Mind Healing Counselling

Most of the time, we don’t know what we want to do with our lives. Even when we are done with school. Even after we get a job. Even when we have money. Most likely, you don’t know what you want to do. Almost every adult has trouble with this. “What do I want my life to be about?” “What am I really interested in?” “What don’t I stink at?” I hear from many 40- and 50-year-olds who still don’t know what they want to do with their lives.

THE PROBLEM WITH LOOKING FOR YOUR “LIFE PURPOSE”

The idea of a “life purpose” itself is part of the problem. The idea is that each of us was born for a higher reason and that our cosmic mission is now to find out what that purpose is. This is the same kind of reasoning that people use to explain things like spirit rocks or the idea that your lucky number is 34 (but only on Mondays or during full moons).

Here’s what’s real. We live on this planet for an unknown amount of time. We do things during that time. Some of these things matter. Some of them don’t matter. And these important things give our lives meaning and happiness. The ones that aren’t important mostly just waste time.

So when people ask, “What should I do with my life?” or “What is the point of my life?” What they really want to know is:

“What important things can I do with my time?”

This is by far the best question you could ask. It’s much easier to deal with and doesn’t come with all the silly baggage that the “life purpose” question does. You have no reason to sit on your couch all day and eat crisps while thinking about your life's meaning in the big picture. Instead, you should get off your behind and figure out what matters to you.

When people ask me what they should do with their lives or what their “life purpose” is, it’s one of the most common questions I get. This is a question that I can’t answer. After all, for all I know, this person is really into knitting sweaters for cats or making movies in their bedroom. I have no clue. Who am I to tell them what’s right or what matters?

But I’ve come up with a list of questions that will help you figure out for yourself what is important to you and what can give your life more meaning.

These questions are by no means all there are or the only ones that matter. In fact, they’re just a little bit silly. But I made them that way because I think it should be fun and interesting to figure out what our lives are all about, not a job.

So, whether you’re looking for your dream job, thinking about starting a second career, or just don’t want to spend your whole life wondering “what if...”, I hope you find some important answers to these silly but kind of thought-provoking questions.

WHAT IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?

1. WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE SHIT SANDWICH FLAVOUR, AND DOES IT HAVE AN OLIVE?

What kind of shit sandwich do you want? Because, in the end, we all get one.

Ah, yes. The all-important question. What kind of shit sandwich do you want to eat? Because here’s the sticky little truth about life that they don’t teach you in school:

Some of the time, everything stinks.

Now, you might think that sounds very negative. You might think, “Hey, Liam, turn that frown around,” but this is a freeing thought. Everything costs something. Everything has a price. Nothing is always fun or makes you feel good. So, the question is: what kind of trouble or loss are you willing to put up with? Ultimately, whether or not we stick with something we care about depends on how well we can handle the bad times and keep going through them.

If you want to be a great tech entrepreneur but can’t deal with loss, you won’t get very far. If you want to be a professional writer but aren’t ready to have your work rejected hundreds or thousands of times, you’re done before you even start. If you want to be a famous barrister but can’t handle working 80-hour weeks, I have bad news for you.

You have to eat a few shit sandwiches to find your life's meaning. What bad things have you been able to handle? Can you stay up all night writing code? Are you able to wait 10 years before having a child? Are you willing to keep getting laughed off the stage until you get it right?

What kind of shit sandwich do you want? Because we’ll all get one at some point.

And the best thing you have going for you is your favourite shit sandwich. By definition, anything you’re willing to do that most people aren’t willing to do but that you enjoy doing gives you a huge advantage.

So, find your best shit sandwich. You might as well choose one with an olive on it.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

How much trouble are you ready to put up with to get what you want?

What you are probably better at than most people.

2. WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT YOU TODAY THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR 10-YEAR-OLD SELF CRY?

We all tend to forget what we liked when we were younger. Something about the social pressures of being a teenager and the work pressures of being a young adult makes us lose our passion. We learn that the only reason to do something is if we get something in return. And the fact that everything in the world is about making deals makes us feel stifled and lost or stuck.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

What youthful interest did you lose as an adult?

What’s a fun thing you could do again just for fun?

3. WHAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO EAT AND GO TO THE TOILET?

Look at the things that keep you up all night, but also at how your brain works when doing those things. Because they are easy to use in other places. We’ve all been so involved in something that minutes turn into hours and hours into “Holy crap, I forgot to eat dinner.”

It is said that when Isaac Newton was at the top of his game, his mother had to come in and tell him to eat because he would work so hard that he would forget to eat.

Maybe for you, it’s getting things in order, getting lost in a fantasy world, teaching someone something, or fixing technical problems. No matter what it is, don’t just look at the things that keep you up all night; look at how your brain works when you do those things. Because they are easy to use in other places.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

What you really like to do.

What are some other things to try that you might also like?

4. HOW CAN YOU BETTER EMBARRASS YOURSELF?

Embrace embarrassment. Feeling stupid is a part of the process of doing something important and worthwhile. The more a big life choice scares you, the more likely it is that you should be making it.

You have to be bad at something and have no idea what you’re doing before you can get good at it and do something important. That seems pretty clear. And to be bad at something and have no idea what you’re doing, you have to make a fool of yourself in some way, often more than once. Most people try not to embarrass themselves because, well, it’s bad.

So, because awesomeness moves from one thing to another, if you avoid anything that could make you feel bad, you will never do something that feels important.

Right now, there is something you want to do, think about doing, and dream about doing, but you don’t do it. You definitely have your reasons. And you keep telling yourself the same things over and over again. But why are these things happening? Because I can tell you right now that if your reasons are based on what other people will think, you’re not taking care of yourself.

If your reasons are something like, “I can’t start a business because spending time with my kids is more important to me,” or “Playing video games all day would probably get in the way of my music, and music is more important to me,” then that’s fine. It looks good.

But if your reasons are “My parents would hate it," “My friends would make fun of me,” or “If I failed, I’d look like an idiot,” you’re probably avoiding something you really care about, because caring about that thing is what scares you, not what mother thinks or what Jimmy next door says.

Great things are always one-of-a-kind and don’t follow the rules. So, to get there, we have to go against what most people do. And it’s scary to do that.

Embrace embarrassment. Feeling stupid is a part of the process of doing something important and worthwhile. The more a big life choice scares you, the more likely it is that you should be making it.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

What scares the crap out of you—and why?

That you should stop making bad excuses and do something instead.

5. HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF SAVING THE WORLD?

You can’t solve all the problems in the world by yourself. But you can help and make a difference by what you do. And that feeling of making a difference is eventually the most important thing for your own happiness and sense of fulfilment.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the news lately, there are some problems in the world. And by “a few problems,” I really mean “everything is messed up and we’re all going to die.”

I’ve said this before, and research backs it up: to live a happy and healthy life, we need to hold on to values that are more important than our own happiness or satisfaction.

So, choose a problem and start fixing it. There are a lot of options. Our bad school systems, poor economy, bad domestic violence, bad mental health care, and bad government. Start by fixing a problem you care about. Obviously, you can’t solve all the problems in the world by yourself. But you can help and make a difference by what you do. And that feeling of making a difference is eventually the most important thing for your own happiness and sense of fulfilment. And importance equals meaning.

I know what you’re thinking at this point. “I read all this bad stuff and it makes me mad, but it doesn’t make me do anything, let alone change careers.”

Glad you asked…

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

What big problem do you care about that has nothing to do with you?

How you can change things.

6. GUN TO YOUR HEAD, IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Finding out what you’re excited about and what’s important to you in life is like a full-contact sport. We can’t really know how we feel about something until we actually do it. Many of us see our enemy as just plain old laziness. We fall into our habits. We distract ourselves. The couch is nice to sit on. The chips have a hard texture. No new things happen.

This is not good. Most people don’t realise that action causes emotion, not the other way around.

Finding out what you’re excited about and what’s important to you in life is like a full-contact sport. We can’t really know how we feel about something until we actually do it.

So, ask yourself what you would do if someone put a gun to your head and told you that you had to leave your house every day except to sleep. And no, you can’t just go to a coffee shop and look at your social media accounts. Most likely, you do that already. Let’s pretend there are no TV, video games, or websites that aren’t worth your time. Take yourself back to the 1990s, when social media didn’t exist and most of us didn’t spend half our lives on it. What would you do and where would you go if you had to be out of the house all day every day until it was time to go to bed?

Sign up for a class in dancing? Join a reading group? Go get another degree? Make a new kind of watering system that can save the lives of tens of thousands of African children living in rural areas. Find out how to hang glide?

What would you do if you had so much free time? What would you do more than anything else? We all only have 24 hours in a day, which brings us back to the most important question we should all be asking:

“What important things can I do with my time?”

If it sounds interesting, write down a few solutions and then, you know, go do them. Bonus points if you have to make a fool of yourself.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

What you were always excited about.

What to do with your time.

7. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE IN A YEAR? HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED?

In the end, death is the only thing that shows us how important our lives are. Because you can only figure out what’s most important about your life by thinking that you won’t exist.

Most people don’t like to think about their own deaths. We’re scared by it. But surprisingly, there are a lot of good reasons to think about our own deaths. One of these benefits is that it makes us focus on what’s important in our lives and what’s just a waste of time.

In the end, death is the only thing that shows us how important our lives are. Because you can only figure out what’s most important about your life by thinking that you don’t exist. What are you going to leave behind? What stories will people tell about you after you’re gone? What will your obituary say? Does anyone have anything to say? What would you like it to say if it doesn’t? How can you get started on that today?

Again, you’re failing if you imagine that your biography will say a bunch of things that will impress a bunch of random people. When people feel like they have no direction or purpose in life, it’s because they don’t know what’s important to them or what their values are.

And if you don’t know what your ideals are, you end up living other people’s priorities instead of your own. This is a sure-fire way to get into bad relationships and end up unhappy.

Finding your “purpose” in life comes down to finding one or two things that are bigger than you and bigger than the people around you. These values will help you set your goals and decide what to do. It’s not about doing something great; it’s just about making the most of the time you have. And to do that, you have to get off the couch and do something. You also have to take the time to think outside of yourself, to think bigger than yourself, and, oddly enough, to imagine a world without yourself.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

What matters most to you.

What should your decisions be based on?

ARE YOU READY TO FIND YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?

If you liked this and are ready to get your act together, dig deep to find out what really drives you. Then you’ll come up with a step-by-step plan to get off your behind and start going after what you want in life. I’m glad to help.