I Don't Know What To Do With My Life: How To Find Your Way (2024)

Sometimes in life, you may feel stuck and you find yourself saying, “I don’t know what to do with my life.”

You may be searching for a purpose, a passion that makes you feel alive. You feel like you’re ready to take action and make a change, but you just don’t know which direction to go.

If this sounds like you, then keep reading.

In this article, I’ll provide you with clear, actionable advice to help you get unstuck and decide the next steps to take when you find yourself in a rut.

Each step will help you shake loose the mantle of indecision, and help you orient your life towards a purposeful and meaningful life.

In this article:

1. What Needs to Change in Your Life?
   1. What would the “child you” think about the “current you”?
   2. What are the things you want to change or eliminate from your life?
   3. Who and what are the people you like and admire?
   4. What inspires you?
   5. How can you serve others?
   6. What have you always thought you’d do with your life?
   7. What do you want to do every day?
   8. What do you want to do before you die?
   9. What scares you?
2. Figure Out What to Do Next With Your Life
   1. Examine your purpose in life
   2. Evaluate your life values
   3. Analyze your strengths
   4. Examine your career choices and designation
   5. Assess your opportunities
   6. Explore your hobbies and passions
   7. Take field trips and observe other people
   8. Read, learn, and get inspired
   9. Experiment

Originally published on 13 May 2021, this article was republished on March 8th, 2024.

What Needs to Change in Your Life?

“Ask the right questions and the answers will reveal themselves.”

Oprah

When you find yourself in a rut, it’s often unclear what needs to change.

It can feel confusing to pinpoint where you’re at versus where you want to be. To get a clear idea of how to build a meaningful life, you first need to clarify what exactly needs to change.

You may have a good-paying job, a loving family, and a supportive partner. On paper, your life looks great, but somehow youstill feel unfulfilled. You go through the motions, butsomething is missing.

Sometimes in these cases, implementing change seems overwhelming. One problem piles on top of the next, and it feels like every day you constantly have to put out fires.When nothing goes right, you may feel frozen and scared to make the next move.

To galvanize yourself into action, you need to ask yourself some hard-hitting questions to learn where you stand right now – to find out what is working and what needs to change.

1. What Would the “Child You” Think about the “Current You”?

Every child is born like a blank slate. They behave based on their purest instincts with zero conditioning from outside influences.

Children seem to fearlessly express themselves by playing, laughing, and dancing. They show up authentically and approach life with a playful attitude.

Close your eyes. Try to think back to yourself as a child. What would that child think about the “current you”?

Ask yourself:

• What kind of activities did you enjoy?
• How did you look at the world?
• Can you think of any difficult situations that may have impacted who you are today?
• What does the “adult you” want the “child you” to experience more of?
• Do you hide parts of your inner child to fit in now?

2. What Do You Want to Change or Eliminate From Your Life?

Where do you stand in your life right now?

You may have a lot of things going right for you, or maybe you recognize the glaringly obvious things that need to change.

At this point, you need to be honest with yourself about what you need and what you don’t.

To do this, write down a list of all the things that bring you joy and satisfaction. Then make a separate list of the areas of your life that you need to change.

Consider the following:

• Life habits: Do you get enough sleep, eat nutritious foods, and stay active?
• Relationships: Compare people who lift you up versus toxic relationships.
• Work or career path: Do you yearn tochange jobs or shift your career path entirely?
• Routine: Do you spend time doing the things that you love? Do you take on too much?

3. Who Are the People You Like and Admire?

Having role models can inspire your direction to build a meaningful life. They provide a template that you can aspire to, a version of someone that you hope to be one day.

List a few characteristics or achievements that you admire about each individual. This can reveal qualities that matter to you, and it’s one of the ways you can start to uncover your own core values.

4. What Inspires You?

Living a good life means more than just having your essential needs met. Deep down, we all want to feel inspired. That can mean in the work we do, the people we help, the hobbies we pursue.

You may have a ton of ideas or none at all. When you want to knowhow to find your passion in life, make a list and think about:

• If you could have your dream job, what would you do?
• What adventures and activities intrigue you?
• If you had all the time and money at your disposal, what would you do?

5. How Can You Serve Others?

What makes people happy? A good job, a fancy car, a big house, lots of lavish vacations?

According to science, feeling happy has a lot to do with helping others. Professor of psychology, Dr. Laurie Santos, PhD., teaches a popular course at Yale University calledThe Science of Well-Being and has spent her career exploring the “recipe” for happiness.

Dr. Santos’ research has found that happier people tend to pay attention to the needs of others. They often participate in service-oriented activities, like giving to charity and volunteering.

Whether that means supporting your community, adopting an animal, or conserving the environment, these activities can bring you more purpose through serving others.

6. What Have You Always Thought You’d Do with Your Life?

You may already have an idea, deep down inside, of your calling.

Did you have a passion that fell by the wayside because of other responsibilities? You may need to reconnect with that part of yourself to feel whole again.

Let’s explore this question a bit more.

Think about your current work situation. Ask yourself:

• Why are you doing what you’re doing?
• Does this job feel more like a calling or a way to pay the bills?
• When you close your eyes, can you imagine a dream job that calls to you?

Everyone needs to find a way to bring home the bacon, but life is too short to bestuck in a job that you hate.

You can find meaning and enjoyment in the work that you do. But it may mean taking risks and asking the right questions to move forward.

7. What Do You Want to Do Every Day?

Consider the big dreams that you have in your heart. Now, think about what kind of daily habits will lead you to that goal.

This can even mean small things, like writing 20 minutes a day, practicing guitar, or going for a walk. At first glance, these seemingly small things don’t seem very impactful, but over time they can lead to monumental changes.

8. What Do You Want to Do Before You Die?

Close your eyes and imagine the things you’ve always wanted to do. Take some time to brainstorm those heart dreams and write them down.

Your list could include big goals like starting your own business, starting a family, or moving to a new city. You may consider taking on a challenge like learning a foreign language or participating in a marathon.

Your list may also include small things that you neglect for yourself. You should reignite your sense of adventure with a little vacation, a night out, or a change in routine.

When you don’t know how to figure out what you want in life, sometimes a simple reset can give you the answers you need.

9. What Scares You?

“I don’t know what to do with my life,” can sometimes mean, “I’ve been afraid to go after what I really want.”

Everyone faces fear – and it has its purpose. Fear protects us from dangerous situations, but it can also result fromlimiting thinking that starts at a young age.

A controlling parent might have yelled at you too often. A bully at school may have made you feel unworthy.

These fears create negative thought patterns that we carry with us through the rest of our lives. They prevent us from taking risks and living a life outside of our comfort zones.

Understanding your fears helps differentiate between rational fears and limiting beliefs.

You’ll learn what scares you (and for good reason), but you’ll also recognize what you’ve been avoiding and why.

Figure Out What to Do Next With Your Life

When you yearn to find direction and purpose, you may feel overwhelmed with options and need clarification about which path to take.

First, learnhow to deal with feeling overwhelmed and train your body and mind to react properly to stress.

Then, take these steps to figure out what to do with your life and discover what you’re meant to do.

1. Examine Your Purpose in Life

Some follow the prescribed path – get good grades, get into a good school, get a good job, buy a house, and start a family. Others face life circ*mstances and responsibilities that make it much harder to go after a big dream.

Whatever is holding you back, you can’t find yourself by following a set of external expectations. When you want to knowhow to find your purpose in life, you have to look inward.

That means tapping into your unique gifts, your mindset, and what you can offer in service of others for the greater good. You’ll find your purpose at the intersection between what you love to do and what other people need.

2. Evaluate Your Life Values

Your core values provide the foundation for building a meaningful life. When you identify what matters to you, your decisions and actions tend to align with those values.

Some examples of core values include:

• Connection
• Family
• Career
• Status
• Freedom
• Creativity
• Beauty
• Service

Make alist of values and beliefs, then try to narrow down that list to 3-5 core values. How does your day-to-day life reflect those values?

You may recognize areas of your life, like relationships, lifestyle choices, or work, that conflict with your values and need to change.

For example, you might value freedom and would like the autonomy to travel where you want and work according to your own schedule.

But you’re tied down with a demanding job that requires you to physically be at a workplace every day, forcing you to commute and leaving you with no time for your life outside of work.

This is a conflict between a value you hold close to your heart and your current circ*mstances, and will likely result in dissonance in your life. The solution would be to find a way to transition to work that would give you more time to experience the freedom you desire.

3. Analyze Your Strengths

Consider the things you do well naturally but that you can also improve through practice – a skill you frequently receive praise for, or one that causes you to lose track of time when you’re practicing it.

You can use tools like theDISC profile assessment to start uncovering your strengths and build upon them. By building on your strengths, you’ll notice the value that it brings to your life almost immediately.

For example, I had a client who valued creativity but couldn’t find the time to explore this side of her personality as much as she wanted. She loved to draw, paint, and write, but somehow the rest of her life kept getting in the way of these pursuits.

After some coaching sessions, I encouraged her to set aside twenty or thirty minutes every morning to pursue one of these outlets – writing, in this case. She started keeping a journal, and soon she was spending an hour every day documenting her thoughts and ideas. This daily writing practice allowed her to structure her life better so that she had less anxiety and more time for work and family.

4. Examine Your Career Choices and Designation

As you explore your values and strengths, you begin to point your compass toward possible new directions.

You may notice some obvious next steps. For example, if you value family, maybe you want to find a job that allows you to spend more time with your loved ones.

Draw a Venn diagram and identify some of your top values, interests, and strengths. Try to list five options in the middle of the Venn that relate to those aspects of yourself.

Can you point out career paths or activities that might make you feel more fulfilled?

5. Assess Your Opportunities

Finding your why might mean a big change, like starting a new career path. But before you quit your job, do a lot of research first.

Instead of jumping head first, take calculated risks and plan ahead. Look for potential career opportunities that relate to your interests, then assess the current marketplace.

Pay attention to the following:

• If it’s a saturated market with a lot of competition, what would it take to stand out?
• Identify niche industries where you can succeed.
• Ask yourself: What kind of education or training will you need to qualify?
• Do you know anyone currently working in that field who can guide you?
• What’s the payoff? How much would it cost to get the training to qualify versus the average pay for that line of work?

Before starting SoulSalt, I knew I wanted to create something that could help people who were feeling lost in life. I had a gift for speaking and inspiring people, but I couldn’t quite figure out how best to deploy that at scale.

How did I decide what to do? I looked to my heroes – people in the same space who were already living my calling – and then figured out what they were doing right, but, more importantly, what they weren’t doing. I saw a niche that I could expand into, and by doing so, reach a specific audience with a very tailored message.

6. Explore Your Hobbies and Passions

When you find yourself saying things like, “I don’t know what to do with my life”, you may immediately think of something drastic, like changing careers.

But sometimes you can find a way to feel more fulfilled by incorporating hobbies and passions into your life.

Best of all, hobbies don’t require a dramatic life change. It might just mean dedicating an hour a week to join a martial arts class, cooking a new recipe, or surfing. Adding a hobby or two could be the simple spark of inspiration you need.

7. Take Field Trips and Observe Other People

Sometimes finding inspiration means stepping outside of your bubble. Go explore, whether it means getting more involved in your community, attending new events, or taking a trip to a new city.

Take field trips to discover what other people do for fun.

For example, did you know you can now enter intocompetitive lightsaber fights? Or, how aboutthe Mongol Derby, a long-distance horse race created by Genghis Khan in 1224?

Spice things up with new possibilities by watching what others do.

8. Read, Learn, and Get Inspired

Today, we have so much information at our disposal – podcasts, books, TEDTalks. These resources can open your mind to so many opportunities just waiting to be discovered – and give you ideas for how to find your purpose in the process.

I know so many people, for example, who have been able to optimize their health – and, in the process, their lives – by watching or listening to the Huberman Lab Podcast. The host, Andrew Huberman, regularly puts out well-researched and effective podcast episodes that detail how to improve your health at low-to-zero cost.

From my own experience, Joey Reiman’s bookThinking for a Living really inspired me during a career change.

I also recommend The$100 Dollar Start-up by Chris Guillebeau, a book full of examples of how to reinvent yourself.

9. Discover Through Experimentation

Discovering the purpose of life is not an easy question, and each person has their own unique path, one that changes during different phases of life.

The answer to “I don’t know what to do with my life,” might be an idea you haven’t tried yet.

Take a playful, open-minded approach in how to figure out what to do with your life. Become comfortable with the uncomfortable. You’ll become more adaptive and invite new opportunities in your life to grow, expand, and fulfill your purpose.

Still not sure where to begin? Then consider working with someone to guide you.

Our onlineTake Control of Your Life program gives you step-by-step guidance toward navigating change and finding your purpose. We’ll help you make sense of the confusion and discover the path forward toward building a better future.