How To Figure Out What You Want In Life
These tools will help you determine your values and set goals
What do you want in life? Can you answer that question specifically? I don’t think many people can. You might get answers such as “I want to be happy” or “I want to be successful.” These are valid goals, but how do you know if you’re working towards them?
To know this, you need to be more specific. How do you want to spend each day? Which values do you have, and how do your goals align with your values? These are fundamental questions that can get lost in the chaos of life. The answers aren’t easy to find, but they are somewhere in your mind.
This isn’t to say that anyone who hasn’t pinpointed exactly what they want in life is doing it wrong. It’s okay not to know. In fact, even if you know today, you might change tomorrow.
I think it’s important to figure out what you want to give your current self a direction. Moving towards what you want now gives your future self new opportunities. Not only that but making progress on your goals can make you happier.
What are your values?
The first step is to ask yourself what you value in your life. Once you‘re familiar with your values, you can start setting goals that align with those values.
Unlike goals, values aren’t something to achieve and then dismiss. They can be seen in everything you do.
You probably have some idea of what you value already: people that are important to you, activities that you would never give up, ethical standpoints you stick to.
I want to help you get from having some idea of what you value to knowing exactly what you value most with this method by Stephen Hayes, Ph.D.
Here’s what you do:
Read through the following list of major areas in life. As this is an exercise to determine your own values, you don’t need to share what you think with anyone or ask anyone’s opinion.
- Family (other than marriage or parenting)
- Marriage/couples/intimate relations
- Parenting
- Friends/social life
- Work
- Education/training
- Recreation/fun
- Spirituality
- Citizenship/community Life
- Physical self-care (diet, exercise, sleep)
- Environmental issues
- Art, creative expression, and aesthetics
First, consider how important each point is to you on a scale from 1 (not that important) to 10 (very important). Write down your answers. Take your time and be honest with yourself.
Next, consider how consistent your actions lately have been with your values in each of these areas. Give this a rating from 1 to 10 as well. For example, if you feel that you haven’t spent much time on your social life, maybe that’s a 2 or 3.
This helps you find out where your focus has been lacking.
Lastly, pick an area that scored high on importance and low on consistency. Take 10 minutes to write about your values within that area. What do you care about in that area, and what actions will reflect what you care about?
Do the same with the next area until you have a clear view of your values and how you can reflect them in your actions.
For example, if you put work at a 10 for importance but only a 5 for consistency, that’s a good place to start.
Let’s say that you value the positive contributions you make to people’s lives in your work. Then you’d write about exactly what these positive contributions are and how you can achieve that every day.
By doing this, you will have reflected on areas in your life and put them in a prioritized order. That’s a huge step towards figuring out what you want in life. Your values determine what you want to do daily.
However, as humans, we usually want something to strive towards. We need goals.
Use your values to set goals
The next step in figuring out what you want is to start setting concrete long-term and short-term goals within your most important areas. Setting goals helps trigger new behavior, puts your focus where it needs to be, and promotes a sense of self-mastery.
By having a goal, you can monitor your progress and adjust your behavior along the way. Assessing how close you are to your goal now compared to yesterday allows you to essentially chart your progress and ensure that you’re always moving to where you want to be.
Try to find goals that align with the values you find important and improve your life quality.
A good method for setting goals that will actually help you is the SMART method. SMART is an acronym that stands for:
Specific:
Be as specific as possible with what you want to achieve. It’s a good idea to not only make your goals result-oriented but also behavior-oriented. Instead of setting a goal to run a marathon in 3 hours, set a goal to train for a marathon every day for a year. These kinds of goals tend to be more effective.
Measurable:
Add something quantifiable to your goal to easily track your progress, which can motivate you and prevent you from cheating.
This can be a specific activity you want to do for a certain time every day or a final goal. “I want to write at least 1000 words every day, resulting in 365,000 words in a year.” is a good example.
Attainable:
Choose a goal you are sure you can achieve, but only if you dedicate yourself to it. You need to be ambitious but realistic. Break it up into smaller goals, and make sure you know exactly what it will take to get you there.
Relevant:
You should make your goals meaningful and relevant to you. You want goals that inspire you to succeed. If you’re not interested in your goal, you’re less likely to reach it.
Suppose there’s a goal that you have to reach but don’t really want to. Find meaning in it. For example, if you know you need to live a healthier life but don’t actually want to change, determine how healthier habits can give you something you want.
Time-bound:
Set a timeframe that’s realistic for your goal and not too far in the future. Setting a smaller timeframe gives you a finish line and a chance to reevaluate and update your goals. However, you need to give yourself enough time to make the goal attainable.
It’s okay to set long-term goals for sustainable lifestyle changes, but it’s a good idea to break those down into a series of smaller goals.
SMART goals require a learning process. It’s okay not to do it perfectly the first time or to adjust along the way. If you fail to meet a goal, adjust or create a new one, then try again.
The biggest mistake you can make is not starting today. Where you’ll be in 10 years is up to you, but you need to find out what you want if you want to get there.
Additional tips for finding out what you want in life
While the methods above are useful, it helps to have more to go on. I don’t want to leave you with anything less than all I can offer, so here are some other methods that might help you find answers.
Try lots of things
It helps to know what something entails before deciding if that’s what you want to be doing. Especially when it comes to work, recreation, art, and other activities. The best way to learn this is by trial and error.
You can be systematic about this if you want to, but you don’t have to. You can start with whatever catches your interest and go from there. Did you see a cool youtube video about rock climbing? Give it a shot. Ever read a great book and wished you could write one too? Start writing.
You might never know where your talents lie until you fully explore your options.
Julia Child, a well-renowned chef, didn’t get into cooking until she was in the last half of her thirties, having previously worked in media and government intelligence.
Examine your talents
While there are many things you could be doing, the first place to look should be what you already know.
You’re good at something, usually either because you are interested in it or because you have some natural inclination towards it. Being good at something often leads to enjoying it. That’s not always the case, but it’s worth exploring options within your current skillset.
Let’s take an example of drawing. If you’re good at drawing, you can ask yourself: Do I enjoy drawing? If the answer is yes, this is an idea worth exploring further.
You could then look at what other people who are good at drawing are doing. Maybe they do commissions for portraits or illustrations, make drawing tutorials on youtube, or draw what inspires them most and sell their art. Maybe they draw for themselves to have fun.
Write down all the possibilities you can think of, then consider each of them. Imagine yourself doing that in one or two years.
This can be a long process, but you might find several avenues that you want to pursue.
Look at what you don’t want in life
This might seem counterproductive, but it can be an important step in figuring out what you want. By identifying what you don’t want, you can eliminate options.
If you don’t want to do anything involving maths, you can eliminate many careers, hobbies, and activities.
If you don’t like partying all the time, you might want some friends interested in doing other things than partying on the weekend.
Look to people you admire and respect
You should be yourself, not a copy of someone else. But you can always be inspired by what someone else is doing to improve your own life.
Make a list of people you admire and respect. Then, under each name, write down your three favorite things about that person. Are there any commonalities?
By looking outward instead of inward, it might be easier to identify what you value, which can help you figure out what you want.
You might change, and that’s okay
Even if you go through this process now and start applying yourself to everything you want, you’re not done. We’re human. We change.
Figuring out what you want in life is less of a one-time activity and more of a process. You might wake up in five years and feel that you don’t want the things you want now. That’s okay; that means it’s time to take another look inside yourself.
If you follow the advice in this article, you might not get all the answers, but you’ll know a whole lot more about yourself. If you need to repeat the process later, you’ll know how to do it. It should be simpler the second time.
