What am I doing with my life? 4 Steps to clarity

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When you find yourself asking the question: “What am I doing with my life?”, it’s a surefire sign you’re NOT HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU’RE CURRENTLY DOING. You’re not fulfilled with your current life and the direction your life is headed.

If you were happy and fully aligned with your current path, you wouldn’t question it.

So first, start by taking the hints you’re sending to yourself. You are the best one to know when what you’re doing with your life is misaligned with what you actually want.

No one is going to live your life for you. It’s your job to listen to your instincts and do what’s right for you even if other people don’t get it.

Now, the more important question to be asking is: What do you DO about it? Which is probably what brought you here.

The simplest answer is: TAKE ONE NEW ACTION.

New actions always equal new results. And from those new results you can assess whether you’re progressing in the direction you like. The only way to gain traction is to get out of your head and into the game of life.

The faster you get in action, the better. And I’ve made this simple as I’ve coached thousands of people stuck in  the “what am I doing with my life” funk.  Here’s the fastest way to break out of your funk and gain the clarity you need to move forward.

Not to mention, I’ve been in this funk myself a few times.

I used to be a very successful event planner with a swanky condo and a life that looked pretty fab. Inside I was dying. So unhappy. So disconnected from my true purpose.

And it took a lot of courage to change directions in spite of what my family and friends thought.

But on the other side of it all was FREEDOM. And true success. Because he’s the secret: When you follow what fulfills you, success is easily achieved.

So really, download this free audio training that you can do privately in front of your computer. It’ll give you some instant clarity and confidence (in as little as 10-15 minutes) so you can move forward.

Or read on for the four steps you can take today to get yourself feeling better fast.

First, you should know the underlying reasons you feel this way

You’re questioning your current life situation for one of two reasons:

  1. You don’t know how to get what you want so the path forward is unclear. This has you waffle about what to do. Quite often you’ll then question if you even want what you thought you wanted in the first place!
  2. You are in a career or relationship or environment that is authentically not connected to who you are and what you want to be and what to want to contribute to the world. The authentic you cries out.

And that, the “What am I doing with my life” problem is a good one to have

The best way to think of what’s going on is to consider that you have an internal elastic band built into you. When you get further away from what you want and value your elastic band stretches. This creates resistance. The “what am I doing with my life?” questioning is a sign resistance is occurring.

When you’re in line with what you deeply want your elastic band will move back into place and you’ll feel whole. You’ll feel at peace. So, now is your time to take stock of where you are going and to listen to your internal barometer. You can do that simply by downloading this free training session that’ll give you the clarity you need fast.

4 Steps -What to do to gain clarity and be confident about what to do next

Okay, so you’ve heard the signal, now what? You might find yourself seeking guidances friends or family, or a mentor, thoughts leader,  life coach or therapist first, but here’s the thing: You’re the only that can figure it out!

This is YOUR life and you are the only one who can make the decisions you need to make. What you really need is clarity. And you can bet, if you’re like most people you’ll struggle and look for it externally.

But, what is more effective is doing some internal work.

Step 1: Empty your head of all the noise

When you start to notice that you have a lot of “what am I doing with my life?” thoughts you will immediately start asking yourself WHY. People are inquisitive by nature. It’s part of being human and you will naturally go to a place of :”Why do I feel this way?”And then you’ll start to ask: “What should I do?”. 

Then, you’ll start entertaining a whole lot of thoughts about why and what. You’ll struggle with what to do next. And, you’ll look externally for answers to get clarity. This is a common trajectory. If you start doing this, you can bet you’ll get nowhere. You’ll find yourself going around in circles. At this point, some people start to make silly decisions that don’t move them in the right direction.

When there is a lot of mental chatter in your head, the clarity you seek remains elusive.

What you need is to get to place of nothing, so you can create something new. New ideas and new inspiration only emerges when you get your mind to a place of nothing. To have it be blank.

Really, take a moment to think about this. When you are feeling deep joy or happiness, what are you thinking about? Your mind is either blank or fixated on one object (like the blue sky outside). Mentally the space of your mind isn’t full, it’s empty. And in that space only then can new things show up.

Or think of it this way…An artist will have more ideas when confronted with a blank canvas versus looking at a painting they’ve been working with for months but haven’t gotten anywhere with. And sometimes just looking at a blank canvas will give them the inspiration of what they need to do with the old canvas. If they keep going back to the old canvas they will draw inspiration from what the filter in front of them without event noticing it.

Here’s a quick exercise you can download and do to gain that clarity your seeking.

How to get to nothing

So, when you are in a head space of “What should I do?“, just notice it, be aware of it, and then do whatever you need to do to stop thinking about anything.

Do something fun.

Do something physical, like go for a run or a walk.

Go be in nature.

Talk to other people and get out of your own head!

Go focus on a work project.

Listen to an audiobook.

Do whatever you need to do to forget everything you’ve been thinking about. That’s when the ideas will pour in.

This isn’t some woo-woo advice, it’s backed by neuroscience. You’re brain is always running on two modes of activity. When you’re not focused on any task or problem your brain goes into a mode of thinking called your Default Mode Network (DMN). This is where important connections take place and inspiration pours in.

So Step 1 is to do what you need to forget everything your thinking about. This might take trying a number of things. Go get lost in something. Get your mind to a blank canvas, and ideas will start to pop up. Or try this free audio visualization training now and the inspiration you need will come to you easily

Step 2: Listen and evaluate 

Listen to the ideas that start to pop into your mind.

Capture them by writing them down somewhere. Really. Writing your ideas down is important. It helps you develop them and see them in reality not just in your head.

Start to play with your ideas.

A great way to evaluate ideas you have is to imagine yourself in the near future doing what you think you might want to do. Mentally try on different things. When you visualize (daydream in other words) it activates the same circuits as if you were physically take those actions.. You can use visualization start to see what actions inspires you and excites you and lights you up.

There will be ideas that speak to you. Ideas that you get stuck on. Ideas that make you feel awesome just thinking about them. Those are the ideas to build on.

Try this free visualization training session to mentally try on what your future “perfect day” might look like

Step 3: Create a smart strategy

Once you have some ideas of where you might like to steer your life, the changes you need to make and the actions you need to take will show up. They’ll start to become obvious to you.

At this point play with your options. Share your ideas with other people. Crowdsource! Ask them for their thoughts and advice. It’s what I call “table-ing your ideas.”

Here are some questions to get you thinking: What should I do with my life…

  • What’s the big picture outcome I have for my life? 
  • Why is this important to me?
  • What can I do now to fulfill on this plan?
  • What current needs do I need to meet? (For instance you might want to completely change careers but you have bills to pay so you need to be able to manage these two things)
  • What are the obvious things I can do right away?

Zoom in from your big picture of what you want to achieve 3 months and 6 months out. Consider the actions you need to take to accomplish what you want.

The “What am I doing with my life” transformation exercise

One of the best ways to do this is:

  1. Simply draw a horizontal line on a piece of paper
  2. Write down what you want at the end of the line
  3. At the start of the line, write down where you’re starting from now
  4. Then, chart out the obvious actions you need to take

Pick the pathway that inspires you, the one that makes you feel confident and satisfied immediately, because you’ll be moving in the right direction but also fulfilling on what you need to do now to make a shift.

The question: “What should I do with my life?” will start to become answered.

Step 4: Take action

Once you know what to do, take one small action. This will give you relief. You’ll start to move your life in a new direction. You’ll begin to make progress versus staying stuck and feeling lost or hopeless.

Remember that action leads to progress and progress is good. Action will also create momentum. You’ll gain traction and keep moving forward.

As you progress remember that the thought “what am I do with my life?” is a signal. It’s a sign you need to stop, evaluate and gain clarity on what you need to do to proceed.

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