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

Do 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 honestly felt like that for years – jumping from job to job. They were all ok, some good days, some bad. Then I decided to completely change my career thinking it would finally help me feel fulfilled. After the first day in my new Marketing role I came home and cried. I had completely changed my career and I knew it wasn’t right. BUT that job ended up giving me the greatest clarity on what I do want to do in life.

Now I feel beyond grateful that I get to live my purpose, help people every day, do a job I love, work for myself and I no longer have the Sunday scaries.

So I want to help you do this too – I know that if it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you.

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 – these have been incredibly impactful on my journey and I really hope they help you too.

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 (something to remember here is that this can change in the future).

 Journal on the following questions:

▫ What do you want your life to look like?

▫ How do you want to feel in your dream life?

▫ What’s important to you?

▫ What can you spend hours doing and lose track of time?

▫ What excites you? 

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 fulfilment 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 recognised 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.    Realise 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 emphasise 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.

When I started to think coaching was what I wanted to do, I signed up to a free coaching taster weekend, I reached out to coaches to see if I could chat with them about being a coach, I researched diplomas.

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.

I really hope this has been helpful! Please do let me know if you’ve had any aha moments, tag me on Instagram or feel free to pop me an email at hello@elyssadesai.com.

I have no doubt that you can achieve everything you dream of and more! Use my belief in you!!

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!

You may have seen I am launching my podcast on Wednesday 2nd August! If what I’ve been discussing in this blog resonates with you, then What am I doing with my life? With Elyssa Desai is the perfect podcast for you.

Each week I will share a different women’s journey, normalise not having it all figured out, give you actionable tips and motivate you when you feel stuck, lost and overwhelmed by life.

I can’t wait for you to listen to season 1, and I want to hear your thoughts and feedback before I come back with season 2.

Elyssa x