In search of better jobs, comfortable life, and handling everyday nuances, we forget to ask ourselves the question of what do you actually want in life. This becomes problematic for a current millennial workforce who post any setbacks are observed contemplating how this is not what they want in life and then begin to search for what they actually want in life. Hence, having clarity about what you actually want in life can not only become your motivation, but also help you prioritize things and deal with everyday stressors.
But, why couldn’t we figure out what we want in life? Oftentimes, we realize that we had much clarity about what we want as a child, and as we grow up this clarity tends to become foggy for most. It may be that children dislike hearing a ‘no’ and get to keep their wants simple. But when these children grow up into teenagers their parents, teachers, and other authority figures guide them on how they should act or believe, at times some of them even shame and deny their wants saying that “older people know better” or “the child shouldn’t only think about themselves”.
This further gets harder in adulthood when our wants and desires compete against each other along with the socio-economic factors. Therefore, we may find a large number of people who are not well aware of what exactly they want in life, and that working in an organization or business only gives them limited time to further think about it.
So, how to figure out exactly what you want in life? A lot of time we tend to focus too much on what we want that we are unable to pinpoint anything, a simple hack would be to think about what you don’t want, hence, instead of thinking about what all things make you happy, start with an easier approach of what makes you unhappy?
- Create a long list of things you don’t like, want to avoid, or hate doing.
- Identify how many of them you still do even though you don’t like it.
- Now think about what you actually want by recalling your best days and moments in life.
- Identify what makes those days and moments incredible and you might realize things that you actually want in life.
Another great hack is to identify the people you are jealous of. The root cause of envy or jealousy is your known or unknown desire/want to have what they have, hence, identifying people you are jealous of and why you envy them may help you to identify what you want in life. Obviously, it’s hard for people to accept that they envy others, but accepting them can open a path to improve oneself.
Challenge: Take a challenge right now by thinking about a few people you envy and what all reasons come to your mind behind your feeling of envy.
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