How to Know What You are Supposed to Do With Your Life
What is your purpose in life? What does God want you to do with your life? What SHOULD you be doing? How do you know what direction to go in?
If you are anything like me, these can be debilitating questions to answer, and hence paralyze you into inaction. For many years I wrestled with these questions because I was very concerned about figuring out what was the “right thing”, what was God’s purpose for my life. However, I’ve learned quite a bit over the last couple years about this particular topic and this post provides you with the results of what I’ve learned.
The Surprise Answer
Are you ready for it? Maybe this will disappoint you, and I’m certain that for some of you this may even annoy you…but the answer is: it probably doesn’t matter…at least at first.
What? Let’s explore this in a little more detail, and hopefully give you some actual useful information.
The Lightning Bolt Moment May Never Come
My purpose in life, including the biggest of questions, “What does God want me to do?”, has weighed on me since I was a young adult. It’s something that has totally consumed me at times. I was waiting (and praying) for the lightning bolt…for that explicit, voice from heaven, “Aha!” kind of moment that makes it all clear. It’s still has never happened, but I also see now that its not necessary. My path to clarity was just different.
One resource that has helped me tremendously with this concept is an outstanding book entitled, “You are a Badass”, by Jen Sincero. There’s tons of gold in there about getting over yourself and starting to do the things that you were put on this earth to do. She has an outstanding quote that has helped sum it up for me:
“One of the most paralyzing misconceptions is that we’re all supposed to have one true calling that comes to us in this mighty flash of soul defining insight.”
Now THAT’s the Aha! moment. All along I’ve been looking for that ONE thing, and hoping that it hits me like a lightning bolt. But what I now realize is that there isn’t likely just ONE thing, there are several, and that the lightning bolt may never come, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find out what those several things are for me.
We Don’t All Have a Single Purpose
I realize for some people, its been very clear from either a young age or from some point in time. They’ve had a singular purpose, vision, or goal, or have always known “what they want to be when they grow up.” They’ve either had that lightning bolt moment, or its just something that’s been instilled in them somehow. I’ve not had that, and I think most have not. Although I can certainly look back on my life and find moments of clarity, and moments that have led me to where I am today, but I can’t say there’s been just one lightning bolt that has burned some purpose into my mind.
What happened to me is I spun in circles trying to find that perfect thing, trying to find that one purpose, that one vision: What is it that I’m supposed to do? What is it God wants me to do? And in so doing, I paralyzed myself and never took any real action that could lead to any real calling. What I’ve realized is that multiple purposes that evolve over time is likely a more natural fit for me, and most people.
Think about it..as people we evolve over time. As we age, we grow, and our mind changes as our thoughts change and our experiences shape us. It’s perfectly natural that our purpose(s) and the best way we can use our own gifts and talents would evolve over time as well. If we let the search for the perfect singular calling paralyze us, then what happens is we may actually miss it.
Why? Because the magic of finding that purpose, or purposes, is likely arrived at through action. We find it by doing, because doing leads to opportunities that can never be found by inactions and over analysis.
The Important Part is to Pick a Direction and Start Moving
If you pick a direction, even if it’s the wrong direction, what happens? You make a plan (or in the case of a college student, you start executing the curriculum that is given), and then you start to experience…see…learn…feel. Without the action associated with moving in some direction, you’re not doing the hard stuff that needs to be done. If you don’t start moving in a direction, you NEVER start to experience the hard stuff. If you are wandering (wandering without purpose), or if you have not decided to start down some path, you are likely avoiding the hard stuff. Its the hard stuff that enlightens your journey, indicates if we are on the right path, allows you to fail forward, grow, and get over fear.
My day job is as a software developer. One of the very best ways to arrive at a good solution for a software problem is to spend some time thinking through the problem, but then use a method we call “prototyping”. Prototyping helps to start working out the details, verify if your architecture/design is valid, and find the issues that you could have never found by just thinking about the problem. Prototyping is writing code that may or may not ever be used in the final version, so some have the opinion that if its throw away code, why do it? But that’s missing the point completely because the purpose of the prototyping is to ferret out the hard stuff and determine if your solution is viable.
Think of picking a direction to start moving in as the same kind of thing as prototyping. You are prototyping your purpose! And the cool thing is you can correct it and change it as you move along.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that whether you feel called to a particular purpose or not, the key is to start moving in a direction. Take action, don’t over analyze. Don’t let the search for the one perfect purpose or vision for your life, paralyze you from picking a direction that you think is right at the time. Certainly the direction you choose should include a thought process, but if you over think it, you may never get started…and getting started is what ultimately leads you to your purpose.
