but because they all gave me the same feeling of taking something from nothing and making it exist in the world digitally. I liked feeling like a creator instead of a consumer. Now, this

3:50 didn't click instantly for me. Even journaling it out took a while, and I came back to it over several days. Your interests are going to keep changing, too. So, this isn't a one-time exercise. It's something you revisit over your life. So, most people do some version of this naturally. Journaling just makes it clearer for me. Step five, look for what you haven't given a real chance yet. Once your interests are grouped together, look at the ones you haven't invested much time in, that second bin, the ones that you feel like you haven't put any effort into yet. Could any of those give you the same feeling that you're chasing or that pattern you're recognizing? Make sure to give those ones a thought as well. Step six, once you see a pattern, you don't need a perfect answer, just a direction. When we don't have a purpose, we can still have direction. For me, that pattern was creating, building something from

4:37 nothing, putting my own spin on it, solving problems from my own experience and outlook. So, here's why I've been doing all this again. Four years ago, I was graduating high school with no clue what I wanted to pursue in life. A huge part of me felt stupid and clueless for investing a lot of time and money into a degree for a career I had no idea about. I felt lost, stagnant, directionless. Over time, that built up into real anxiety and weighed heavy on me. I've always held myself to a high standard, and being directionless caused me to almost break. I entered a season of depression, barely sent my college applications in on time, gained almost 50 lb, and lost the drive to do the things I used to like doing. Now, for someone who had no clue what they wanted to study or pursue, I actually had a lot of interests. I've always loved being creative. I took art classes, had

5:23 creative hobbies. People always told me I was creatively talented. I got into graphic design for a while and made logos for people. I got into video editing, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, After Effects. I got into digital art, drawing portraits in Procreate. These things fulfilled me, but the pressure of going to college and not feeling passionate enough in any of these hobbies it a stable career caused me to lose myself a bit, especially once I stopped putting creative energy into even just one of these hobbies. Luckily, I got into a good college and found myself again pretty quickly. Made great friends, got obsessed with the gym and running, lost the weight fast, was in the best shape of my life within a year, and after my first year of college, after taking some coding classes, I found I could channel my creative energy into computer science. I like that code gave me the ability to create something

6:09 from nothing digitally. The same feeling I got from digital art and video editing. And at the time, it was being pushed as one of the best majors out there. So, I hopped in, and it felt good. I had something to pursue, flow and balance, something to work on and struggle with and grow from in my life. College quickly became the best years of my life so far. Fast forward 4 years, I'm 22 now, working as a new grad software engineer, but times have changed. AI has grown tremendously in the last 4 years, and it's already hit creative and tech careers hard. AI has dulled the part of the job that used to give me creative fulfillment, and therefore has made me feel stagnant. So, while I'm young and have the time, I'm putting that energy into direction outside of work. Going back to my grouped list of interests, I

6:54 found a strong pull back toward making videos. I wanted to get back into editing. I missed the feeling of learning a new trick or making something entirely my own without AI. Journaling has showed me I'd been spending a lot of time learning about how people make good YouTube videos, chasing either philosophy content or people building something of their own, a startup, a personal business, coding your own app, all these other things, but I found that I've given them a lot of my attention. And on my own, I'd been reading about solopreneurship, making money online, what makes a good SaaS company. At some point, I decided enough enough was enough. I wanted to stop being a consumer and actually build something with all that learning that I've already done. I wanted to be a creator again. YouTube has always been a childhood interest of mine, not something new. This isn't even my first channel. I had a gaming channel when I was younger

7:41 making Fortnite and COD montages in After Effects. Having a channel was kind of a childhood dream. So, just finding the energy to actually hit record and upload has been rewarding on its own. It's not my purpose, it's not my life's work or career, but it's a direction that gives me energy. More energy than sitting on the sidelines, being indecisive, and letting circumstances, such as AI being the current one, make the decision for me. By just taking action in one direction, I actually found some passion. I used to think everyone else just knew what they wanted or that some people are born passionate about things. But, what I've actually learned is that passion comes from investing in something long enough that it takes real direction in your life. And if you don't stick with a direction long enough, you're never going to get there. Going into college, I had no idea I'd leave 4 years later with a CS degree. I looked

8:27 at graphic design, biology, chemistry, all kinds of majors. But, by picking one and following it far enough, I opened a whole perspective. I like my job, I like software engineering, but I never actually loved it. Not before AI and not after. Still going in that direction though, gave me life again, a spark, an interest and curiosity that led to other things. Now, that's YouTube. I've I've uploaded 10 videos in 90 days. A level consistency I never thought I'd actually follow through on. But, it's because I've listened to my curiosity, fed my creative ambition, and followed a direction long enough for it to become something real. 3 months ago, I had no idea I'd have this channel or I'd be sharing thoughts like this. I just decided it was interesting enough to act on instead of staying stagnant. And now, I have something that excites

9:14 me when work doesn't. AI is creeping into this new interest too. There's much of video generation and AI slop and all, but it's not stopping me because what I'm doing feeds the actual feeling and direction I identified earlier. Maybe your interests and feelings are completely different. Maybe you don't care about creating anything. Maybe you just want to help people or build a name for yourself or master a different craft. Whatever it is, instead of waiting around afraid that AI will eventually make it pointless to learn or invest in, do something that gives you energy, makes you grow. Growth is a part of who we are, regardless of the outcome. Learning for its own sake gives life meaning, at least for me. So, I hope this helps. I'm 22. I still don't fully know my purpose or direction, either. I don't know what AI is going to do. I'm

10:00 not an expert on any of this. I'm just showing you a process I've done now and it's actually brought energy and happiness back into it. So, with that, if you resonated with this and you like videos like this, I'm going to continue making more. Feel free to talk about this in the comments below. And if you want to see a video of me talking specifically kind about my experience with software engineering and how I'm trying to find ways to think more critically and be more creative on or off the job due to AI, I'll link that video in the description. So, with that, subscribe if you're new, and have a good one.