What the Biggest Year of My Life Taught Me

0:00Jay Shetty:This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one-hour workout to build strength, burn fat, and build muscle, with an expert coach guiding you every step of the way. Head to orangetheory.com on purpose to learn more and get your first class free. Orange Theory Fitness, helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply. See webpage in studio for details. This episode is brought to you by Mazda.

0:34Jay Shetty:Confidence isn't something Mazda finds. It's something they practice. That's the thinking behind every Mazda. With proactive safety features designed to help keep you more aware, more connected, and more engaged with the road ahead. It's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand and has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than any other car brand. as of July 2026. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Hey, it's Jay. I don't know what your day's been like, but I was just thinking about you for a minute.

1:20Jay Shetty:And I hope you're being a little patient with yourself because you deserve it. And yeah, I'll talk to you soon.

1:36Jay Shetty:Hey, it's my birthday this weekend and every year around this time, I try to step back and take an honest look at the year I've just lived. Life can feel like a bit of a whirlwind sometimes and especially this past year, I had more going on than ever before. When there's so much happening and so much change, it's more important than ever to take a little bit of time and reflect on where I am right now in my life as I enter the next year ahead. I hope that if your birthday is around the corner, you do the same. And even if it's not for a while, I hope this inspires you to take a step back and reflect.

2:13Jay Shetty:The last 365 days have been some of the biggest of my life. On Purpose entered a new chapter with Netflix and Spotify. We wrapped a podcast tour across North America and Canada. I traveled more than I ever knew was humanly possible. I experimented with new show formats, and I had some incredible opportunities that I couldn't have even imagined for myself just a year ago. Researchers describe birthdays as temporal landmarks, moments that divide our lives into a before and an after. Most days blend into one another, but a birthday creates a natural pause in that momentum. It gives us an opportunity to look back at where we have been before we begin thinking about where we want to go next.

3:00Jay Shetty:I think that's why birthdays can feel both exciting and sometimes a little uncomfortable. You reflect on everything that happened, but your mind also brings up everything that didn't come to be. You compare the life you have today with the one you once pictured. You think about the people who entered your life and the relationships that no longer feel the same. I've found that a big year may bring exciting outcomes, but it also asks more from your character. As I've been looking back, I've realized there were five key lessons that kept me grounded through everything this year brought. They influenced how I worked, what I tried, how I made decisions, where I placed my energy, and who I wanted around me while my life was changing.

3:45Jay Shetty:So as I share what I've learned today, I want you to think about the year ahead you hope to have. Your version of a big year will be personal to you. You may want to change careers, start a business, become a parent, rebuild your health, deepen a relationship, or finally act on an idea you've been thinking about for years. The goal of today's episode is to use what I've learned to help you identify the choices that could move your own life forward. So let's get to it. And first, I want to start with a lesson that took me seven years to fully understand. The first lesson is this. When thinking about your career, follow the skills you're building and the work you're willing to do.

4:30Jay Shetty:When I launched On Purpose seven years ago, there were approximately 700 ,000 podcasts. I remember people pointing to that number as proof that the industry was already oversaturated. There were too many shows, too much competition, and very little chance that another podcast would stand out. If the number of competitors had been the most important factor in deciding my future, the outcome for On Purpose should have been 10 times worse. Instead, this year, On Purpose entered its biggest chapter yet. The people giving me advice back in the beginning could evaluate the industry as it existed at that moment by their limitations and their mind.

5:11Jay Shetty:But I had to evaluate my relationship with the work. I already had experience studying ideas, speaking, interviewing people, creating videos and translating ancient wisdom into language people could apply to their lives. Podcasting gave me another place to use and develop those skills. But knowing it was an uphill battle, I also had to ask whether I was willing to do the work for long enough to become good. A podcast may look like just sitting down and having a conversation, but behind that conversation are hours of research, preparation, listening, reviewing, refining, and returning to do it again the following week.

5:50Jay Shetty:Yes, a crowded field can make success harder, but those numbers cannot measure your potential contribution to that field. This is the distinction I want to explore in this first lesson. When you're deciding what to do with your lives, you often look in one of two places. You look outside of yourselves and ask what everyone else thinks, or you look inside yourself and ask what you feel like doing. If you follow the crowd, you may enter a field because everyone says it's growing, stable, impressive, or profitable. Then the trend changes, progress takes longer than expected, and you realize that you never develop a real connection to the work.

6:28Jay Shetty:You went for the opportunity everyone could identify without asking whether you were suited to the work required to reach it. On the flip side, the crowd can also discourage you from something because it looks overdone, difficult or unconventional. You may give up before you even give yourself a chance to be great. In that sense, allowing the current state of an industry to decide what you may be capable of achieving. Following your feelings creates yet a different problem. You can feel passionate about an idea and still have no interest in the daily work behind it. You may love the idea of being an entrepreneur, but dislike selling, managing, or problem solving.

7:08Jay Shetty:You may dream about writing a book, but completely resist sitting alone for hours working on the same story. A career is lived through the work behind the title. That's why a temporary feeling cannot make the whole decision for you. This episode of On Purpose is presented to you by Mazda. Peace of mind doesn't happen by chance. It's created through the habits we build before we ever need them. That's the philosophy behind every Mazda. With proactive safety features that help keep you more aware, more connected and more engaged, Mazda helps you feel ready for whatever the road brings. It's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand.

7:48Jay Shetty:And as of July 2026, Mazda has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than any other car brand. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Over the years, I've received all sorts of advice. I've been told to avoid things that eventually became meaningful parts of my life, and I've been encouraged to pursue ideas that didn't work out. The pattern I began trusting was the connection between competence and consistency. I began to pay attention to what I was becoming better at and what I remained willing to do repeatedly.

8:34Jay Shetty:This, I have learned, is the formula to success. With time, every episode of On Purpose helped me listen more closely, ask better questions, structure better conversations, and understand what our audience found useful. I became more and more competent, and I also discovered that I was willing to keep doing the work. I was willing to prepare for another interview, study another guest, understand YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, record another solo, review what could be improved, and return the following week. I remained consistent. Competence without consistency rarely has enough time to develop.

9:12Jay Shetty:You can have natural ability and remain at the same level because you don't practice. and consistency without competence can also keep you repeating an approach that needs to change. You need both self-awareness to recognize where you have ability and enough humility to keep improving it. This gives you a more useful way to think about your own career. Begin with competence. Where do you already have evidence of ability? What do people consistently trust you to do? Which skills improve when you give them sustained attention? Then consider consistency. Which kind of work are you willing to repeat?

9:49Jay Shetty:What remains interesting after the novelty fades? Which challenges make you want to improve instead of making you want to quit? There may be something you love that you currently have very little ability in. You can enjoy it as a hobby, or you can put in the work required to become better. Or there may also be something you're naturally good at that you hate doing. Other people may recognize your talent, but talent alone won't make the experience fulfilling. The strongest signal appears when you find something you have the ability to do, the desire to improve, and the willingness to practice it consistently.

10:25Jay Shetty:That combination gives you something to build on even when industries, platforms, and opinions change around you. So when you consider your next career move, look beyond whether an industry is crowded or popular. Look beyond how exciting the title sounds. Look closely at the actual work. That's what helped On Purpose reach a new peak this year. Competence mixed with consistency helped create an opportunity that outside opinions couldn't predict. Don't follow the crowd. Don't follow a feeling. Follow the skills you're building and the work you're willing to do. Don't let other people's opinions decide your future.

11:04Jay Shetty:And don't let your emotions decide your future either. Let your character, your skills and your consistency decide it. Your future won't be built by other people's advice or today's emotions. It will be built by the skills you master and the effort you repeat. If you follow the crowd, you may give up too soon. And if you follow just your gut, you may be misled. Once you find work worth taking seriously, you're then able to discover which ideas within it will succeed. That discovery comes through experimentation, which brings me to the second lesson. The second lesson is this. Choose real experience over excessive preparation.

11:45Jay Shetty:That may sound risky, but hear me out. I would rather have 30 days of real experience than 12 months of overthinking. One of the most valuable things I did this year was experiment. I explored new formats, social ideas, television concepts, and different ways to expand on purpose and other things. Some worked, many didn't, and several will probably never even be seen by an audience. That's the part of a big year people rarely see. When you look at someone else's life, you only see the ideas that made it. You see the show that was released, the business that opened, the book that was published, or the opportunity that was announced.

12:23Jay Shetty:You don't see the proposals that were declined, the recordings that were never used, the concepts that lost momentum, or the months spent developing something that ultimately never came to be. That missing information can make another person's success feel smooth and inevitable. It can also make your own failed attempts feel like evidence that you're doing something wrong. If I only share the successful parts of this year, you might assume I possess an unusual ability to predict which ideas will work. My real experience is much messier. The truth is I have failed at more ideas than I have successfully released in the past 365 days what to speak of the last seven years.

13:04Jay Shetty:And don't get me wrong, I still feel disappointed when something I believe in doesn't work out. Rejection's never exciting, but what has changed is the amount of meaning I assign to a single result. If I try 10 things during a year and one creates something amazing, that one thing can change the direction of my entire future. And the nine others weren't failures. They either gave me information, sharpened my judgment, improved my skills, built a new connection or led me toward the attempt that finally connected. If you try only one thing during the entire year, that attempt begins carrying enormous pressure.

13:40Jay Shetty:You spend months thinking about it, preparing for it and building your expectations around it. If it fails, you may feel as though the entire year has been awash. But if you try new things more often, you distribute the emotional risk. Each attempt becomes one part of a larger process. You can feel disappointed by a result without turning the result into a conclusion about your talent or future. This is where overthinking becomes a problem. Thinking is valuable when it helps you prepare, anticipate challenges and act with care. It becomes limiting when you keep returning to the same questions without allowing experience to give you new information.

14:22Jay Shetty:I can overthink and overthink about whether a video I make will perform well. But at the end of the day, no matter what I compare it to or try to predict data-wise, the best way to find out is just by putting it up. Overthinking allows every possibility to remain alive. Experience begins showing you which possibilities deserve more of your time. Maybe you discover that the audience responds differently than expected, or that a skill needs more work, or that the reality of a goal feels different from the fantasy. One month of experience can teach you what 12 months of overthinking never could because experience introduces details.

15:02Jay Shetty:It reveals which problem is real, which fear was exaggerated and which part of the process energizes you enough to continue. So here's a practice I want to give you. Choose one idea you've been circling and design a 30-day experiment. Maybe it's posting on social media every day. Maybe it's reaching out to potential customers every day. Maybe it's messaging a new person on LinkedIn every day. Whatever it is, stop convincing yourself you need more evidence before starting and start just taking the small leap. At the end of the 30 days, ask yourself what surprised you? What did other people respond to?

15:39Jay Shetty:Do you want to continue, adjust or pivot to something else? 30 days of honest experience may save you from spending years attached to an imagined version of a goal. It can also release you from wondering what would have happened if you had only tried. You cannot control which idea will open a door, but you can increase how many doors you knock on. Every attempt gives the desired outcome a new outcome. This episode is brought to you by Amtrak. You know that feeling when you're already tired and you haven't even gotten there yet? That's where Amtrak comes in. Leave the driving behind and settle into a comfortable seat with plenty of room to stretch out.

16:18Jay Shetty:Catch up on work with Wi-Fi, grab a snack at the cafe car, or just sit back and enjoy your favorite podcast. Choose a cellar or Northeast Regional and get there without the stress of getting there. Visit Amtrak.com to plan your next trip. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods, where your back-to-school eats are sorted. First off, they have amazing quality standards with 300 food ingredients banned store-wide. No hydrogenated fats, nothing in store, has high fructose, corn syrup, and there's a great selection of allergen-friendly options too. Pick up your easy breakfast of frozen waffles, pack the lunchboxes with organic seedless grapes and baby carrots.

16:57Jay Shetty:Then plate up thin crust pizzas and a family-style salad for dinner after a long day of learning. Shop back-to-school must-haves at Whole Foods Market, in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is the chance to step outside of our routine. Travel is a way of slowing us down and shifting our perspective. And with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, every journey becomes even more rewarding. Earn four times the points on flights and hotels booked direct. Enjoy access to award-winning airport lounges, three times the points on dining and reserve exclusive tables.

17:36Jay Shetty:Learn more at chase.com forward slash sapphire reserve. Cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC, subject to credit approval, terms apply. Another chance. I'd rather have 30 days of real experience than 12 months of overthinking. I try more in 30 days than most people will try in a year. Most people spend one year deciding. I spend one month discovering. One month of doing can teach you what a year of thinking never will. Life rewards the people who learn the fastest, not the people who hesitate the longest. Experiment, experiment, experiment. One of my favorite quotes is this, The expert has tried more times than the beginner has failed.

18:26Jay Shetty:If I try 10 things in one year and one works, that's all that matters. But if you try one thing in one year and it doesn't work, you feel disheartened. We have to get really comfortable doing more and getting rejected more. The law of odds, doors only open when you knock on them. Just keep walking through the ones that remain open for you. Which actually leads to my third lesson. The third lesson is this. You cannot know whether every decision will produce the outcome you want. But you need to trust yourself to just make the decision anyway. This year required a lot of decisions from me. Every new opportunity raised questions about timing, direction, responsibility, and how the choice would affect my entire life around it.

19:14Jay Shetty:I dealt with big contracts, new hires, team expansion, new business relationships, and a lot of choices that held really high stakes. Some decisions felt clear, while others remained complicated long after the pen was put to paper. For a long time, I imagined that a correct decision would produce an immediate feeling of relief. But experiences taught me that meaningful decisions often continue to feel uncertain, even after the ink has dried. That doesn't mean you've made the wrong call. This is the first distinction I want to make. Discomfort after a decision is information, but it isn't always a verdict.

19:52Jay Shetty:Sometimes discomfort reveals a real problem that requires your attention. but sometimes it just reflects the normal strain of entering unfamiliar territory. If you interpret every uncomfortable emotion as proof that you chose incorrectly, you will keep returning to the decision instead of fully participating in the life that follows it. You will spend your energy exploring the same questions. You may not even give yourself a chance to fully see the decision through. There's one idea that I love from Annie Duke's book, How to Decide, and it helped me understand this more clearly. She writes about a mistake called resulting, which happens when we judge the quality of a decision entirely by its outcome.

20:36Jay Shetty:We think a good result becomes proof that we chose wisely, while a disappointing result becomes proof that we choose poorly. Imagine you're running late for work and approach a stop sign. You roll through without stopping, no cars are coming, and you arrive on time. The outcome worked in your favor, although luck protected a reckless decision. Now imagine you stop, fully, follow the law, and a distracted driver crashes into you a few seconds later. The outcome's terrible, but the process behind your decision was still responsible. The same error appears in much more emotional areas of our lives.

21:13Jay Shetty:Imagine someone deciding whether to leave a job. They study their finances, understand the risks, speak with people they trust, and recognize that the role is affecting their mental health. They leave, join a startup, and the startup closes six months later. They may spend years telling themselves that they made the wrong decision. But in reality, the disappointing outcome doesn't erase the care with which the choice was made. Someone else may remain in a miserable job because fear prevents them from leaving. A year later, they receive an unexpected pay rise and conclude that staying was wise.

21:48Jay Shetty:The promotion may be fortunate, and it doesn't tell them whether fear should continue making their decisions. The truth is, you can never control the outcome, but you can control the preparation and dedication it takes to think logically about what will set you up for the highest likelihood of success. There are two different stages you need to consider. Before a decision, your responsibility is to gather useful information, examine your motives, consider the risks, and choose an alignment with your values. After a decision, your responsibility is to pay attention, participate fully, and respond to what you learn.

22:26Jay Shetty:I've learned that making a decision means giving it a genuine chance to work while remaining responsive to meaningful new information. Commitment is crucial because many choices need time and effort before they produce anything meaningful. A new job can feel uncomfortable while you still learn the role. A move can feel lonely before you build community. A healthy relationship can be unsettling if your previous relationships were toxic. It doesn't mean these were the wrong choices. Many of us delay decisions because we want to eliminate the possibility of regret. But that possibility remains present on every path.

23:03Jay Shetty:Even making no choice at all contains moments when you wonder about the road you didn't take. So if you have a big decision coming up, here's my advice. Choose a date by which you will decide. Gather the information available to you, write down what you hope the outcome will be, write down the risks you're okay taking on for either choice, then make the call. What I encourage you to do is also imagine yourself waking up three months from now, three years from now, and asking yourself how you will feel about either decision regardless of the result. From there, schedule a future time to reassess if you need to pivot.

23:41Jay Shetty:Then don't question your choice until then. Give yourself a real chance. Fully dedicate your energy into making that decision work until you've reached that predetermined date to reassess. For me, I know I've pivoted many times after big decisions were made this past year, but I don't regret the time or energy I spent on any of them. Everything simply brought me to more wisdom and clarity about how better to move forward. You never know if a decision is right before you make it. but you can make it right after you make the decision. And if you don't, it's fine, pivot quickly. Most decisions aren't right or wrong the moment you make them.

24:20Jay Shetty:They become right through commitment or wrong through stubbornness. Remember, a good life isn't built on perfect decisions. It's built on wise adjustments. This brings me to my fourth lesson, and this actually may be the one I've had to remind myself of the most this year. The fourth lesson is this. choose where you want to be exceptional and accept that every season of life will have energy trade-offs there were periods this year when my calendar contained many of the things i'd once hoped for but if i'm being honest there were also moments when i looked at that calendar and wondered where the rest of my life was supposed to fit balance and how you find it is something that will ebb and flow as your life continues to evolve at the beginning of my career I worked 18 hour days, seven days a week.

25:07Jay Shetty:That level of focus helped me build skills and create momentum, but it was also unsustainable. Over time, I recognized the way I was working couldn't support every part of the life I wanted. I began taking back my weekends. Later, I became more protective of my evenings. Each change required a decision about where I wanted my best energy to go and where I was willing to accept doing less. This lesson has two parts. The first is accepting that every meaningful priority creates a trade-off. The second is communicating those trade-offs so that a demanding season doesn't damage the life you're trying to build.

25:46Jay Shetty:We often talk about balance as though every important part of life should receive an equal amount of attention each day. But that expectation can make an ordinary weekday feel like a failure. You finish a demanding day at work and feel guilty that you didn't call your family, exercise, see a friend, cook dinner, read, meditate, and get eight hours of sleep. A single day cannot contain every role you care about at its highest level. But balance becomes easier to understand across a longer period. There may be a season when a new child requires most of your attention, a season when your health becomes the priority, or a season when an opportunity asks more from your career.