How Not To Feel Lost in Life!

Ways to Navigate Life Without Feeling Lost

Are you lost in your life?

You would be lost if you don’t know where you’re trying to go!

You are lost if you don’t know where you are.

You are lost if you don’t know where you are and where to go!

Imagine you are lost in a forest. What would be the first thing you think of? Let’s break it down and try to figure out where you’re going and where you are. First of all, it should be a target in your life to find out and know your destination.

Although, it is always supposed to change over time.

The main reason behind writing this article is to point out exploring the process of figuring out where to go even when you don’t have a clear destination.

In fact, it’s not about being fixated on a destination.

It is kind of figuring out what your direction is.

And that you can always change direction in life, whenever you feel like it.

Life is about the journey rather than the destination, but thinking about the destination ahead of time helps us go on the right journey.

Figuring out what you want to do with your life can feel overwhelming and confusing. It’s normal to feel lost, unsure of your direction, or like you’re just floating around without a clear path. Finding clarity and direction takes time, self-reflection, and trying different methods to gain insights about yourself.

In this article, we’ll talk about five ways to figure things out in your life. First, we’ll look back at what’s happened, learn from it, and see how it connects to what you want.

Then, we’ll turn those thoughts into a plan. The idea is that by the end, you’ll have a better idea of where you are now, where you want to go, and some steps to get there.

Think of it like taking a walk together. Cool?

Great!

Method 1: Brainstorm How You Want to Be of Service

• Imagine giving a future TED talk on a topic you find inspiring and want to share with the world. What would you talk about?
• If you had unlimited time and money, how could you best use your natural talents to serve others?
• Imagine your funeral — what would someone whose life was impacted by your work say about you? What lasting impact did you have?

The first method for figuring out where you want to go is to brainstorm what service you would like to offer to the world.

Now there’s a couple of different ways to think about this and I’m just going to share with you. The sorts of questions that I like to think about and then you can try this exercise.

I would recommend you have to do this exercise RIGHT NOW, while reading this article.

Afterwards here are a few different ways of thinking about what service you would like to offer to the world.

The first one is the future to talk prompt.

I want you to imagine that you are attending the conference, not the big deal conference you’ve been invited to. You have got a conference and you and everyone else in the audience is deeply moved and inspired by what the speaker is talking about. The speaker is you, but 20 years in the future.

What are you 20 years from now talking about at the conference — that’s inspiring.

So many people don’t overthink what’s the first thing that comes to mind — different options of service!

Because generally having a kind of meaningful mission in life, and having a sense of meaning and purpose to your life, involves service in some kind of way.

The more you kind of serve yourself and think oh I want to get more!

That’s not really the recipe for meaningful life.

It does not have to be about how you are cured.

I don’t know, cancer or global warming or whatever comes to mind. However, it would be just as inspiring even if you talk about how to be a really good parent. Or some things that you learned in your life to help you connect more with the people around you, or maybe how to be a great father or to be a great teacher.

There’s sorts of ways to provide service and they don’t have to be big. They don’t have to be grandiose to have that sense of formation in life with you.

Write down any ideas or themes that come up. Look for common threads pointing to how you would like to be of service.

The next prompt is that if you were to imagine your funeral, various people are talking about you. You know your friends and family, but someone whose life has been impacted by your work is speaking at your funeral.

What is the person saying?

What they are saying is the impact that your work has on them . Personally I hope that they will say at my funeral:

“J Khaishkai’s work impacted my life because it helped me achieve my potential, helped me do more with my life to realize what matters to me and help me build a life.”

This would appeal to a lot of people.

What is the thing that resonates authentically with your Northstar, rather than necessarily what someone else is doing?

Or what society is telling you, you should be valuing these exercises as it’s very much worth writing this stuff down.

I know you’re reading this and I know you’re going to be tempted to do it in your head. I know you’re going to be tempted to say. I’ll just do it later, but if you can — write down the answers to all these questions.

You cannot solve a complex mathematical equation without writing it down. You cannot build a bridge or a building without writing it down and drawing of course.

This is trying to figure out where you want to go with your life.

Method 2: Reduce the Influence of Fear

• What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail? Remove fear of failure.
• What would you do even if you knew you would fail? Focus on the process, not just the outcome.
• Revisit old dreams you’ve deferred due to fear. What have you always wanted to pursue but never have?

This is a big question. It’s really hard to write it. But if you can, it will be the gold standard.

It’s up to you. But I think writing it down is way more valuable than trying to do all the stuff in your head.

Figure out where you want to go and figuring out your Northstar is to reduce the effect of fear. There’s so many of us. Basically everyone limits their thinking based on fear. It is the fear of failure and fear of judgment.

It might be self out, but fundamentally the emotion of fear is there. At its core it stops us from thinking about what we actually encourage ourselves to stick within.

The fearless dream prompt, which is what would you like to do if you knew you could not fail

Think about it, what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail. And if you might like to think of it in terms of categorizing.

What would I like to learn?

What would I like to try?

What would I like to experiment with, with what impact would I like to have sort of giving my mind different ways of latching onto this question. And, what would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail.

I would make my own productivity because I think I would love to build something to use every day.

I would love to have my own state where I’m doing around the world.

Even if you knew you would fail, would I still make a productivity up actually probably not for yourself?

However, if I knew my state would be commercial because I think the process of creating this state is tricks and crafting and storyboarding all that stuff. I think that would just be really valuable in itself rather than for the outcome question what would you do even if you knew you would fail.

Or however, what are the things that vibe with you personally in terms of the process rather than the album and then this is the deferred prompt which goes. What’s one you’ve always had, but never pursued a dream for you?

What if I have a dream someday because I don’t actually know about these things? I want to think about all these trying to reduce my fear.

Method 3: Envision Your Ideal Life

• Describe your ideal typical Tuesday 1 year from now. What does your day look like? Who are you with? What are you doing?
• Map out your ideal week. How do you spend each day and your time overall? What activities bring you joy and meaning?
• Imagine you’ve achieved everything you want in life. How have you grown and changed as a person? What qualities and achievements define you?

Let’s further explore the method number three,

But before we talk about that I just want to say there’s lots of prompts here. It would be easy to let perfect be the enemy of God. You don’t have days to do that, even if you just answer one or two or three just like the ones that really internally resonate.

If you answer those, I guarantee it will give you more clarity about where you want to go in your life and how far you aim.

Let’s go deep into this and see what is trying to get out!

What would your dream life look like? One of the ways you can do this is the ideal Tuesday prompt which is what does your ideal Tuesday look like?

What are you doing?

Who are you with?

How are you spending your time? What makes this day perfect for you and you can imagine the ideal Tuesday a year from now — five years from now. I would like to imagine a year from now because one year is like a lot of time, but it also feels tangible enough.

I think from now I would love to look like waking up at Five in the morning doing a workout with friends cause it’s more fun. Maybe playing sports in the evening, maybe doing a few hours of work, maybe having lunch with someone, having dinner with the wife and kids, whatever the situation might be something around trying to design.

What your day looks like actually helps us figure out what are the things you truly value. What are the things we truly want as an extension of this? You might like to ask yourself the question: what does my ideal week look like up there? That has more details about the ideal method. It is my personal method to create a new ideal week.

Can you just block out what your dream looks like when you wake up, when you sleep, when you are doing work what sort of work are you doing?

When are you hanging out with friends?

What are the things you truly value at this point in your life? If you don’t have kids, spending time with the kids would be a bit weird. It can be ideal as well.

However, at some point when you have kids then spending time with kids and being present for the family and stuff would presumably be your ideal.

This gives us an idea of what we value authentically with ourselves and then we have finally the future self — achieved everything you’ve ever wanted.

Imagine you have achieved everything you ever wanted. How have you changed as a person and what qualities and achievements define this future version of yourself right?!

Method 4: Identify Role Models

• Which people, whether in your life or people you admire from afar, possess qualities you want to develop in yourself?
• If you could become an amalgamation of 3–5 people, who would they be and what qualities would you want from each?

Now we come to method number four which is getting the issue of what we want based on other people as a role model. There’s a really good phrase that I got from a writing coach, he would say this whenever I was with imposter syndrome during my writing journey.

“If you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You can read the label of a bottle. However, if inside the bottle — you can’t read the label. That’s on the outside of the bottle. Inside yourself, it’s easier to see what qualities you admire. Other people have a sense of life that’s sort of personal.”

I would like to be rather just thinking about what sort of person I’d like to be anyway. Here is, who are the people you most admire, and why and what qualities do they possess that you wish to emulate?

Another phrasing is that if you were to become an amalgamation of 3 to 5 people that you know of, who are those people?

And what would you want to emulate about them?

For example, I really vibe with one of the teachers who was so sincere and also funny. He didn’t take himself seriously and used to say that:

“I have never met the guy, but maybe I will at least vibe with the fact that he seems to do what he wants without worrying so much about it. And he seems to sort of explore interests that are authentically aligned himself without worrying about the commercial incentives.”

I find that really cool.

Method 5: Begin with the End in Mind

• Write your own obituary highlighting your proudest life achievements and the impact you had on others.

then we have method number five, this method is to begin with the end in mind.

Method number one which is the service thing we discussed earlier about imagining what different people would say at your funeral. What someone whose Life has been impacted by your work would say at your funeral!

This is sort of a broader look to that method. The idea here is that you want to write your own obituary like if you wrote out your own workshop.

I have tried this exercise with my friends as a team and will share it to give you an idea of what it might look like. And also to give the reader a new idea and perspective!

“I am very kind of joyful and loving with the people that I love.

I’m being very expressive and always having an hour of lateness and playfulness and never never being too serious. I allow people to feel comfortable and relax. I inspire the people around me.

All those who I interact with either in my life or online or whatever take action on things that they want to take action on.

We educate people around the world, whether they’re young or adults. I probably would like people to say that I made the world educated about writing books, writing articles and talking with schools.

I always think I would be a great father and great grandparents and a family brother and a son.”

So I probably would like people to say that I liked education. And writing about it, maybe writing books, talking with schools working potentially the policy or whatever around improving the education process. Because it is a remarkable source of joy and inspiration to cherish. To say that I was a great father, grandparent and family member. I would expect them to say that I was deeply engaged with my loved ones, and was significantly genuine, joyful, loving, inspiring and encouraging. And that I was professional, visionary and educated.

I find it super helpful for assisting me figure out my Northstar.

I really hope you have been walking through the exercises and ideally writing them down as you have been reading through the article. But you can always do this in time if you go through it. And if you haven’t done this sort of structured reflection before, it can seem a bit of work. These are not the sort of questions you would like on a dinner or if you can imagine being back in high school.

I have realized that the more we can sit with these sorts of prompts and really try and go within to find the answers. The more likely we are to have that clearer sense on Northstar. Finding what’s the rough direction we are aiming towards. And emphasize that we’re not confined to the career path of thinking about all the senses of what we value.

Conclusion

Reflecting on these methods can reveal common themes and insights about how you want to live your life and what steps to take next. Don’t worry if the path forward still feels fuzzy — finding your Northstar is an ongoing process of self-discovery. Revisit these exercises periodically to check in with yourself as your values and priorities evolve. The key is taking time for this intentional self-reflection so you can live more purposefully.

Good luck!