This is a collaborated post.
Pexels - CC0 License
If you are a regular reader of the words we post, you will be familiar with perseverance, the ability to never give up on your dreams and to try and become the best person you can by building the best life for you. However, all of this is predicated on the idea that you know what you want, and are happy to work to achieve it.
Unfortunately, not all people have this as a given. Life is confusing, and it can be very easy to become eternally disoriented. Some do not truly understand what they want from life until they are sixty years old, while some seem to know from the first moment they begin walking. Learning what you want from life is one of the most important things you could ever try and figure out, as it can not only help you direct all of your meaningful action towards it, but it can also help you avoid things that you are certainly not keen on doing. This is important when it comes to the most important themes of our entire website - love and commitment.
With the following advice, you’ll become a little bit more comfortable in finding your direction:
Experiment
We often think that if we do not find the best career of our lives immediately, we have somehow wasted that time. But this is not true. Trying things helps you learn. It’s why many creative university courses will try to train you on each specialism before having you make a choice regarding what you would like to follow. Experimenting is an important thing in life. Sure, you could have children and marry at 18 and work towards a mortgage, and many do this. But for many others, finding out their tastes and interests and living a little is important.
However you choose to progress, remember, there’s nothing wrong with experimenting. Not all of us know who we are until we reach a certain age or go through a certain experience before we find it. Some might not find true love until after their second divorce. Life is odd that way. But remember - to make it through well, you need to be patient with yourself and life in general.
You Needn’t Feel Forced To A Format
One of the biggest mistakes people can make is throwing out all the values of tradition simply because they think it’s stupid. That tradition is here for a reason. It can help provide a backdrop for life, such as starting a family, or securing a lovely home, or staying comforted, relaxed and often stable in this chaotic world where we find ourselves. Those who simply consider these ideas to be the playground of fools can often overstate their intelligence.
That being said - perhaps this actually isn’t right for you. You should never feel as though you should be forced to a format. If you’d rather be childfree with family planning and focus on your career that is going from height to height, that is perfectly fine too. Tradition is worthwhile only when it is tolerant and not authoritarian.
In fact often, subverting tradition to begin with can help you figure out what is most important to you. This means that if you hope to do the white picket fence and 2.5 children route, you will know that this is actually something you desire and not just something you felt you should do based on the advice of a parent. We hope that these insights can help you feel as though you should never feel ashamed for choosing something you desire - because why should you?
Do Not Be Afraid To Take Risks
Being afraid to take risks is something that is completely redundant the moment it comes into being. We can fret and fret about a decision we have to make or the willingness to move forward towards our goals - but remember, this risk you are taking is likely no worse than anything else. It might seem as though you’re risking it all following a new career, but you would be risking it all driving to said location in the first place, as the roads are not safe. Starting a family is a risk, not starting a family is a risk too. Taking a place of employment may help you avoid another career of misery, or it might completely prevent you from following your dreams that you would have succeeded in otherwise.
This can all seem like too much of a ‘what if’ scenario, and to some extent that is true. However, if you find that the idea of taking a risk is enough to completely stop you from taking that route, it might be that a few realizations are in order. None of us know how life is going to pan out, as there are infinitely more variables than we can track. Tomorrow morning you may find out that you have an inheritance totalling in the millions from a hidden relative, or you may also find that your company is laying off hundreds of jobs and you are part of that number.
In other words, risks are associated with everything. This can help sooth you when trying to find out exactly what you want from life, and it can also help you focus on making the things that give you more substance, to form order from chaos out of your life.
Communicate It
If you do not talk about what you want from life, you’re never going to get it. Think of the famous scene of someone leaving at the airport to their new life, while the person driving them there is in hopeless love without them. Without them expressing their feelings and failing to communicate, that branch of potential is nullified for some time. Speaking can bring things into the world, and so allowing yourself to speak your truth may just help you unveil your hidden desires and wants. This cannot be a harmful thing to experience by any measure at all.
With this advice, you’re much more likely to know and pursue what you may want from life, marching to the beat of your own drum.
