June 1, 2025 | #42 | read on The Happier Studio | Free Version
Welcome to The Happier Newsletter, a weekly newsletter where I provide actionable ideas to help you build a happier, healthier, and more meaningful life.
What’s On Today
- What Should I Do With My Life?
- The Genie Framework
- Practical Ways to Explore Your Genie Goal
What Should I Do With My Life?
It’s one of the most quietly haunting questions we ask ourselves:
“What should I do with my life?”
We often assume it’s only the lost or directionless who ask this. But more often than not, it’s the high achievers who feel it most deeply.
Stanford professor and entrepreneur Graham Weaver discovered this while teaching MBA students; ambitious, accomplished people on paper.
He expected questions about strategy, startups, or scaling companies. But again and again, the most common question he heard was:
“What should I do with my life?”
Because behind the polished résumés and perfect LinkedIn profiles, many of us are quietly grappling with the same truth:
- A restless feeling we can’t explain
- A sense of drifting, even when everything looks “right”
- A life that’s successful, but not intentional
Weaver describes this as “living on autopilot.”
You wake up, commute, answer emails, go to meetings, rush through dinner, and collapse into bed feeling exhausted but strangely unfulfilled.
Like, you’re living, but mentally, you’re somewhere else. The days start to blur together. Your energy dips. Things that once excited you now feel flat. You feel a bit…meh.
If you’ve felt this before, or you’re feeling it now, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It’s simply a signal. A quiet reminder to pause, zoom out, and start living with intention again.
And one of the most powerful tools I’ve come across for doing exactly that is something called The Genie Framework.
The Genie Framework
Graham Weaver shares a simple, but radically revealing, exercise with his students:
Imagine you’re walking home and stumble across a glowing magic lamp. You rub it, and a genie appears. The genie says: “Whatever you throw yourself into with your whole heart, it will work out. It will be hard. It will take longer than you expect. But it will succeed. And you’ll be deeply glad you did it.”
Now, here’s the question:
If that were true… what would you choose?
Most people already know their answer, but they’re afraid to say it out loud, because:
- It’s not what their parents would expect.
- It doesn’t fit the job title they worked so hard for.
- It sounds idealistic or impractical or just too far away.
But in that answer is something Weaver calls your “genie goal.”
It’s not necessarily your forever path, but it’s your truest one right now. It’s the dream that sits just behind your fear. The one that shows up if you take failure off the table.
And that, Weaver says, is the real work: “Most people don’t suffer from confusion. They suffer from fear.”
The Genie Framework removes that fear, just long enough for you to remember what matters. And once you have that answer, your next job is simple (but not easy): Start walking that path.
Because if you don’t take that first step, you’ll keep waking up in a life that looks fine, but doesn’t feel like yours.
“You get to the end of the day,” he says, “and you realise you were busy… but not conscious.”
The Genie Goal is about changing that. It’s about reclaiming the steering wheel from your subconscious, and asking:
- Where do I want this life to go?
- What’s worth suffering for?
Because yes, everything worthwhile requires “worse first”:
- Want to get in shape? You’ll be sore before you’re strong.
- Want a meaningful career change? You’ll feel lost before you find clarity.
- Want to live your truth? You’ll disappoint others before you liberate yourself.
The first steps are often the hardest. But they’re also the most transformative.
Practical Ways to Explore Your Genie Goal
If you’re ready to take this further, try these:
1. Make the abstract real.
Once you know your genie goal, imagine your life 10 years from now if you pursued it fully. What does a day in that life look like? Now ask yourself: What’s one small step I can take this week to move in that direction?
2. Try the Nine Lives Exercise.
Weaver uses this with students to reduce the pressure of “finding the one calling.” Imagine you get to live 9 completely different lives. What would each look like? Startup founder? Teacher? Artist? Coach? Explorer? This helps reveal recurring themes and dreams worth following.
3. Identify and write down your limiting beliefs.
Often, the only thing standing between you and your genie goal is a belief you’ve never questioned, and that is holding you back. Write it down. Make it visible. Then turn it into a to-do list. Fear of inexperience? Enrol in a class. Fear of instability? Build a side project. Each fear has a step you can take to weaken its grip.
You only get one life. And while comfort might keep you safe… Only courage will get you free.
So, if you’re still asking:
“What should I do with my life?”
Don’t just keep wondering.
Rub the lamp. Ask the question. And listen closely for the answer you’ve been avoiding.
It might be the one that changes everything.
If you want to dive deeper into this, I highly recommend watching the interview with Graham Weaver here: How to break out of autopilot and create the life you want
