What Should You Do When You Don’t Know What to Do in Life?

Do you ever felt lost, lack motivation, and felt like you have no idea what you want to do with your life? If you do, this guide could help…

Finding out what you want to do in life may be easier said than done. It is one of the most common issues most people face in their daily lives. So, do you know what you want out of your life?

When I was young, I wanted to be an engineer. At the time, I had a strong feeling for being an entrepreneur because my father was a contractor who worked in the industry.

However, as I grew older, I lost my connection to my why and my purpose. I felt lost and I have no idea what I wanted out of my life. I don’t want to work as an engineer, not because of the job, but because my passion and my “heart” aren’t there.

So, I embarked on a journey to discovering myself. After a few years down the road, I ended becoming a blogger and an internet marketer. And I love what I do now.

You may have gone through the same path, feeling lost, not sure what to do with your life, and you don’t know if your current career is the one that suits you the most.

It is important to find out what you want to do in life because on average, people spend one-third of their life working. And that means, if you work in a job that you dislike, you’re going to waste a lot of your life there.

Don’t let this happen to you. Instead, find your calling, understand what your true heart’s desire is, and work on things that you are passionate about.

But, how do you know if you are lost or if the direction you chose is not the one that you truly want?

Well, here are a couple of signs you should take note:

1) You wake up each morning wishing that you didn’t have to get out of bed.

The first thing you feel when you wake up each morning is the most obvious sign if your life is working. People who love what they do in life will feel passionate and they can’t wait to wake up and do more of it. On the other hand, people who hate what they do or are living the life isn’t what they want, they tend to feel tired and are not willing to get up and start their day.

2) You feel trapped and are running in the rat race.

Do you feel stuck, like no matter what you do, you can’t move on ahead in your life? If you often feel stuck and powerless in changing your situation, then perhaps, it is a sign that you’re feeling lost in life. You want to feel free, be able to express yourself, and to feel meaningful in the things that you do. But when you lost that connection, you will feel trapped and can’t move forward.

3) You feel like there’s something missing in your life.

Do you feel like there’s something missing in your life? Do you find yourself asking questions like, “Is this all there is?” or “what’s the meaning of life?” You feel unfulfilled and you can’t seem to satisfy yourself because you know there is something more waiting for you out there.

4) You don’t feel motivated and are living a reactive life.

If you find yourself feeling no motivation in what you do and are living a reactive life, like instead of being proactively pursuing an inspiring goal, you choose to wait reactively for things to happen, then it may also be a sign that you’re lost in life. People who have no idea what to do with their lives will wait for things to happen to them than to work proactively toward what they want.

5) You feel bored and life is meaningless.

This is an obvious sign that you have no direction in life. High achievers are always clear with what they want, and because they have a burning desire, they find that life is interesting and meaningful. On the contrary, people who lack direction and have no idea what they want in life, always feel bored and that their lives are meaningless.

Are you showing any of these signs? If you do, it will be an indicator that you’re not living the life that you want. You may feel lost of direction, and are unsure what you really want out of your life.

So, what are the solutions? Here are a couple of suggestions of what you can do to discover your purpose in life…

1. The $100 Million Question

“If you have $100 million dollars in your bank account right now, what will you do?”

This is one of the most powerful questions for self-discovery. Most of our limits and assumptions are due to our financial constraints. And when we take money out of the equation, we allow ourselves to think better without limits.

So, what will you do if you have $100 million dollars in your bank account right now?

• Are you going to distribute the money? How?
• Will you share a portion with your family members?
• Are you going to donate some to the charity?
• Now that you have $100 million, will you still work in the same company you used to work?
• Are you going to start a business? What business?
• Will you take a vacation to Hawaii or visit Hokkaido in Japan?
• Will you visit the car showroom tomorrow and buy yourself your dream car?
• Are you going to start a blog and share with the world your travel experience?
• Do you want to become a YouTuber and an online celebrity?
• Will you continue to stay where you are or move to another city or remote location?
• Will you still cook yourself a dinner because you love doing it or are you going to hire someone to do it?

These are just some of the questions to spark your creativity.

Now, take this exercise seriously. If you truly want to find out what you want to do in life, you must be serious about it.

Take out a pen and paper, and write down your thoughts. What will you do if you have $100 million in your bank account right now?

Stop telling yourself that this is not going to happen to you or this is not real, the $100 million is just a thought that is used to take your financial limit out of this exercise.

I believe that all of us have limits and financial commitments in life. And due to these constraints, we often become too ‘realistic’.

We tell ourselves that visiting Hawaii is not possible because we don’t have the budget or we don’t have the time because the HR will never approve our leaves.

Forget all these constraints or limits that are stopping you. Now that you already have $100 million in your bank, you can live your life according to your own terms and conditions.

Are you going to wake up at 6AM each morning or sleep until you wake up automatically? Are you going to live a lavish lifestyle or do you prefer a frugal lifestyle?

Think about it.

My friend, just imagine that you have $100 million and money is not a problem at all, the question is, what will you do?

Be serious, write down your answers. Let your brain come out with the answers that have been stored deep inside you.

2. The 5 Years Exercise

The 5 years exercise is simple and easy to understand. You just need to answer this question:

“Where and what you will be doing in the next 5 years?”

The reason why 5 years is because the 5-year timeframe is not too long and not too short either, it is just nice to describe what and where we want to go in the future.

If you try to imagine where you will be in the next 20 years, the answer may be too vague and you may lose direction of where to start.

And if you imagine where you will be in the next year or 2, the answer may not truly reflect what you want, instead, it will be based on your current life circumstances because the timeframe is too short.

Therefore, 5 years is a nice timeframe to begin with.

Do this exercise like the $100 million dollar question, write down your thoughts.

• Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
• Will you still be in the same company working at the same job?
• Or have you started your own business?
• Will you still be living where you are or you have moved to another place?
• Will you still be driving the same car or have you changed to a newer and more luxurious one?

It doesn’t matter if your answers are too realistic or unrealistic, the key is to do the exercise so that you will find out an idea of what you want to do with your life.

What you want is to find out your destination. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to get there. The “how” isn’t the main issue here. The key you should focus on is the “where”. Where do you want to get to in 5 years?

You want an idea, a draft, and a vision of what your life will be in the future, not a vivid or a detailed plan to achieve what you want.

So, where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

3. Create a Personal Manifesto

Another great strategy to discover your life purpose and what you want out of your life is by creating a personal manifesto.

If you search it on Google, the word, “manifesto” means “a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.”

It may sound a little odd to create a personal manifesto, but nothing sounds more awkward than visiting the cemetery like Robin Sharma suggested, right?

Anyway, creating your own personal manifesto is an idea that if you figure out where you stand on certain ideas, you may be able to craft out a possible career or life that you want.

Just take it as your call to action, or your policy when it comes to how you want to deal with things in life.

If it is hard for you to understand what a personal manifesto is, just take it as a list of life’s rules.

Yes, your personal manifesto is like life’s rules. What should you do, how should you do, when, and where to do it.

For instance, one of the rules in your manifesto can be something specific like:

“I’m going to wake up at 5:30AM each morning and exercise for 30 minutes, from 6:00AM to 6:30AM, every single day without exception.”

Or, the manifesto can be something more vague general such as:

“No matter what situation I face in my life, regardless of how tough the situation may be, I will stand strong and always remember my purpose. I will act confidently and courageously, and more importantly, I will never give up on my dreams.”

You have to understand that these principles or manifestos are there to help you shape your life and the way you live.

They are great rules that you want to follow because they define who you are.

And in this case, your personal manifesto can help you discover who you really are and what you care about in life. It tells you how you perceive others, yourself, and the world around you. It shows you how you want to act and where are you moving toward in life.

I know that having a personal manifesto may not directly give you the answer to what you want to do out of your life, but it is a great way to start.

After all, finding out how you want to live your life gives you a great idea of what you want to do with your life, isn’t it?

4. Asking Self-Discovery Questions

Questions are powerful. And we all know that. Whatever you ask in your head, your brain will search for the answers.

Therefore, if you ask the wrong question, you will get the wrong answer. On the contrary, when you ask the right question, you will get the right answer. As simple as that.

Try to ask yourself this question:

“Why do bad things always happen to me?”

So, what answers do you have? What did your mind tell you? What are the thoughts that come to you?

I bet they are not positive. When you ask this question, your brain will search for all the reasons why you think you’re always bad luck and show them to you.

On the other hand, if you ask:

“Why am I so lucky and great things always happen to me?”

You will find all the positive and encouraging answers. Our brain is an auto-suggestion machine. And we can take control of our thoughts by asking questions. When we ask, our minds automatically search for the answers.

It works exactly like how Google works. And it all depends on what you key in to the search bar. You can search for positive things, and you can also search for negative things. The choice is yours.

So, what kind of self-discovery questions can you ask to find out more about yourself and understanding what kind of life you want to have?

Here are some of the self-discovery questions you should ask yourself:

• What are the biggest successes in my life that I’m most proud of?
• If I get into a huge bookstore, which section do I visit and spend the most time on?
• If anything is possible, what will you do and how you want your life to be like?
• Who are the 3 people you most respect and admire? Why?
• What are the things that you hate to do or don’t like doing?
• What has to happen in order for me to feel successful and that I’m living my life to the fullest?
• What’s the one thing I can do to live my potential and to feel that I’m truly living?

Asking questions is easy, the difficult part is in answering the questions in written form. Yes, take out a pen and paper, and jot down your thoughts.

The best is to keep a personal journal to write down all these answers, record your thoughts, and also write down your goals.

The impact will be small when you just try to answer those questions in your head. But when you write them down, you are telling yourself that you are serious about finding yourself; you are committed to discovering what you want in your life.

Thus, spend a few minutes or even hours to do this. You can do it Starbucks if you want to. Make sure you schedule and block your time to do this.

5. Begin with the End in Mind

If you read the best-selling book by Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you will understand that one of the principles is to begin with the end in mind.

So what does it mean to “begin with the end in mind”?

According to FranklinCovey…

“… The habit of beginning with the End in Mind involves setting your own goals and intended accomplishments, identifying the roles you play, fixing your priorities, and then sharing those frequently with your team.

It seems so old-school. But the inarguable fact is there are always two creations to everything you see or experience. The first creation happens in your mind — it’s where you envision what you want to accomplish. And the second is when you align your actions to your imagination.

Nothing happens without those two creations. If you ignore this principle, it’s essentially the same as passively letting everyone and everything else around you decide what you will be and what you will do.”

In order to achieve something, you have to understand what that ‘something’ is before you can achieve it, right? And finding out that ‘something’ is your mission here.

Ted Leonsis is a successful entrepreneur, a former senior executive with AOL, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, and also the Vice-Chairman of Groupon.

A couple of years ago, Leonsis was on a near-death flight when the pilot announced that the plane he was in serious trouble, all the recovery measures have failed, and the passengers onboard have only about 37 minutes left to live.

Can you imagine what will you do if you’re one of the passengers on that flight? Have you prepared?

Well, at this moment, many will prepare to die and think of nothing, but not Leonsis. He prepared to live.

He reflected on what truly mattered and all the potential and things he still had left to do, achievements he still had to experience, and also the joys and happiness he had still left to taste.

Luckily, the plane did not crash. And after it landed safely, Leonsis reflect on the experience and came up with his “101 Things to Do Before I Die” List.

So far, Leonsis has accomplished and checked off 74 out of his 101 to-dos on the list. The key is that he is living a successful life that he loves, and a life that he “engineered”.

Therefore, you can do the same. Come up with your 101 goals or target or to-do’s before you die.

You see, as human beings, we take things for granted, especially our lives. We fall into the trap that there is always a tomorrow, and hence, we ignore the important and truly valuable things in our lives.

We spend too much time playing games and checking updates on social media rather than having precious moments with the people we love and care about.

We complain about the traffic, the weather, our boss, and our colleagues when we get to work, but we never look at ourselves at all.

However, when you think about death, it can be an experience like what Ted Leonsis went through or like what Robin Sharma suggested, take a walk in the cemetery, you will then discover that life is too short.

And suddenly, you realized that you shouldn’t complain about the traffic or blame your colleagues because these are puny matters.

Remembering your death and that life is short can serve as a great awakening to finding out what you truly want from your lives.

This article is a shorter version of the original that was first published on my blog: https://stunningmotivation.com/dont-know-what-to-do-in-life/