If you don't know what you really want to do, start with examining your values. If your goals are not in alignment with your values, you will not be happy. For example, if you're an attorney and you value fairness, helping others, and generosity, you'll be happier working for an organization like Habitat for Humanity than for a company that handles Mergers and Acquisitions. If you value achievement, order, and harmony, you probably won't be happy in an environment that fosters intense competition, such as sales.
Solution 2: Consider Your Goals
After examining your values, determine whether your goals honor or ignore your values. Examine your life in terms of relationship goals, work goals, financial goals, family goals, etc. If you find that your current goals are not supported by what you really value, how can you change your goals so that they do?
Solution 3: Align Your Values with Your Goals
"Sally" valued learning, responsibility, and cooperation. She wanted to work as a programmer and was attending school to get her computer science degree. But she found her classes to be difficult and she was unhappy. A programming career was not what she really wanted to do. When she let go of "making lots of money" as her goal, thinking it was something she valued, she realized that she wanted to become a teacher. She is now getting her degree to become a teacher and is much happier.
Or take "John," who earned a great deal of money in his high-level sales job. He thought this would make him happy; instead, the constant travel and stress of meeting quotas left him fatigued and out of touch with his family. After re-evaluating his commitment to his health and his children, he decided to apply his sales skills to raising money for a charitable organization. Even though he earns significantly less, he spends much more time with his family and has the satisfaction of knowing he is making a greater difference in people's lives.
What do you need to let go of in order to get what you really want in life? Do you need to let go of certain expectations, others' expectations? What do you need to learn to get what your really want? Do you need to learn what you really value, how to manage distractions, or how to align your goals with your values?
