8 Steps To Know What You Want To Do With Your Life

Follow your dreams. Go your own way. Do what you love. How many times have you heard or read such things? They are wonderful life ideas, but they mean nothing when you have not defined your dreams exactly, when you have not found your way or you do not know very well what you want to do with your life.

This doubt is that eternal leivmotiv that appears frequently throughout our life cycle. It does not matter whether we are twenty or sixty years old, that unfathomable emptiness appears like a shadow on the horizon, often impregnating us with suffering. Thus, not knowing which direction to take, what to choose, or what to hold on to often means that we end up doing only one thing: improvising rather than shaping a meaningful life.

Now there is one aspect that we cannot ignore. Believe it or not, that raw material from which our existence is redirected comes precisely from those moments of doubt. Of those moments where we remain in the prelude of insecurity and reflection, there where little by little, we combine a new commitment with ourselves to clarify purposes and set goals on the horizon. Sometimes all we need is a moment of rest before taking a new and wonderful impulse.

When you do not know what you want to do with your life remember: do not succumb, do not allow yourself the luxury of wasting time regretting or feeding your own frustration. Just take a deep breath, take a deep breath, and apply these 8 steps. The change you need is within reach of your mind, but first you must train it and redirect it towards a series of purposes …

8 keys when you don’t know what you want to do with your life

One of the best answers to this question was given in his day by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It is worth reflecting for a few moments on these lines, which give us an accurate clue about those steps that we should all apply to cope a little better with the moments of existential fears and doubts:

1. Develop a vision of your life at 5 years

The world is full of opportunities, but when doubts and insecurities arise, we ourselves are the worst obstacle to our happiness. Changing your day to day for the better involves choosing a destination first and taking a step to get there. Therefore, to know what you want to do with your life, you must first define what type of destination you want for yourself.

Whatever your situation, imagine now and for a moment that all your dreams have come true in recent years. Grab a pencil and paper or open a text document on your computer and write down everything you can think of about it. Write for 10 minutes (use a timer) about aspects such as what time you get up, how much money you make, what your job is like, what kind of people you interact with, what your house is like, what car you drive, what you eat, what kind of life you lead or how you feel.

Those ideas that you have delimited are actually your true purposes.

2. Read, connect with your environment, get inspired, be receptive

Reading a good self-help book is incredibly powerful, as long as you are able to embrace and put into practice the ideas you find in that book. Reading alone is not going to mean anything to you if you do not apply the advice you find.

Likewise and not least, it is also essential that you begin to apply an adequate mental, emotional and experiential openness. Relate, connect with people and with your environment. Open your heart and your senses to hide your fears and allow new things to come. Those that will inspire you and invite you to project new paths, higher goals …

3. Participate in volunteer work: a way to give meaning to life

Participating in volunteer work will allow you to meet interesting, motivated and positive people. In addition, it will help you discover deeper aspects in yourself, those that often help us to give more meaning to our existence. If you don’t know what you want to do with your life, this step is often very cathartic, very liberating, and fulfilling.

4. Find a passion

We have all wanted to do something at some time, but we have not always combined enough courage to carry it out. The reasons can be several, from “I don’t have time” to “what will they say” or “how am I going to do this at my age”. If these statements appear frequently in your head, do a mental reset and get rid of the I can not or I have missed the train for certain things.

Life must be lived with passion. Only in this way does the authentic sense appear, only in this way is it savored in body, mind and emotions.

5. Learn to make decisions

When you don’t know what you want to do with your life, there is an aspect of your personal growth that is failing. We refer to this high inability to make decisions. It costs us, doubts arise, insecurities … Our fears are so many that in the end we decide nothing and choose to stay in that place where nothing new happens: the comfort zone.

• When you don’t know which direction to go, what to do or what not to do , try using  Edward Bono’s Six Thinking Hats approach . Analyze the situation from multiple points of view, including rational, emotional, intuitive, creative, positive, and negative perspectives.

6. Respond free of fear to the question “what do I want to do”. Learn to clarify

Dare to answer this question without limits: what do I want to do with my life. And don’t hold back. Do not excuse yourself. Responses such as “I would like to do this but I can’t because …” are not valid. Answer truthfully and confidently without using the conditional tense. Because if it is important to know how to make decisions, it is even more important to know how to clarify objectives:

• I want to be happy.
• I want to feel self-sufficient.
• What I want is to work on what I really like.
• Likewise, I know that what I want the most is to see my people happy, so I know that I must make changes to be able to give them the best of myself.

• I want to move up in my job.

7. Identify your fears

What is it that scares you? Dare to admit it. When we face our fears, we also outline very relevant aspects of our character. And, surprisingly, this generates in us a great feeling of self-confidence, the same one that arises when we dare to tell a friend about it.

In addition, by identifying these fears we can also investigate their origins, the root of many of our underlying problems, those that we do not address, the same ones that we leave adrift and slow our personal growth. It is an exercise not without some difficulty, but at the same time, it can help us in a very positive way.

8. Your current suffering is not a state, it is a process that precedes change

When you don’t know what you want to do with your life, you suffer. Because it is distressing to feel that emptiness, that absence of purpose and meaning. It is as if the whole world knows which way to go and we are stranded like a rusty ship. Now, whatever happens to you, good or bad, consider that it is just a process, not an enduring state. Understand that everything passes, that everything comes, that everything changes.

What you can do is see that moment of doubt as a stage to learn from. It is like that step backwards that we sometimes take to gain momentum when taking a great leap. Change is just around the corner, but so far, the important thing is to trust yourself and your possibilities.

To conclude, follow the steps above and introduce them as a habit into your routine. Although now you do not see the results, when you least expect it they will appear and you will realize it. The wait will be worth it.

Do you know what you want to do with your life now?