The My Pursuit Walk
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- —
TJ Power argues the human brain is designed to be in pursuit of a goal at all times, and that quick-dopamine behaviours only lose their grip when something bigger is being chased. My Pursuit is his method for finding that goal: a prolonged, headphone-free walk in nature where the phone is left behind, the critical self-talk is allowed to surface and pass, and a single question is held in mind — what is the primary thing I am seeking for in my life right now? Clarity typically arrives after 15 to 20 minutes, once creativity replaces rumination. Later walks shift to how the goal will be reached. The strongest pursuits contribute to more people than just yourself.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Leave the phone behind
Go without the phone entirely, or at minimum in a bag on airplane mode. Anticipatory dopamine at the thought of opening a social app is enough to disrupt the process even if you never unlock it.
Pro tip Carry a pocket notebook and pen instead — your brain has no social-media association with paper.
- 2
Walk at least 60 minutes in nature
Pick a natural environment — park, forest, beach — you can stay in for a full hour. Sitting on a sofa in silence is hell for most people; walking makes the same solitude tolerable.
Watch out In a city, lack of access is rarely the real barrier; it is deprioritisation. A tube or cycle ride to a park counts.
- 3
Let the noise be heard, then subside
Expect the first stretch to bring problems, worries and critical self-talk — you're not enough, you're stupid. Do not distract yourself with podcasts. After 15 to 20 minutes those emotional messages have had their moment and creativity begins to arise.
- 4
Hold one question
Spend the remainder of the walk pondering: what is the primary thing I am seeking for in my life right now? It might be a relationship, something in your work, physical fitness or your food. Do not force an answer in one session.
Pro tip A hunter-gatherer who set out to 'get some food' got distracted; one who set out to hunt down a deer stayed laser focused. Make the pursuit that specific.
- 5
Test the pursuit against contribution
Money is an easy but dangerous primary pursuit — attain it and you feel rudderless. Check whether your pursuit contributes to people beyond yourself; the hunter fed a group, not himself. The most fulfilling pursuits serve a wider circle.
Pro tip Ali's version of the question: if I had all the time and money in the world, how would I use my talents to serve other people?
- 6
Repeat and shift to how
Once the pursuit is clear, later walks naturally move to strategy: how am I going to get hold of that goal? Making this a regular practice — TJ does it every morning — keeps the mountain visible.
- 7
Use the pursuit to price your sacrifices
With a clear pursuit, saying no to sugary lunches, the morning scroll or Friday-night drinking becomes a trade rather than deprivation. Observe directly how each behaviour affects your capacity to take the next step towards the goal.
Watch out Without a higher goal in place, willpower alone rarely removes an addictive behaviour.
In the wild
TJ describes losing five family members between the ages of 16 and 21 and going heavily into alcohol, drugs, social media and porn. At 22 he decided to build a life he actually enjoyed, which forced the question of what he would chase instead of quick dopamine. Porn was the hardest to drop because it is a secret addiction nobody discusses. Rather than fighting it directly, he observed how watching it affected his ability to take action towards his primary goal, noticing a fuzz and lack of motivation the next morning.
→ He quit, and credits daily phone-free nature walks holding the my-pursuit question as the single main thing that put him where he is now.
When TJ started DOSE the company trained only corporates, because a business like Amazon has far more budget than a state school in London. He wanted to train young people, which made no financial sense at the time. Recalling Elon Musk's line that income is proportional to the problem you solve, he decided to pursue the school market anyway because it was an important problem.
→ Money is now arriving from that lane through various parts of the model, supporting his claim that a pursuit which solves a real problem tends to bring money as a byproduct.
Common mistakes
Making money the primary pursuit
Money is an easy mountain to name and a dangerous one to summit. Ali describes feeling rudderless once he had enough; TJ found it did not feel fulfilling. A pursuit that contributes to others survives its own success.
Taking headphones on the walk
Podcasts and music are distraction from the exact discomfort the walk is designed to process. The critical self-talk has to be heard and pass before creativity and clarity arrive.
Expecting clarity in one session
Answers emerge across repeated walks. Treating it as a single workshop rather than a regular practice means quitting during the rumination phase and concluding it does not work.
From the transcript
“so next strategy for boosting our dopamine is this action we called my Pursuit and this comes back to the importance of a human always…”
“you need to be in a nature environment that you can spend at least 60 minutes with your mind”
“your most fulfilling Pursuits will contribute to a wider amount of people than just yourself”
From the episode
How Dopamine Shapes Your Habits and Productivity - Tj Power
Tj Power