Very often we cannot understand what we really need from life. Many people are familiar with the unpleasant feeling of uncertainty and anxiety. If you are asking the question “How to understand what I want in life?”, then the tips below will help you understand yourself. Only those who know where they are going can be truly successful and happy. If there is no goal, then there is nowhere to go and nothing to achieve.
A wish list
To find purpose in life, you need to understand what you want. To do this, try writing a wish list. It can be very long, try to remember everything you have ever wanted. Spend a few hours compiling such a list, don’t rush. You may need several days. Do not write meaningless phrases, but try to formulate your desires specifically. At the same time, if you want to get a house, do not write such a desire in one word. Indicate how many floors it should have, whether you want to live outside the city, have a garden, etc. The more specific you are, the better. Such a list will help you understand what you are missing and what you dream about. Very often, when people start making a wish list, they learn a lot about themselves. Try it too.
Awareness of desire
In this step, try to understand what you really want and what you don't want. It is important to take your mind off the question of whether achieving your goal is possible. Often people give up on their desires because it seems to them that the goal is illusory and unattainable. This makes it difficult to understand yourself and your desires. Avoid such thoughts and think about the items listed on your wish list. Perhaps you will understand that it is worth adding new points that you subconsciously refused due to their inaccessibility. Think about the different areas of our lives, such as family, love, work, money, health, property. Try to realize what you really want.
Ideal life
If you ask yourself how to understand what I want, then you don’t know yourself well enough. Few are accustomed to listening to their inner voice and fantasizing. But you have to do both. To realize your real desires related to work, study, relationships and other areas of life, you need to relax and give free rein to your imagination. Sit back, calm down and close your eyes. Now try to imagine the lifestyle that would be ideal for you. What profession do you see yourself in? Where do you live? Who do you live with? How do you spend your free time? Answer yourself a series of similar questions. Then imagine just one day that would be perfect for you. How would you spend it? Memorize or write down the answers. If you want, write a short story about it. Check back with it from time to time to see if you are on the right track.
Tell us about your desires
If you can't figure out what you want and doubts overcome you, there is nothing better than voicing your thoughts. What is said out loud always carries more weight. As soon as you tell someone about your desires, you will immediately understand whether you really want it. A good friend or anyone you trust is suitable for this conversation. Be extremely frank and tell it like it is. You don’t even have to ask your interlocutor’s opinion, because you will see for yourself how sincere your words sound. Formulation of desires is very effective. You may be aware of some vague desire, but only by saying it out loud will you give it a specific form and meaning.
Stimulate your imagination
If you're having a hard time figuring out what your desires are, try coming up with questions about it and answering them for yourself. For example:
- How to understand what I want in life?
- What is my ultimate dream? What does it take to achieve it?
- What would I like to have?
- What do I expect from a relationship with my significant other?
- What do I expect from work?
- How I spend free time?
- What would I like to learn?
- What is my immediate goal?
There are three things that are extremely difficult to do: break steel, crush diamond and know yourself.
Benjamin Franklin, politician, scientist and inventor
Ask yourself these 20 questions
Unfortunately, there is no single path to self-awareness. Every person is unique. And the only one who can help you know yourself is yourself.
Some say that for this you just need to live, and wisdom will come by itself. What if it takes 60 years? You can wait, but then you will have .
To speed up this process, start by answering the following questions honestly. You can do this in any order. Don't think about the answer for too long. The correct one will be the one that first appears in thoughts.
- What can I do well?
- What am I doing quite well?
- What am I doing wrong?
- What am I tired of?
- What is the most important thing in life for me?
- Who are the most important people in my life?
- How many hours of sleep do I need per night?
- What makes me nervous?
- What calms me down?
- What is success in my understanding of the word?
- What type of worker am I?
- How do I want to appear in the eyes of others?
- What makes me sad?
- What makes me happy?
- What makes me angry?
- What kind of person do I want to be?
- What kind of friend do I want to be?
- What do I think of myself?
- What do I value in life?
- What am I afraid of?
Please note that everyone interprets these questions differently. This means that there are no right or wrong answers.
Analyze the answers
Answering these questions honestly will help you reconsider and improve your life. The process itself is important here. By answering questions clearly, you develop your thinking.
Aristotle used the word “logos” - concepts that contain the unbiased logical arguments of the speaker.
Learn to express your feelings and emotions in words. Your answers should be sincere so that you understand your strengths and weaknesses. Don't try to hide anything from yourself or make yourself look good.
Pay attention to what qualities you would like to change, what is stopping you in life. Do what you know how to do and what brings you happiness. Avoid what you do badly and what makes you unhappy.
Just don't go too far. Remember that in life there are both wonderful moments and difficult situations. If you have, you should not immediately break off the relationship. Simply recognize the cause of these difficulties, such as selfishness, lies or misunderstandings, and try to eliminate them.
- Study the works of philosophers.
- Take a neutral position in conversations. Don't try to always be right. Look at the problem from different points of view.
- Write down your thoughts. Always ask yourself why something happened.
- Speak. Communication is very important. Talk to relatives, friends, colleagues. By expressing your feelings, you will learn about yourself, especially if you are asked questions that make you think.
This method can be the start of your journey to self-awareness.
Who am i? Everyone around you says that you need to “be yourself.” But what does this really mean?
The only way to truly become yourself is to know yourself on a deep, intuitive level. A person is not equivalent to his profession, family status, or the labels that society might place on him. The True Self is deeper than all these many layers. Getting to know yourself is also understanding what kind of activity will actually bring joy and not be a burden. Let's look at ways that will help you get to the bottom of this truth and answer the question - how to understand what you want to do in life?
Think for a moment: what gives you the most joy in life?
What do you really enjoy doing? Start making a list that can include anything from the pleasure of a good night's sleep to watching cartoons. Expand this list to include not only activities, but also feelings. For example, “I like to look at a sleeping child.” By looking at it, you can more accurately get a picture of your preferences and needs, understand yourself, and also determine what type of activity will bring you maximum satisfaction.
What are your talents?
There is no need to say that you are deprived of God or nature. Every person has gifts. Just to find them, sometimes you need to dig a little deeper. Maybe you're good at crafts for the home, or you can quickly solve Sudoku crossword puzzles. Another way to discover your talents is to ask yourself: What do I like to learn new things about? What am I known among my friends?
Create an alternative definition of yourself.
This method will help speed up the process of personal growth many times over. Instead of calling yourself a “smoker,” use the term “bad habit fighter.” “A loser in communicating with girls” should be replaced with the expression “a guy who is relaxed in the presence of female company.”
At first, this process may resemble self-deception. This reaction of the subconscious is absolutely normal. Try to use this method for thirty days. During this period, refuse to use old names, persistently repeating new ones. After a maximum of thirty days, your subconscious will be forced to accept the new truth, and it will become real to it.
Make a list of your positive qualities and use them as affirmations.
How to understand what you want from life? First of all, this understanding requires a foundation - a positive attitude towards oneself. This list should include at least ten items. They must be repeated along with the affirmation that it is safe to be yourself. For example, such affirmations may sound like this: “It’s safe to be Catherine. I am a cheerful, smart, cheerful, healthy, rich, creative person. My qualities help me achieve all my goals.”
Talk to your 99-year-old self.
Imagine this conversation with yourself at this advanced age, still in excellent health. Ask any questions you may have. They could be something like: “What knowledge would you like to impart to me? Where should I focus my efforts at this time? What things can I do that can impact my life the most right now?
Every person is unique. And each of us has our own unique mission on this earth. When people accept this truth, it becomes easier for them to accept themselves as they are, and also to accept other people. There will always be outside influences that will try to draw the line between who you are and who you want to become. Try to follow these five guidelines, find your own ways, and you will never lose yourself.
A happy person is characterized by having a healthy appetite for life. The process itself pleases him. If you look more closely, it will not be difficult to see the recipe that all such people have in common: 1) they know how to accurately determine what they want and 2) they get it. How can I understand what I really want?
I remember that day, about a year ago, when I suddenly clearly realized that the transformation that I had been striving for for so long had entered my life. Despite the fact that there were still many unresolved tasks and questions, there were doubts, fears and other accompaniments of any change - but one change nevertheless irrevocably occurred: I knew exactly what I wanted. Moreover, in all areas of life and at different periods of time.
If you woke me up in the middle of the night, demanding to list what interests me in this life, I would blurt out without a shadow of a doubt where I was going. And with a fair amount of specifics. If you offered me to change these goals to other, no less attractive ones, I would refuse, because my scope already gives me enough space to spread my wings. If my life had been faced with a choice – a loved one or these goals, I would have chosen the latter. Since true love will not set such a condition, and everything else is a fake from dreams on the topic of saving love, which will make you happy for the rest of your life and save you from the need to act. And there is no longer a place for this illusion in my life.
It's an interesting feeling to know what you want and where you're going, because it doesn't take away the freedom of choice and the ability to change your mind, but you know that your choice has been made.
Absolute freedom does not exist, but there is freedom to make a decision, and after that you are bound by your choice
P. Coelho, "Zaire"
Committing yourself to such a choice is a truly wise step, since it is concentration on a single vector that helps you go through stage after stage and feel the rhythm of life, giving birth to the joy of conscious movement forward. This is also the only way to have what you want for those who are not afraid to dream big.
To describe it simply, the picture looks like this:
— To be inspired by movement towards your desires, they must be big- that is, to have scope for the flight of your soul. Global goals give rise to the belief that our capabilities are much wider, thereby unlocking our inner potential and giving us a surge of strength.
— Achieving big goals takes time, during which you will move in the chosen direction without changing direction. Only a long movement in one direction can give a tangible result. You have the right to change your goal, change your mind, choose something else - please. The divine right of free choice is always with you, just like the law of cause and effect: every time you start something else, you start a new path, and you also need to stay on it for a long time without changing the sharpness of your focus.
— In order not to succumb to the temptation of choice and not change your direction, you need to decide exactly what you want. Therefore, it is reasonable at a certain point in life to decide for yourself exactly: “Who am I?” and “Where am I going?” Otherwise, people often change their minds, try many directions at once, do not really succeed anywhere and generally give up any attempts, thereby beginning a smooth descent down the ladder of their prospects.
If you are ready, you don’t need to prepare.
Once you have a direction, it is easier to deal with doubts and tempting opportunities. It’s easier not to be distracted from the essence and keep focus on one thing. When this choice has not yet been fully made and you continue to wait for a miracle (they say, somehow everything will work out by itself), then you swim wherever the wind blows. I think none of us would want to find ourselves on an uncontrollable ship on the ocean or on a boat floating in a fast current without oars. So why do many people like this dangerous approach so much: “to go with the flow of life without any goals?” Isn’t it obvious what it brings to stones of helpless old age?
The World Athletics Championships are currently underway in Moscow - how interesting it is to watch some of the competitions. Look.
What is the essence of the victory of this or that athlete? Some will say that hard training coupled with natural abilities, but still the root is deeper - in their choice to focus on one specific sport that suited them best and improve in it.
Only long-term and technically correct training in one direction can give the desired result. But each of today's sports stars, having, in principle, a strong body and certain talents, could run from sprint to jump, from jump to marathon, from marathon to all-around, calling it a search for oneself. Decide on a direction as early as possible is the most important decision in sports, and everyone knows about it, which is curious, but in life it is also the most important decision, although much fewer people take it into account.
To get what you want, you need to choose a single vector and move in its direction, constantly improving over a long time.
Hence the logical question: do you know what you want from your life? In all areas?
I didn't know for a long time. Or rather, she misinterpreted her desires. For example, I sincerely wanted to live by the sea. And only after 2 years, closely spent by the sea, I realized that I really want to regularly travel to the sea, and to the mountains, and to the forests, and to the snow, that is, to travel a lot around the world, and only during breaks between something more significant and creative, for example the development of your project, and living by the sea is not at all necessary. A big city answers much more of my questions than an island isolated from the world. In my personal life, I also had dreams in the style of “maybe I will become a wonderful housewife and keeper of the hearth and will not do anything,” which made my own universe laugh a lot with the corresponding lessons.
For every talent we will be asked.
But every time, even when the next “I want” turned out to be more of my fantasy about a wonderful future, and not an adult decision, I continued to move forward. I wanted to live by the sea - I went there to live. I wanted a free schedule - I found a way to work as a freelancer. I realized that I had to return to Moscow and moved. I wanted an original project - and here it is in front of you. It was this movement, and not reflection (!), that gave us the skill to separate the grains of the true aspirations of the soul from the chaff of idle entertainment that leads nowhere. At some point, real goals began to take on a more and more distinct form, leaving behind all the imposed husk.
This is an illustration of my favorite example of a long climb into the mountains - at first you don’t even see the top, but as you approach, with the next observation deck, your view increases and at some point - the target becomes clearly visible. But if you don’t get off the couch and start this path of conscious movement along the edges of your “I want” and “I can,” then don’t ask for the top.
Some tips on how to understand your true desires and find inspiring goals
0. Tip number “zero”- start a conscious movement, to begin with, towards any immediate desire. I need to start moving uphill in order to continue to talk about where exactly my road is in all this splendor. If you plan to start and do something only when you find your Path or destiny, you simply will not leave the threshold of your home. This is called “sofa self-searching”, and it’s funny.
1. Pay attention to your own desires
Having a large number of desires and ideas is a sign of high energy. Don't give up on your aspirations. And don’t listen to those who say that desires are bad. Desires encourage us to move forward, grow and overcome ourselves, or rather, our own ideas about ourselves. Desires are catalysts of vital energy. Another question is that when potential remains unrealized, it begins to put pressure. That is why it is useful to fulfill desires in every sense.
The difference between a true dream or a “social” one, that is, an imposed one, is most often realized only in practice, and not in the mind. Get ready for trial and error stage, especially if they grew up in a very “closed-minded” environment, but this stage is also very productive.
Most often I receive letters in the style of “how to change everything, but not make a mistake.” That's the point: no way. Yes, you may make a mistake, but even a mistake with a sincere intention to change for the better and realize your potential to the maximum will be beneficial, because it will remove another layer of blinders from your eyes, which you will never see unless you try.
A loser is someone who, out of fear of failure, didn’t even try.
It was the mistakes that brought me to that very observation deck where I was able to clearly see what I want: who to be, what to have, where to go. And as a bonus, she understands that she no longer intends to endure it.
2. Find the junction between desires and abilities
The single vector that was discussed is very often at the junction of “I want” and “I can”. That is, these are not just your current abilities, but multiplied by great desires. What you have inclinations and talents for, but in the context of a big dream. This is the conscious development of your abilities into mastery, which allows you to fulfill your wildest desires. As soon as you find this joint, give it priority. Nothing makes a person internally whole and calm more than a clear understanding of where he is going.
A goal differs from fantasy only in the presence of real steps now in the chosen direction. In all other cases, if you want to, but don’t do it, it’s nothing more than a childhood dream that is unlikely to ever come true.
To get somewhere, you need to know the destination. This is primary. And the sooner you decide on it, the clearer everything that happens around you becomes. I wish you to realize it and choose from all the diversity.