The Four Idols Exercise

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Most of us go through our lives completely unaware of the idol we worship. David Foster Wallace pointed out in his This is Water speech that things you worship may eat you alive. The four idols exercise is a method to identify your idol and bring it to the forefront of your awareness. You do not need to reject your idol or characterize it as wrong or bad.

The Four Idols framework says that everyone is driven by the pursuit of one (or more) of the following idols: Money, Power, Pleasure, and Fame.

We make most of our daily decisions based on our worship of our idol. The downside: As we strive to get “closer” to our idol, we find ourselves on an endless chase for more. We incorrectly assume that this chase will lead us to the promised land of happiness.

We do not need to reject our idol. The goal is to develop a conscious awareness of your idol—to become aware of what is motivating and driving you, and to understand the separation between this chase and your lifelong pursuit of fulfillment and happiness.

The Four Idols exercise is simple: Use a process of elimination to identify your primary idol. Reminder, there is nothing wrong with any of these idols—they are perfectly natural. The key is to become aware of your idol—to understand the role and influence it has in your decision-making and life, and to realize that chasing this idol will not lead to happiness on its own.