WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT?
When it comes to actually figuring out what you want to do with your life, I think a lot of people put emphasis on finding answers because, as a society, we’re taught that we need to have our life figured out.
Specifically, around the time we leave high school or college, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to choose a perfect career or a perfect life path. And a lot of the time this pressure is heavily influenced by the people around us and we don’t actually develop the skill of asking ourselves and asking our intuition, “what do I actually want?”.
It’s like, we’re told what to want our entire life so that crucial skill of connecting inwards just doesn’t have the space it needs to develop. When it comes down to “figuring out what you want to do with your life”, I just want you to know, you don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself. There’s nothing wrong with you if this takes you some time. There’s nothing wrong with you if the exploration of figuring out what your life should look like takes you a couple of years.
Life’s a journey. It’s not just a series of destinations. So, let’s stop putting this unnecessary pressure on ourselves to make figuring out what life should look like absolutely perfect. Because the reality is it never will. Even if you figure out what you want to do with your life, you may very well change it. And that’s okay too.
What I really want to do is talk to those of you who are just feeling stuck. Like, you know that life’s a journey and you know that life’s an evolution, but right now you’re unhappy, you’re unfulfilled, and you don’t know what’s on the other side of that. So really when it comes to figuring out what you want to do with your life, the big question you need to ask yourself is what is it that I actually want? What is it that I truly want? What do I want my life to look like?
It’s all too common that when we ask ourselves this question, we are met with blank.
STEP 1: FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU DON’T WANT
One of the easiest places to start is figuring out what you don’t want.
What about your life right now isn’t serving you? What about your life are you currently not enjoying?
When you can really put your finger on the pulse of that area, then you can start to see, well, what’s the opposite to that.
I want you to journal and ponder on a few questions. Remember this first step is us really figuring out what it is that’s not serving us or what we don’t want in our life.
So when it comes to figuring out what you don’t want, the first thing that you want to ask yourself is:
What is it about my life that I currently dislike?
So I want you to start thinking about not only life as a bigger picture but even down to the micro of your day-to-day. Run through a typical day or a week in your life and start to think about what areas you disliked. And try to get really honest here.
I think a lot of the time when we do these exercises, we’re worried that somebody else is going to see it and they’re going to judge us or, you know, the world’s going to judge us but the reality is these exercises are just for you. And you’re not going to get to the bottom of what you do want unless you start being really honest with yourself.
Maybe it’s your job or your relationship, your friendships, your health, the way you wake up in the morning, the way you go to bed, your environment around you, the way that you communicate with people, your spiritual practice…just start to really think about it.
It’s okay to dislike areas of your life. Maybe you’ve been conditioned to set up life in that way, but it’s not in true alignment with what you actually want. And that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to fix that.
The second thing I what you to ask yourself, and honestly, this is one of those questions that if you ask yourself and you answer honestly, could be the catalyst to changing the trajectory of your life forever. The question is:
What persistent thoughts am I avoiding?
Your intuition has a really good way of nagging you. And the thoughts, I promise you, will get louder and louder and louder. So along with the first question, this is another opportunity for you to be brutally honest.
If you were to take a step back for a day away from social media and away from other people, what things come up for you?
What major changes do you intuitively know that you need to make in your life, but some part of you, because you’re scared or you’re afraid of shame, or you’re afraid of hurting other people, are you actually avoiding?
The third big question you want to ask yourself is:
Where am I letting myself down?
I have a personal example of this. Recently, I really kept feeling frustrated with myself around my health and fitness.
I was getting really frustrated with myself that I wasn’t showing up, that I wasn’t showing up for my body, that I wasn’t showing up to exert the energy that I needed in order to feel energized in other areas of my life.
I knew that I was letting myself down and therefore I was getting really frustrated. Persistent frustration, in a particular area of your life, is another indication that your intuition is trying to tell you that there’s something there.
Maybe starting to feel really, really frustrated in your job, or maybe even in your business. Maybe you’re starting to feel really frustrated with yourself because you keep wanting to start a YouTube channel or a podcast, but you’re just not taking that action.
What areas of your life are you going to bed every single night being like, “man, I didn’t do that thing again”?And then promising yourself that you’re going to wake up the next morning and take that action. Those things don’t disappear.
If there is something that just won’t seem to go away. That is nagging you, nagging you, nagging you. And you’re feeling frustrated because you just can’t seem to take that action. There’s something there that you can start to follow her because that thing is probably an indication of what it is that you actually want in your life.
Those three questions are ones that I really want you to journal and spend some time on. As I said, they will start to leave clues like little breadcrumbs of what in your life is not serving you. And when you can do an audit of what’s not serving you now, we have a neutral playing field to start actually building towards what it is that we do want now the second step.
STEP 2: WORK ON YOUR COURAGE AND SELF-WORTH
Ok, it’s not so much an exercise, but more of a call-out realization, but a lot of people don’t have the courage to live the life that they truly desire. Courage is such a big part of getting what you actually want out of life. And so, now that we’re at a point of neutrality, we’ve worked on the things in our life that we don’t want, you have to work on your confidence, your courage, and your sense of self-worth.
You really have to start working on your sense of self-worth. Because if you don’t think you’re worthy of following your intuition or following your desires, you’re going to always fall back into those negative patterns and those negative situations that you were trying to avoid.
Really develop a personal development practice through books, podcasts, resources, watching videos, going to events, meeting people online, so you can harness the self-worth you need to follow your heart (and, yes, I know how corny that sounds).
In order to really follow your heart and to build a life that’s in alignment with what you actually truly desire, you have to feel as though you’re worthy of that.
STEP 3: FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU ACTUALLY WANT
I’ll tell you a little secret. You already know what you want, but most of the time we are too afraid to admit it to ourselves.
The first thing that I would say that you want to start trying to figure out is:
What are your values?
When I realized what my values were, it made such a difference in me figuring out what I wanted my life to look like. My values are actually fun, freedom, connection, and simplicity. And when I figured out that these four things were the four most important things to me, I was able to start really figuring out what I wanted my life to look like.
Well, of course, I want my business to be simple. So, I built a whole entire career on that idea. Of course, I want to have fun. So I started looking for hobbies and different things that lit me up.
I want to have connection, so I’m spending more time with my loved ones and the people that I care about.
And of course, I want to have freedom, so I’m building a business that’s in alignment with that value.
Figuring out what your values are, is such a powerful exercise. Now I know for a lot of people, again, maybe you’re blocked off from your intuition, so it’s kind of hard to figure out what’s important to you. So a really, really simple exercise that you can do is just go onto Google type in a list of values and print it off. And then start to highlight words that stand out to you.
Now, I know this is a really practical way of doing it, but it helps because the words on the page are going to stand out to you. If they’re important to you, your intuition will nudge you towards particular words.
When you know what your values are, you can start to build your life out in accordance with those values.
Now, what do you want to fill your life with?
Life isn’t just about work-life, life isn’t just about how you make money, life is about what lights you up. It’s about the people that you spend your time with, how you have fun, and how you make a difference in the world, all of these areas make up our life. This isn’t just about figuring out what you want in terms of your passion. It’s about figuring out what you want to make your life feel whole and fulfilled.
When am I in flow?
Flow is actually a scientifically studied concept. It is essentially the concept or the feeling when time seems to just pass you by because you’re so active and engaged with a particular task. You know, you’re not suffering from limiting beliefs and you’re not thinking about paying your bills or stressed out. You’re just there and present. It really is like being here and being in the now.
There’s such power in being present in this moment right here and flow is one of the ways that you can do that.
So I want you to start thinking about where in your life you feel like you’re in flow.
What tasks or activities or people make you feel like you’re just floating through life essentially?
This is important because it is an indicator of something that you not only enjoy, but challenges you. These are two really core concepts of getting into flow: You’re enjoying yourself and you’re being appropriately challenged. These are also two really, really core elements of human fulfilment.
When you are enjoying something and growing, you will feel happy and fulfilled.
So just get your journal out, make a list. When is it that you feel like time passes you by? When am I in flow?
If you can figure that out, you can figure out what you should be doing more of.
What positive content do you consume the most?
*positive content=content that leaves you feeling good.
Without noticing it we’re naturally attracted to particular types of influences or particular types of content online.
Go through your YouTube history, and I’m not talking about the drama videos or the news, but the positive content, the influential content, the things that you’re learning about…what do you spend time learning about?
Look at the people that you follow on social media, look at the books that you’ve recently purchased, whether or not you’ve read them. It doesn’t matter. The reality is that you are probably interested in certain topics and you’re consuming a lot of that.
That is going to lead you in the direction of particular areas that you should explore more and that can really help with vocation.
I know that almost seems overly simple of a concept, but trust me, the most profound things usually are simple. The things that you’re consuming the most are probably the things that you’re most interested in. And that, despite fear, you should be filling your life with. Your values when you’re in flow, and what it is that you’re interested in. These are the three core elements that if you can truly follow, and if you can truly embed into your life experience, you will feel happy and fulfilled.
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