How To Find Your 'Thing'

One of the biggest issues with many people especially with the young is they don’t know what to do with their lives. 

They may have avoided going to university due to not knowing, or choosing any subject and went to university because their friends went and ‘that’s what people do’. 

Maybe furthering education was never the plan and they decided to go straight into a dead-end job they don’t even like (guilty). 

These all lead to an empty feeling, hopelessly wondering when ‘the thing’ is going to show up.

The problem is, it may never show up, sometimes you have to find it yourself, this blog aims to help do just that.

If you’re happy where you are, this may not be for you. This is for the ones who want something more, they just don’t know what more looks like yet. 

So, let’s figure it out.

Changing Angles #1

Sometimes, to figure out something difficult, something you’ve tried working out but have struggles with, you need to change the angle to which you’re addressing it from.

Coming from another angle helps see the issue from another perspective, possibly allowing light to shine on a once-shadowed part of the problem.

In terms of figuring out what you want out of life, it can help to start from the end and work your way back, reverse engineering it, as it were.

What does this look like? It looks like envisioning the end, picturing what you want your life to look like 10-20 years in the future, and well, just working your way backwards.

By going one step backwards from the end, eventually, you’ll end up back where you are now, but with a step-by-step guide to get to where you want to be.

Do you want a big house? A fast car? A big family? To live peacefully all alone in the woods with your dog named Bill? Whatever it is, picture it, and work your way back to the present moment.

Once this is done, write down the end as the goal, and then write each big step it will take to get there. You now have a map of the future.

If you’ve thought of what you want your life to look like, but still have no idea what ‘thing’ will help you get there, don’t panic, keep reading.

Changing Angles #1

Another way of changing the angle is the complete opposite, it’s picturing what you’d hate your life to look like, and then doing the opposite.

Humans have a much easier time remembering the bad things they’ve experienced instead of the good, another feature that has unfortunately not been updated since the caveman days, it helped us survive then, but it makes us grumpy now. 

Anyway, what this does is allow us to figure out the things we have done or are currently doing that make us miserable.

Although this doesn’t help us see exactly what we’d like to do, it does give us a general idea.

We wouldn’t say “I hated my job in sales, so I’m going to look for a job in purchasing”. We’d say “I hated my job in sales because I hated dealing with people all day long. I'm going to look for a job that allows me to work remotely.”

You might hate doing that too, but that’s okay, moving in any direction is better than not moving at all, and knowing what you dislike at least forces you one way.

The trick is to keep trying, which brings me to the last point.

Digging Through The Mud

This might not be what you wanted to hear, but the only way to truly know what you love is to start doing something until you love it.

Waiting around for ‘the thing’ to show up is a waste of your time, and you’ll probably be waiting forever. If you don’t change your behaviour, you’re not going to get a change in results. 

You can use the change of angles to get a sense of direction, but from there, it’s up to you to dig through the mud to find what it is you have a passion for. 

It’s true, some people find their thing very early on, they watch an advert for screwdrivers when they are 5 and decide they want to be a carpenter, but not everyone has the same fortune.

So it’s up to you to change your luck.

It wasn’t until starting my 4th online business venture that I started to gain a passion for business, I also became addicted to running, but only after running 4 days a week for 3 months straight.

Sometimes things take time, more time than you’d expect, more time than you’d want, but without the necessary time, you don’t get the desired result.

“Tell me what you do every day and I’ll tell you where you’ll be in a year” - Unknown

Equally, tell me what you do every day and I’ll tell you where you’ll be in 5, 10, or 20 years. 

Nothing changes if nothing changes. If you’re sick of living a life you don’t enjoy, then it’s time to start designing the life you do. And the only way to do this is to f*ck around and find out. 

Go f*ck around, and find out what your ‘thing’ is.