What am I doing with my life?

What am I doing with my life? Finding purpose.

(Laura’s thoughts)

I’ve been in a funk lately and waking up wondering what the fuck I’m doing with my life.

My mom was terminally ill and had time to reflect on her life before she passed. I remember her being disappointed that she didn’t make it to the Caribbean one last time. At her end of life party we brought in sand so it would feel like she made it to the beach. As I got older I vowed not spend my days chasing a paycheck and not to put work first.

In high school I had friends that got into hard drugs and got pregnant. I wanted to get outta Traverse City and snowboard at a big mountain so I applied to University of Colorado, University of Vermont, and Cascade college in Oregon thinking it was a snowboard college, and then found out it was a very Christian college. Whoops. When I started school in Vermont working out a schedule that allowed me to snowboard was more important that my major. Initially I wanted to be a science text book illustrator, but chem was hard and the labs cut into my riding time. I settled on Sociology.

After college I moved to Salt Lake City and got a job at the Olive Garden because server jobs are good for boarding. I worked my way up to fine dining so I could make more money in less hours and only work dinner shifts. Snowboarding was my north star- it guided my decisions.

I am currently unemployed because I’m recovering from surgery on my hip. I am STRESSED financially. I wasn’t planning on getting surgery so I didn’t have money saved up.

Reading this article helped remind me that I don’t have to know everything or have a long term plan. Trying my best to be a good person, good friend, and mental health advocate is more important to me then having a savings account. If I died tomorrow I would never look back and think, “I wish I worked more.” I’d rather snowboard, have time to run We’re All Mental, and live off ramen noodles than work a year round 9-5. I’ve been feeling really anxious and sad lately, but I know I am doing my best and that is enough. It’s okay to not feel okay and to not be productive all the time.

MLK: “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, you just have to take the first step.”

“My Advice If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing With Your Life”

-By Elyssa Desai

(Edited / shortened for our reading)

Link to the full article

Do you know that feeling when you’re just like what am I doing with my life?!Maybe you’re jumping from job to job, thinking the next one will help you feel happier and more fulfilled or you’ve been in your job for a while, you don’t love it but you don’t know where to go or what to do next.

I’m going to run through 6 steps I want you to take if you have no idea what you’re doing with your life.

1. Identify what you actually want your life to look and feel like

Sometimes you might find yourself just coasting along in life, you complain about your job, threaten to quit occasionally (ok maybe once a month) but you don’t do anything about it.

Having a clear vision is essential so you know what life you’re creating – this will guide your decisions and be your north star on your journey

2. Define your version of success

Using your answers to the above questions, I want you to define your version of success. You may find yourself on a path to a version of success that isn’t yours, it might be your parents, your partners, your friends, societies. Then when you reach it you don’t feel the joy, happiness and fulfillment that you were looking for. This is your opportunity to forget what anyone else wants you to do in life and define what success is for you. Imagine you’re on your deathbed (I know it’s a bit of a morbid thought), what would you love to be able to say you achieved in your career.

It might be working your way up to a senior position at a globally recognized brand, or it might be having multiple businesses, or it could be working as little as possible so you can spend your time doing other things you enjoy in life. There is no right or wrong here.

3. Realize this is possible for you

Once you’ve written something down for the first two parts, I want you to sit down, read through it and tell yourself this is possible for me.

I want you to commit to telling yourself that every day for the next 30 days or however long it takes for you to believe this (remember repetition is a powerful way to get something into the unconscious mind). If you don’t believe that life is possible for you, there will always be a block to it becoming your reality.

4. Build a strong foundation of beliefs to support you

When you are feeling lost, stuck and overwhelmed by life and you feel like you will never figure out what you want to do, your mind will latch onto this narrative and say what’s the point.

I want you to build a strong foundation of beliefs so your mindset becomes unshakeable – here are some which are a great place to start.

▫ Everyday I’m getting closer to my dream life.

▫ Everyday I’m getting more and more clarity around my purpose.

▫ Every step I take is leading me to my dream life.

▫ It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing I focus on myself and what step I can take next.

▫ It’s easy for me to take action.

▫ I don’t need to know every single step to reach my goals, I just need to focus on the next step.

▫ It’s ok for me to take a different path to everyone else’s.

▫ I believe in myself

Start to tell these to yourself, especially when you’re feeling a lot of doubt about what to do in your life.

5. Take action!!

I’m not sure I can emphasize this enough but you need to actually take action on this.

I know it can feel scary and daunting sometimes but if you never try you will never know. Some people never do the first 4 steps and a lot of people who do, get this is point and they never take action. Taking action is the key to getting unstuck.

6. Take the pressure off

Finally, get ok with trying things and them not being the right thing for you. Take the pressure off everything you try having to be the “right” thing and reassure yourself each step gets you closer to your dream life. If you try something and it doesn’t feel right, you have a choice, give up and think what’s the point OR use it as an opportunity to get even more clarity on what you do want to do. From my experience, the best thing for my career was doing a job I hated as compared to jobs I didn’t mind, it gave me so much clarity and the kick up the ass I needed to act on it.

Plus take the pressure of trying to have the answer right now – the more you focus on the fact you feel uncertain and you don’t know, the more you won’t know. Keep the faith that you will figure it all out at the perfect time for you, I know it’s tricky but enjoy your life along the way.

And finally, you are not alone and remember it might feel like everyone else had it figured out but the that’s not always true!