5 tips to help you figure out what to do with your life
"Inquire the right questions and the answers will reveal themselves." —Oprah
Westwardhat should I practise with my life? That's a really scary question.
When I started out in my career, I thought I needed a mentor to tell me exactly what to practice, when to do information technology, and how to do it.
I prayed for this fairy godfather to driblet downwardly out of Silicon Valley and into my inbox with a complete roadmap for my life.
Equally information technology turns out, fairy godfathers don't be and no mentor—no matter how brilliant—can evangelize a complete roadmap to anyone's life.
In the words of Steve Jobs, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you lot can only connect them looking backward, then you lot have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
Advising yous to just trust that the dots will connect afterward isn't exactly helpful, though. It certainly won't help sort out your career path or relieve whatsoever anxiety.
I do know something that volition help, though… Asking yourself questions.
"Questions can be similar a lever y'all use to pry open up the stuck lid on a paint can." — Fran Peavy
Whenever I feel overwhelmed or when I don't know the respond to something, before I carp someone smarter than me for the respond, I open up a blank physician, and I start typing out questions. So I try to answer them. I but blazon—no editing, no filtering—only me scribbling my thoughts on the folio.
And you know what I've discovered since doing this?
I tin can reply nearly all of my questions and feel confident about my answers without ever pinging my imaginary fairy godfather. Including the old favorite, "What do I want to do with my life?"
Knowing what questions to enquire can be difficult, and opening a blank Word doc can feel overwhelming, so I'm here to share some thought-provoking questions to jumpstart the process for y'all.
Go on reading for a list of 9 questions to answer. They should help you discover who you lot really are, what you truly want out of life, and how to go information technology someday.
And trust me, this is the closest affair yous'll get to a consummate career roadmap. Y'all're welcome.
Look at where you are at present 
What led me to where I am today?
This question volition tell you:
- What you lot intendance about and why yous care about it (Your purpose, story)
- What you're skilful at and should explore further (Your skills)
- What you relish doing (Your interests)
Begin the milestones, relationships, people, jobs, and experiences that brought you lot to where yous are today.
Consider the classes you lot've taken. Which did you excel at? Which were a struggle?
What extracurricular activities are/were you involved in? Did you savour some more than others?
What part-time jobs have you had? What did y'all love/detest virtually each of them?
What major events in your life have happened that shaped who you are today?
Consider all of the above when answering this question, and then effort to connect the dots. Annotation patterns, industries, themes, and clues that could inform your side by side step in life.
Enquire yourself: What do I want to continue doing? Exercise differently? Larn from? What industries or careers pop up that may accept been hiding in plain sight?
Key Takeaway
Take fourth dimension to reflect on what you've done so far, and develop a healthy self-awareness of your strengths and weaknesses. Use your past experiences to make thoughtful choices nearly your time to come.
What accept I e'er thought I'd practice for work? Why?
This question will tell you:
- Why yous're doing what y'all're doing
- If you should be doing what you're doing
What expectations do you take for yourself? What expectations do others—parents, friends, teachers, etc.—have of yous?
Write them downwards and notation why you (and others) have these expectations. Where did they come from?
For example, maybe your dad wants you to be a doctor because he thinks it'south a secure, well-paying job, and he wants y'all to have a steady income to back up yourself.
It'due south of import to know his underlying reason in case you don't want to be a doctor and demand to tell your father this someday.
I like this question because a lot of us, if not all of us, have this fiddling "should" monster in our heads.
"I should go to police school."
"I should study business."
"I should become a doctor."
The dangerous thing is nosotros never really explore why we call back we should do these things. Not investigating why yous're doing something is a cinch manner to wake up one twenty-four hour period in your 40s, miserable, thinking: "I absolutely hate what I practise. WTF."
If yous routinely find yourself waging war confronting this little "should" vox, I recommend checking out our guide to mindfulness . Yous'll find tips in at that place well-nigh how to talk back to this vocalisation, which can assist you lot when you find yourself thinking, "I don't know what to do with my life!"
Key Takeaway
Why do you practise what y'all do? Our motivations thing. Make career choices for the right reasons (so silence the "shoulds" and ignore the haters).
Find your purpose 
What do I desire?
This question will tell you lot:
- How much money you need to make (salary)
- Where do you want to live?
- What practice you want your home or apartment to await like?
- What things and experiences practice you think volition brand you lot happy?
List everything yous desire in life, including fabric items. Brain dump everything, even your most distant dreams and desires.
At this phase, information technology'south a good thought to think about how much money you demand to make to live the lifestyle you desire.
Complimentary resource: Download our simple budgeting spreadsheet here.
Key Takeaway
Understanding your dreams and goals volition help y'all make better, more educated decisions when it comes to your career and life. Be honest with yourself and revisit this question over the years, as priorities can (and probable volition) modify.
What practice I desire to do every twenty-four hours?
This question will tell you:
- What careers you should consider
- How to savor getting what you desire
This question plays a massive role in our overall happiness, but it's ofttimes overlooked, if information technology's even considered at all. It can also be a scrap vague.
Here's what I mean by it.
In that location'south a path—a journey—to getting what yous desire. It'south not an overnight type of journey either. This path spans your entire life, then you best love whatsoever it is y'all have to do to become all the things you want in life.
The path you cull to walk is the process by which you get what you want, i.e. your career/job.
Regardless of the path you cull—no matter how glamorous—at that place will definitely be struggles and to-dos that you but don't want to practice, just that you lot have to practise, in order to go to the pot of gold at the terminate of the rainbow.
Then a better question might be: What pain can I tolerate in my life? What am I willing to struggle for?
Do y'all want to have fourth dimension for family and friends?
Do you want to piece of work a lot or a petty?
How do y'all want to spend your time?
Practice you imagine yourself in an function or working from a coffee shop?
If you don't reply this question, you lot'll default to the easiest and most obvious path to go what you want.
For instance, if making a lot of money is important to you, you may written report law and become a lawyer. Subsequently in life though, you might have a mid-life crisis, when you realize that you hate all of the work that comes with existence a successful lawyer .
Key Takeaway
Create a vision of your ideal life. Think advisedly about what brings you lot joy, what keeps you happy and calm, and what makes yous thrive. Also, think most what things y'all don't want in life, so you know what to avoid.
What are yous good at and find interesting?
This question volition tell you:
- Your skills (you have or want to learn)
- Your passions
- A list of careers y'all should test out (freelance projects, internships, jobs you should try to come across if you like)
I declared concern as my major immediately upon entering college. I thought whatsoever other degree would be useless in today's professional landscape.
The thing was, I couldn't pass my business organization classes. Macroeconomics still gives me nightmares to this solar day!
And so I noticed something. I was killing my English classes, scoring 100s left and right on papers.
Considering those As felt so expert, and because I seriously loved "Sex and the Urban center" at the time, I began exploring the idea of condign a writer.
The affair was that it only seemed too damn impractical—totally unrealistic.
How would I ever brand money as a writer when the news industry was crumbling before my optics? (This was xi years ago before content marketing was a thing.)
Plus, I wanted to be rich. Writers aren't rich.
Information technology took failing macroeconomics—multiple times—to realize I just wasn't cut out for numbers, and finally, I practical to the journalism plan at my schoolhouse.
Today, I'm a full-time, well-paid (on-my-way-to-rich) author.
I am where I am today because I tied my skills with my interests, and voila, out popped a astounding career that I enjoy waking upward for each day. Information technology also helped that I trusted that the dots would connect in the hereafter.
If you have trouble figuring out what you're good at, ask others who know you—teachers, advisors, friends, etc.
If you're stuck, hither are a few more questions to consider.
- What are your top talents and skills?
- What kind of tasks excite you and continue you engaged?
- What is your favorite pastime? What practise yous do when you have no more work to do?
- What topics of conversation are always interesting to you? What practice you find yourself talking about passionately with others?
- What are your strongest beliefs and convictions in life?
- What would your friends and family say are your greatest strengths?
- In the jobs you've held, what tasks take been the most satisfying and enjoyable?
Cardinal Takeaway
Take time to get to know you . Figure out what your passions and skills are, so you lot can then make sure you centralize these aspects of yourself front and centre as you decide what to do with your life.
Identify your tribe 
Who are your favorite types of people?
This question will tell yous:
- The type of people you'll work best with
- The type of people you shouldn't work with
Think about all the people you've had to work with so far—teachers, peers, toxic bosses. Who drove you the craziest?
No demand to write names. Instead, item what about these folks irritated yous then much.
Perhaps they were bossy and always telling you how to exercise your chore. Or peradventure they slacked off and never held their own in the grouping.
Every career has a characteristic "people environment." These different environments accept been divided into 6 groups, in what is known equally the "The netherlands Code." Having a proficient understanding of the groups and how they're different can guide you toward choosing jobs and a career path that will connect y'all with similar-minded people y'all enjoy working with.
(2nd ed.) Odessa, FL.: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.
Understanding which people environment you prefer can assist you choose a fulfilling career.
This infographic showcases the vi general people environments.
According to the theory, each of us has three preferred people environments from the six above.
While you tin can take a test to find your precise three, Richard Bolles of "What Color is Your Parachute?" recommends a faster route.
Pretend you're at a party where people with the same interests are gathered in the aforementioned corner of the room, and that's truthful for all 6 corners.
Each corner is composed of people who fit into one of the six categories above: C, R, I, E, S, A.
Ask yourself:
- Which corner of the room are you instinctively drawn to? This is the group yous'd about enjoy existence with for the longest menstruum of time. Write the letter of the alphabet for that group.
- Subsequently fifteen minutes, everyone in the corner yous chose leaves for another party, except yous. Of the remaining groups, which corner/group are you most drawn to as the grouping you lot'd most relish being with for the longest period of time? Write the letter for that group.
- Afterward another 15 minutes, this group leaves too, except yous. Of the corners that remain, which would you virtually bask being with for the longest time? Write the letter for that group.
The iii letters y'all chose are your "Holland Lawmaking," which tells you your preferred types of co-workers. When thinking virtually what you want to do with your life in terms of a career, think about jobs that are likely to concenter these types of people.
For example, if your Holland Lawmaking includes Realistic, Enterprising, and Social groups, you might consider a job in the nonprofit sector. If yous are looking for Investigative, Conventional groups, yous might want a job in the sciences.
Key Takeaway
The people you environment yourself with will shape the life you lead. Asking this question allows yous to know what kinds of friends and colleagues you should seek to build a happy life.
What do y'all value? In what social club?
This question will tell you:
- Where you should piece of work (the type of piece of work culture you'll thrive in)
When y'all start making career decisions, deciding what's most important is a must.
Maybe y'all've dreamed of working at a startup. Let's say you lot go a job offer and the salary is lower than what you were hoping for. But the entrepreneur in yous is hungry for the responsibleness and autonomy you lot'd gain in this part. Do you value experience over coin?
Or y'all could be deciding between ii jobs. 1 is the perfect fit—exactly what y'all've been looking for, simply will likely be long hours. The other is slightly different/less ideal, only offers a great deal of flexibility and work/life balance. What do y'all value most?
There's no right or wrong answer, though saying "yes" to one thing might mean saying "no" to another . Life and business autobus Marie Forleo shares a major turning point in her life when she chose to follow her passion over financial and career security :
One day I got a call from the HR department at Vogue mag, and they offered me a promotion. So it was an opportunity non only for a better job, more coin, and the summit mode magazine in the world.
So I had this fork-in-the-road moment. I was like, 'Either I'm going to do this and take this promotion and have the steady paycheck, accept the wellness benefits.' People understand what y'all do when y'all say you work in mag. Or I'm going to quit and practise this weird coaching thing, which I have no thought what the hell I'1000 doing. I have never started a business. I had no coin. I'm in debt. Merely God this feels right in my bones. And then I turned down that promotion, and I quit my full-fourth dimension job and I went back to what I was doing in college, which was bartending and waiting tables.
The point is: not merely must you recognize what you believe in, just also, in what guild you believe it, then when it comes fourth dimension to make the difficult decisions, you can make them and experience confident about them even when the overwhelming majority is trying to convince you that you're a flaming idiot.
One time you sort out your values, you'll know the blazon of work culture you lot'll thrive in someday.
Key Takeaway
If you lot're like most people, you'll spend a significant portion of your life at work. When y'all relish the working surroundings y'all're in, it becomes much easier to discover fulfillment.
Imagine your hereafter 
What do I want to exercise before I dice?
This question volition tell you:
- What yous desire to achieve in life (large picture show)
- How you can start ticking things off your bucket listing
What would make you lot say at the end of your life, "I went all in"?
List absolutely everything you desire to reach before yous die. It doesn't matter why. In that location could be 100 items on the list. The number is irrelevant—just brain dump.
Once you've spent a decent amount of time brainstorming and developing a solid bucket list, separate it up into three categories:
- Things I need skills for
- Things I can do immediately
- Things that I demand time for
Beginning, go through the skills category and list the skills you'll need to accomplish each bullet point. Then lay out the action programme to learn each skill y'all need.
Next, option something on your immediate list to tick off directly away and then you gain some momentum and motivation to keep going.
Finally, which items on the third list would you lot feel the worst near non accomplishing at the terminate of your life? Answer that, and you have your priorities.
Key Takeaway
The sooner you get started on your saucepan listing, the sooner you can starting time ticking things off. Accept care of the big-picture stuff, and you lot'll one day look back on the life you led and smile.
Where practice I derive my inspiration?
This question will tell you lot:
- Who you lot can await to for guidance and mentorship
- What you desire to prove others about yourself
If you've done a lot of the exercises in this article and you're still finding yourself thinking, "What do I do with my life?" and so it may be time to look at some people yous notice inspiring.
Make a list of people whom y'all await upwards to. These can be people you know—parents, friends, colleagues, etc.—or they can exist people yous've never met, like social justice advocates, celebrities, or politicians.
For each person you lot come up up with, list out the attributes, behaviors, and events that have made them so inspirational to you.
Finally, do a footling research into the people on your list. If it's someone you know, simply ask them if y'all can pick their brain near their journeying. If it'due south someone you don't know, head over to Wikipedia or pick upwardly a biography. Learn about what they went through to get where they are, what they wish they could do differently, and what choices they made to detect success.
While your journeying in life will be completely unique, hearing from people who accept done what you want to do can guide yous every bit you lot cleave your own path.
Central Takeaway
Finding people who take lived a life similar to the one y'all desire for yourself can give you a roadmap for your hereafter. You may also want to consider getting a mentor to make this experience more than personalized.
Bring it all together to create a roadmap
Think at the offset of this article, when I said no one was going to come forth and hand you a roadmap for life?
Well, I have some practiced news: If you've taken the time to reply all the questions here, then you've already got the foundation for your roadmap.
At present, you lot know what really matters to you in life, what stands in your way of getting what you want, and what areas you demand to focus on to make it all happen.
Accept some time abroad from your answers to permit them settle—y'all may find as you ruminate on it over the side by side few days, you want to add together some new reflections to flesh out and refine your answers.
When it'south been a few days, come back to it and attempt turning your thoughts into an actionable plan. Starting time with the big tasks you want to attain, and break those upwardly into smaller steps.
For instance, maybe you've decided that you really want a career that allows you to relish the great outdoors. Yous might create steps like this to achieve that goal:
- Research average salary for national park workers
- Look into survival training course at customs college
- Visit local nature reserve and interview an employee there
- Plan a month-long camping trip to run into how I like it
One time you have these doable steps planned out, you'll be well on your way to answering that devious question, "What do I want to do with my life?"
Free resource: Download your ain Roadmap Journal here.
Trust that the dots volition connect
"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, similar a fat regal fig, a wonderful futurity beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy habitation and children, and another fig was a famous poet and some other fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady coiffure champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more than figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, but because I couldn't brand upwards my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, just choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, i by one, they plopped to the footing at my feet." — Sylvia Plath
Growing up is overwhelming, to say the very least.
I wasn't exactly looking forwards to my 30s, but worse is the idea of being 18 again.
I don't miss the figuring yourself out part at all because information technology'southward really freakin' hard and scary. In fact, in farthermost cases, information technology can pb to a quarter-life crunch.
I hateful, what if you make the incorrect decision?! Are you screwed?
Non AT ALL.
You WILL try things you don't like and work with people you tin can't stand, but every bit long every bit you acquire from information technology, you're moving forward. And that'south all life is near—getting one percentage meliorate every day.
Also, don't forget to trust… Trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatsoever. Like Jobs, this approach has never allow me down, and it has made all the difference in my career.
It will brand all the departure in yours too… if you let information technology.
Source: https://www.thevectorimpact.com/what-should-i-do-with-my-life/
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