According to a recent study by Zippia, approximately 50% of Americans dislike their jobs. Are you one of them?
Asking yourself, “What should I do with my life?” is the first step to breaking away from a meaningless job and finding a sense of purpose.
Unfortunately, identifying the question is the easy part, finding the answer is far more complicated. Deciding what to do with your life is a deeply personal question only you can answer.
But you don’t have to do it alone. We can help. As a certified life coach dedicated to helping people find their passions and live their best lives, I’ve identified crucial tools for helping you figure out what you want out of life.
What Should I Do With My Life? Six Questions to Ask
Your journey to self-discovery starts with introspection.
When you’re wondering what to do with your life, ask yourself these six poignant questions, and answer as truthfully as possible.
- What am I Passionate About?
- How Much Money Do I Need?
- How Comfortable am I with Discomfort?
- What Do I Want Out of Life?
- What Motivates Me?
- What Can I Realistically Do?
Let’s dive into each question to see why it’s essential for figuring out what to do with your life.
What Are You Passionate About?
Our passions inject meaning into our lives. They’re the things we love doing, even if we have to pay for them.
Let your passions guide you towards your next step. What drives you, filling your life with purpose? What can you talk about or engage in for hours without getting bored?
If you’re not sure, don’t despair. We developed a 50+ page workbook designed to help you discover your passions. It features journal questions, ideas, flow charts, and more, all guiding you toward what you love to do.
Grab your copy in our shop!
How Much Money Do You Need?
In an idealistic world, finding and pursuing our passions would be the end of it.
But we live in the real world, so we must also ask the practical questions. We can’t all follow our hearts, we have bills to pay and families to support.
The things that drive us don’t always let us earn a living. It’s okay to pursue your passion as a hobby while working a normal job to live.
Examine how much money you need to live the way you desire, and let that help guide you toward what to do with your life.
How Comfortable Are You With Discomfort?
Most of the things we want take hard work and perseverance. If you want to be an actor, are you comfortable moving to Los Angeles and working your butt off as a waiter, sharing a small studio with three other people just for the chance that you will make it big?
That’s an exaggerated example, but it illustrates the concept well. You must be realistic about what you’re comfortable with. Don’t dedicate your life to raising horses if you aren’t comfortable getting dirty in a barn, regardless of how much you love horses. Although homesteading may sound like a dream, you shouldn’t pursue it if you don’t enjoy cooking most meals for yourself.
Be honest about what you are comfortable with, and what you can and can’t live without. This introspection will help you narrow down the options of what you should do with your life.
What Do You Want Out of Life?
sulit.photos via Shutterstock.com.
When deciding what to do with your life, you must examine what you want out of life.
It sounds the same, but there’s a nuanced difference. The doing part is the action, which should result in getting what you want.
For example, if you want a big family, you may have to consider careers outside of your passion to support them or have the flexibility to stay home with them. What you’re doing with life is raising your family; your job just helps you pay for it.
Alternatively, you may find purpose in pursuing your passion rather than raising a family. If that’s the case, look for a job that aligns with that passion. Dedicate your life to that work, even if it means foregoing the traditional path and skipping the family.
Society tries to force everyone to follow the same script of having a career, getting married, raising kids, then retiring, but that doesn’t work for everyone. Not everyone wants kids, and you can lead a good life without them.
There’s no right or wrong answer. Think about what you want your life to look like in thirty, forty, or fifty years, and let that be your guide to what you should focus on now.
What Motivates You?
Motivation is a key factor in deciding what to do with life. You should pursue something that pushes you to success.
For some, it’s a massive paycheck that gives them the freedom to do whatever they want during their downtime. But for others, it’s a sense of accomplishment in a job well done or the joy of helping others.
Decide what to do with your life based on what gives you the biggest motivation boost.
What Can You Realistically Do?
We need to come back to reality again. Despite our parents’ insistence, we can’t be anything we want – especially when we’re older with responsibilities.
You may have the drive and passion to be a lawyer, but if you can’t afford college and law school, that’s probably not an option.
Write down your skills and abilities, certifications, and degrees, and get a feel for the job opportunities available. Decide whether pursuing additional training or education is feasible.
Put Them All Together
With your responses to these six questions, you’ve narrowed down the possibilities.
You know what drives you, how much money you need, your essential creature comforts, life goals, and biggest motivators. You’re also aware of your limitations and have an idea of what opportunities you can realistically pursue.
It’s time to put them all together and make a list of careers you could pursue that align with your responses.
Discover What You Should Do With Your Life
Don’t worry if you haven’t found something, or if you’re still unsure. Introspection can only get you so far.
You may not have the answers to all of these questions, and even if you do, they might not give you a clear idea of what you should do with your life.
It’s time to take action.
These 15 activities will help you discover what to do with your life.
Try Something New
How do you know you don’t like something if you’ve never tried it?
The world bursts with interesting things to experience, explore them! Take a course in a subject you don’t know a lot about, visit a niche museum, or try a new hobby you’ve never considered.
It might not be your cup of tea, but that’s okay. Part of learning what you want to do is discovering the things you don’t like.
Commit to trying something new at least once a month. Exploring these options may not change your life, but they will give you some insight into what you really like and what you don’t like.
Get Away
If you are genuinely at a loss for what to do with your life, consider getting away for a short time. Take a weekend trip up to the mountains, turn off your electronics, and give yourself time to be away from it all and alone with yourself.
Use this time to reflect on your life and your answers to the questions above. You might be surprised that taking a break can give you the clarity you need to figure out what you really want.
Talk to People
A simple conversation can change your life. Talking with people with different perspectives can change your outlook and open your mind to possibilities you never knew existed.
Get on social media and join chats about different topics. Join Discord servers that align with some of your interests. Get on meetup and meet new people.
You share the world with billions of people, each with a myriad of passions and interests. Engage with others, and you may discover a love that you never knew you had.
Read
Books offer journeys into different worlds, peeks into someone’s personal life, or instructional manuals for how to do something.
Books abound on every topic you can imagine. If you have an inkling of what you want to do with your life, pick up a book on it.
You can choose between tell-alls from people who have done it, guides on how to do it, and even general research on the main topic.
Take Care of Your Body
Although not typically seen on a list about finding your purpose in life, taking care of your body is essential to a happy and fulfilling life. You may not know what you want to do yet, but you want to be capable of doing it when you discover it, right?
Taking care of your body gives you time to find your passion and discover meaning in your life. A healthy body and mind enable you to pursue anything you want.
Meditate
Mediation can help you develop a healthy mind. It can also help you gain focus and clarity about what you want out of life.
Try meditating for just 10 minutes a day. Clear your mind of all your work stress and worries of daily life, and let your spirit guide you towards what you want out of life.
Cut Out Toxic People
Toxic people prevent you from living the life of your dreams because they fill your head with negativity. They stomp all over your dreams, making up ridiculous reasons why you shouldn’t even try.
It’s time to start distancing yourself from people who fill you with negative energy. Surround yourself with people who will support you, your goals, and your dreams instead.
It might prove challenging, especially when the naysayers are close family members, but you only live once. Why keep yourself trapped in a sea of negativity when you can step beyond it and live a life of purpose?
Cutting these toxic people out of your life can also improve your self-esteem and make you feel happier overall, even if you aren’t pursuing your dreams. It’s a win regardless of what you decide to do with your life.
Journal
Journaling is a wonderful tool to help you discover what you want out of life. Use your journal to express gratitude for what you have, and let that be your guide towards a more fulfilling future.
You can also use your journal to jot down your answers to the first five questions we asked. Writing your answers in a journal will give you the space you need to reflect upon, expand upon, and fully develop your thoughts about each topic.
Hire a Life Coach
If you’re really stuck, try hiring a life coach; self-development professionals dedicated to helping people figure their lives out.
Your life coach may help you discover career paths you didn’t know existed or consider the meaning of life outside of a career.
Volunteer
Volunteering can help you narrow down your purpose in two ways. First, the opportunity to help others is a gift in and of itself. Many people inject meaning into their lives through volunteer work.
That’s not always the case, though, and that’s okay. Volunteering can also help you discover what you want out of life. If you’re interested in wildlife, conservation, or veterinary medicine, consider volunteering at a zoo or wildlife rehabilitation center. Those interested in social causes can volunteer with Habitat for Humanity or a local community center. Dog lovers can volunteer at a local humane society.
The possibilities for volunteer work are endless. You may find fulfillment in the volunteer work itself, or you may discover that you want to pursue a career in a related field to earn a living doing something you love.
Join Groups
Professional organizations abound for nearly anything you can imagine. Although many require a membership fee, they offer great opportunities to get involved with a topic you may want to pursue as a career while building your network.
You can find clubs or organizations related to agriculture, public speaking, anthropology, boating, and nearly anything else that piques your interest. Joining these is a great way to get a taste of something before fully dedicating your life to it.
To find them, search your local area or online groups like Meetup.
Find a Mentor
A mentor can help you hone in on your life goals. If you already have an idea of what you want to do with your life, find a mentor in a related field. They can give you the support and guidance you need to get on the right path.
Your mentor should be someone you trust and who has your best interests at heart. They should have experience with whatever you are considering pursuing while providing honest advice about both the good and the bad.
Accept Failure
A big part of discovering what to do with your life is learning what not to do with your life. During your journey, you’ll find tons of things you don’t like or aren’t good at.
That’s okay; it’s a part of growing.
However, you must keep in mind that it’s okay to fail at something you really want to do. You don’t have to give up if you don’t get it right the first, second, or even tenth time. No one was born a great writer, a perfect gamer, or an outstanding actor. Almost everyone failed the first time they tried.
Those initial failures can help you learn, grow, and get better. If you can accept failure, you can move past it and learn from the experience.
Embrace failure and let it guide you. It can help you get better at the things you love or decide a particular path isn’t for you.
Change Careers
At the beginning of this post, we cited a study saying that most people are unhappy with their jobs. In light of that, it might be surprising to see very little about career paths on this list.
That’s because life isn’t about work. Work helps us pay for life. Most of us don’t work our dream jobs, we work to make enough money to afford the things we want, and that’s perfectly okay.
However, if you’re someone who finds fulfillment in work and isn’t getting it at your current job, it might be time for a career change. Quitting a dead-end job and pursuing a new career is scary, but it can often unlock the door to a meaningful life.
Embrace the Journey
The final step isn’t really a step; it’s a mindset shift. Life isn’t about the final destination. It’s about the journey. Maybe you will find happiness in a life of exploration, and that’s okay. Perhaps you will find meaning in a life of service, and that’s okay too.
Discovering what to do with your life is part of life, and it’s one of the things that makes life so spectacular. Don’t rush through this important part of the journey. Embrace it. Enjoy the ride.
You might discover that the journey is what you’ve been missing all along.