Doubts about the future are a precious input to transform one's life and direct it towards happiness. These 8 steps will help you find your way.
Last update: July 25, 2022
"Follow your dreams. Do what you love! " how many times have we heard or read similar advice? Wonderful ideas of life, but they mean nothing when dreams are not exactly defined, when you haven't found your way or don't know what to do in life.
An eternal leivmotiv that appears frequently throughout the life cycle. It doesn't matter if we are twenty or sixty, that unbridgeable void appears like a shadow on the horizon, often impregnating us with suffering.
Not knowing which direction to take, what to choose, or what to hold on to often means doing only one thing: improvising rather than shaping a meaningful life.
Believe it or not, the raw material from which our existence is redirected comes precisely from moments of doubt. Those moments in which we remain in the prelude of insecurity and reflection, there where little by little we make a new commitment to ourselves to clarify purposes and set goals on the horizon.
Sometimes all we need is a moment of rest before taking a new and wonderful impulse.
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference .."
-Tommaso Moro-
When you don't know what to do in your life, remember: do not succumb, do not allow yourself the luxury of wasting time regretting or feeding frustration. Take a deep breath and follow eight steps.
The change you need is within your mind, but first you need to train it and redirect it to a variety of purposes.
8 steps when you don't know what to do in life
One of the best answers to existential doubt was given in his time by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
It is worth lingering for a few moments on his thought which offers a precise clue to those passages that we should all apply to face moments of fear and uncertainty:
Look back in your life to the present moment and ask yourself: What have you loved so much so far? What has ever elevated your soul, what has dominated it and what has given it pleasure at the same time? Place these objects in a row in front of you and perhaps they will reveal to you a law based on their nature and order: the fundamental law of your true self. Compare these objects, see how they complement, increase, overcome, transfigure each other; how they form a ladder on whose steps they climbed up to you what.
1. Visualize after 5 years
The world is full of opportunities, but when doubts and insecurities arise, we ourselves are the worst obstacle to our happiness.
Changing day by day for the better means choosing a destination first and taking a step to reach it. To know what to do in life, you must first define what destination you want for yourself.
Whatever the situation, imagine for a moment that all your dreams have come true in the last few years. Grab a pencil and paper or open a text document on your computer, write down everything that comes to mind.
Write for (use a timer) indicating what time you get up, how much you earn, what your job is like, what people you interact with, what your home is like, what car you drive, what you eat, what kind of life you lead or how you feel. The answers actually point to the vital purposes.
2. Read, connect with the environment, be inspired, be receptive
Reading a self-help book is incredibly helpful, provided that the ideas presented in the manual are adopted and implemented.
Likewise and not least, it is also essential to start adopting adequate mental, emotional and experiential openness. Interact, connect with people and the environment.
Open your heart and senses to hide your fears and welcome new experiences. Those that will be a source of inspiration and invite you to take new paths, reach new goals.
3. Volunteering: a way to give meaning to life
Volunteering allows you to meet interesting, motivated and positive people. Likewise, it helps to discover deeper aspects of oneself, the ones that often help to give more meaning to one's existence.
If we don't know what to do in life, engaging in activities of this type is often cathartic and extremely rewarding.
4. Find a passion to understand what to do in life
We've all had a dream, but we haven't always been brave enough to make it come true. The reasons can be various, from “I don't have time” to “what they will say” or “how I will do at my age”.
If these statements reappear often, it is better to proceed with a mental reset and eliminate the “I can't” or “It doesn't make sense now”.
Life must be lived with passion. Only in this way does the true meaning appear, only in this way is it savored in the body, mind and emotions.
5. Learn to make decisions
When you don't know what to do in, there is one aspect of personal growth that fails: the ability to make decisions. It is difficult, doubts arise, insecurities arise.
Le fears are so many that in the end we do not decide anything and stay where nothing new happens: the comfort zone.
When we don't know which direction to take, try using Edward Bono's Six Hat Technique for Thinking. We analyze the situation from multiple angles, including rational, emotional, intuitive, creative, positive and negative perspectives.
6. Respond without fear to the question "what do I want to do"
Dare to answer this question: What do you want to do in life? Don't hold back, don't apologize. Answers like “I would like to do this, but I can't because…” are invalid.
Respond truthfully and confidently without using the conditional. Because if it is important to know how to make decisions, it is even more important to know how to clarify the objectives:
- I want to be happy.
- I want to be independent.
- I want to see my loved ones happy, so I know I have to make some changes to give them the best of me.
- I want to work on what I really like.
- I want a promotion.
7. Identify the fears
What scares us? We must have the courage to admit it. When we face our fears, we also delineate very relevant aspects of our character.
Surprisingly, this instills a great feeling of self-confidence, the same one that arises when we dare to talk to a friend about it.
By identifying fears, it is also possible to investigate their causes, the root of many of the underlying problems, the ones we don't face, the ones we leave adrift and slow down our personal growth. It is an exercise that is not without its difficulties, but at the same time it can help us in many ways.
8. Current suffering is not a state, but a phase that precedes change
When you don't know what to do in life, you suffer. It is distressing to feel that emptiness, that absence of purpose and meaning. It's like the whole world knows which way to go and we're stuck like a rusty ship.
Whatever happens, good or bad, is just a phase, not an eternal state. We must understand that everything passes, that everything arrives, that everything changes.
What we can do is see that moment of doubt as a stage to learn from. Like that step back we sometimes take to gain more momentum before taking a big leap. Change is around the corner, but you have to have confidence in yourself and in your possibilities.
Conclusions
If you don't know what to do in life, we encourage you to include the steps described in your routine. Even if it is not possible to see the desired results immediately, they will show up when we least expect it.
