Often in life, you go through periods of them where you feel stuck. You search and search for what you’re meant to to, but it’s impossible to find the answer. With the current increasing insight into other people’s lives via social media too, it’s no surprise that a long of young people today are feeling lost.
You’re ready to make an impact, to change the way you live to meet this supposed goal. But what is the goal, and how can we work out where we’re supposed to be?
Focus on the positives, not the negatives
First off, you need to make sure that you’re focusing on the positives of life, and not dwelling on the negatives that may be dragging you down. When it comes to making choices, they should be motivated by positive intentions rather than forced by negative ones.
You may be at a crossroads in life, not knowing exactly which direction to go in. Becoming aware of what your goals are can help you to determine whether each action is positive or negative, and whether it takes you closer to your goals (or, potentially, further away).
You should always focus on what you want to happen rather than what you think may happen – this can ensure you know what to do when the right opportunity comes along.
Don’t think you have to plan it all out
As much as we’d like to plan our life out in its entirety, there’s only a certain amount of it that we can control. Whilst it’s important to have goals and envision the things that life will bring, remember that you can always pivot later down the line.
Your health, your job and your family are all going to change over time, and many things will happen that you never anticipated. Sometimes, the route your on will change, and all we can do is try to steer in the right direction the best we can.
Your inner child
Deep within all of us is a child with the most basic wants and necessities from life. If you listen deep inside to the child within, what is it that they want from life? By thinking about this, it’s possible for us to reconnect with our deepest desires and most passionate wishes.
Close your eyes and think back to your childhood – would you be happy with what you’ve achieved in life so far? And importantly, what kind of life would they want to live moving forward? Often, our biggest desires are actually the most basic.
Know that doing nothing becomes the choice you’re taking
Whenever we wait to get anything done, the decision to do nothing is made automatically. When you do nothing, you are actually making the choice to do nothing, instead of moving forward in a certain direction. It’s important to know this, as otherwise your life can stagnate, and it can feel like you’re treading water.
Sometimes, you need to take action. Even a step in the wrong direction can often be better than nothing, because at least you learned a lesson and had an opportunity to gain knowledge. This can relate to many things, whether you’re considering a career change or you’re unsure whether you’re in the right relationship.
Make friends with fear
The biggest reason we get stuck in life is fear. Fear of change, fear of choosing the wrong path, and above all, fear of failure. This is often done in this new social media world, where it feels like everyone can get an insight into our life.
During the course of our life, we will fail. Again and again and again. This is the reality of life, and failing doesn’t mean that you’re on the wrong path. In fact, it could actually indicate you’re on the right path, and you’re not quite at the level you need to be yet.
Our goal is to try and keep going without letting fear paralyze us into failure. Fear will always be present, and learning how to deal with it is essential if we want to make progress in life.
Spend time helping others
Our mind can be so focused on ourselves that often, we forget to think about the others in our life. Of course, there needs to be a balance of self care and prioritzing yourself with thinking about others
There are some that think that true happiness is dependent on helping one another. When you focus on someone else, you can avoid feeling overwhelmed about the decisions that you need to make.
This can be done in a multitude of ways. You can give your support for causes that may be important to you, or find something which relates directly to you personally. It might be helping your local community adopt animals, or doing something that helps to preserve our environment.
So, if you aren’t sure how you can help yourself at the present time, you may want to move the focus onto other people in your life. By helping others, you can often work out things about your own life too.
Find ways that you can contribute to society
Some people feel helpless when they feel like they’re not contributing anything to society. Maybe you think that your skills would be unwanted, but the truth is that we all have our own part to play in this world, and you probably have more to offer than you think.
Many of us are in search of how to live a meaningful life. One way that you can make sure that your life has meaning is to choose a career path that directly affects others.
Ditch the distractions and pull away from procrastination
Time waits for no person. You can spend a whole lot of time daydreaming about finding your dream job, but what’s more productive is actually learning skills that will give you more options to choose from when it comes to it.
Try to conserve the amount of time that you spend procrastinating and instead invest that into things that are more productive. This can be activities that you are really passionate about, or learning a new skill that may come in handy later down the line. Finding a new path in life is no easy task, and sometimes, we need to try a few things to get a clear idea of what we love.
What are the things you want to change?
How do we live our lives? To answer this question, a certain amount of self reflection on our current circumstance is necessary. The truth is that you likely have all the answers that you need, but you haven’t yet asked the right questions.
A good way to do this is to write down everything that makes you happy in life. This could be family time, or other things you care deeply about. Then, make a separate list of what areas that you need to improve. The second list can show you some directions you can move in life to accomplish these objectives.
Stop desperately trying to find your purpose
When you spend each day in search of your life’s purpose, often the answer can elude us. In fact, if you think about it too much, it can end up having a negative effect on our mental health.
It is our responsibility to carve our own path in this world, but when you’re feeling directionless, it’s impossible to know which direction to go in. In many cases though, people find their purpose as they proceed through life, and it comes to them organically, without having to spend days and weeks searching for it.
Evaluate your life values
You have core values in life which are an important foundation to build upon, and often most of our choices in life can be traced back to this moral code. Maybe you have no idea what you need to do in this life, but you likely know what matters to you, and know the things that you wouldn’t do.
In a time of uncertainty, it’s possible to find your own way when you think about the core values that you have. You can use those values inside you to help determine exactly what to do when you dont know what to do.
Examine your career choices and designation
As you get older, you will start to see potential future directions that you can go in. When considering this, it’s important that you dream big and consider all of the things that you may be able to do if you have the talent for it.
In many scenarios, hard work will actually outweigh talent, and as long as you want something enough, you can compete with the best of them. Sitting down and thinking about which career path would suit you best can be crucial for deciding the direction you move in going forward.
Observe what other people do
Finding inspiration is difficult when you spend all of your time searching for it. Sometimes, it actually comes to us when we look at the lives of people around us and see what they do. People in your life may be able to give you great advice that’s relevant to your situation.
Understand that all of life is a giant question mark
Life is full of curveballs. You’ll be able to create the perfect plan for your entire life, with a great new job and the ideal family. However, the truth is that life very rarely works out in this way, and there are lots of question marks that are yet to be answered.
Often, the opportunities that fall in our lap are unplanned. You definitely have a say in what happens in your life, but there’s only so much you can control. So, sometimes it’s best to put your legs up and enjoy the ride you’re on – just make sure not to become too much of a passenger.