how do i know what i want to be

abril 09, 2022 Publicar un comentario

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The world offers so many opportunities and choices to make that it's not easy to know what you desire. Sometimes, y'all may confuse what you lot desire with what others desire of yous. To figure out what y'all actually desire, you will demand to practise some soul searching and decision making.

one
Separate the "shoulds" from the "wants. " Near people have an idea of things they remember others expect of them versus the things they actually want. Yous may feel you should exist more than organized, y'all should become back to college, or you should settle down and get married. Simply all those shoulds won't become you anywhere if you have no drive to exercise them. If you do manage to practice them, the energy may wane and so you lot're back to the starting betoken 5 or 10 years down the line. Get rid of your shoulds now then you can focus instead on what you desire.^[1]
- Almost people have problem seeing which urges are shoulds and which are wants. Take a moment to figure out which is which. What practice you really want? What do you lot feel like the rest of the globe wants you to do? Are you lot feeling pressure from your parents, your community, society, or peers to exercise something they feel you lot should exercise, but you don't feel passionate well-nigh?
2
Brand a list of what you'd do if you lived without fearfulness. All people have intangible, abstract fears. Many people are afraid people aren't going to like or respect them, that they're going to be bankrupt, that they won't find a chore, have friends, or that they'll end up lone. To get at what you lot desire, erase all of those for just a 2d. Fear can control you and keep you from what you lot want.^[2]
- Brand a listing of all the things yous want despite your fears. What would you lot practise if you weren't agape of what people thought, afraid of money, or afraid of getting hurt?
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Effigy out what dissatisfies you. You lot probably already know what dissatisfies you. Almost everyone is better at complaining than they are fixing it. By identifying the places in your life where y'all experience dissatisfied, you tin can begin to strategize how to change or eliminate those things. Make a listing of what makes you unhappy. Why are yous dissatisfied? What is it that you're craving? What would make things better? Write downward the answers to these questions.
- For example, think near your chore. If you detest your job, it may be possible that you don't detest the job, but but hate aspects of it. Those aspects demand isolating. What things would you change if y'all could? How might that change your outlook?
- Simply identifying dissatisfying elements of your life won't make them improve. Once you've made this list, you demand to start thinking about if these are things over which yous accept some control, and what y'all can do to alter them or remove them from your life. If you hate your job, perhaps yous need to start figuring out how to find a new position. Or, if it's only certain aspects of your job you don't like, brainstorm ways to improve those things and talk to your boss nearly implementing some new ideas.
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Make a list of what is important to y'all. When you don't know what you want, it tin can be helpful to get a clear idea of what your values are. Start past making a list of what is of import to yous. You tin can include abstract ideas, similar dear, or concrete things, like food.^[3]
- To help y'all identify your values, enquire yourself these questions:
  - Which moments in your life thus far have been the well-nigh satisfying or fulfilling? What was it almost that moment that made you experience satisfied?
  - If your business firm were on fire and you could just grab 3 objects (all pets and family members are already safe), what would they be? Why? What practise these things correspond to you?
  - Think of 2 people you respect and admire. What characteristics do you adore the most about them? Why?
  - What bug get y'all the nigh excited when you talk near them? Could you lot talk for hours about foreign policy, or manner, or animate being rights?
- Wait at your answers to these questions and ask yourself if any themes, principles, or beliefs emerge from your answers.
- Once you take identified your values, you should find that making decisions that are in line with these behavior will assist yous feel satisfied and happy.^[4]
- Values can seem too vague or philosophical to be helpful, but they tin can give y'all clues into which decisions and outcomes would be about satisfying.
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Choose values that cause an emotional response. Values can be described as the combination of goals, beliefs, and positive or negative emotional attitudes. Values play an important part in emotional health because they can produce strong emotional reactions based on if our behaviors align with our values or not. When making your list, don't only put what you think you lot should put. Think about things that crusade yous to feel emotions.^[5]
- For case, if you value family time almost but make the decision to continuously work 80 hour weeks, you may experience guilt or shame because you lot have violated a value that is important to you lot.
- If you value family time, brand information technology a bespeak to always exist abode by five p.grand., and never work during family time, you might feel proud and fulfilled because your behaviors reflect your values.
three
Question yourself. Knowing what you value can help you make decisions most what y'all desire and don't want. If you've never thought about what you value, you may have a hard time figuring it out. Ask yourself these questions to assist you first thinking about what yous value:^[six]
- At the end of your life, what volition you desire people to recollect about you? That you contributed to scientific discipline? That you loved your family? That you were honest?
- If you lot had to choose between piece of work and family unit, which would be about important?
- What topics are you passionate nearly? Environmentalism? Women'south rights? Finance? Use your passions to help you narrow down what is most important to you.
- If y'all could merely save a few items from a house fire, what would they be? What about those items gives you clues about some of your core values?
4
Use your values to make changes. Write downwards the answers to the questions and so you can see them. These answers requite you an outline of what you desire in life. You can fifty-fifty add together to this data as you continue to think about what is important to you. Once you have an idea of what y'all value most in life, you tin begin to construct a clearer picture of what you want. Then, you tin start making choices that align with your values.^[7]
- For instance, if you highly value light-green energy and recycling, merely the company y'all work for deals mainly in oil, you may feel dissatisfied with your job or even frustrated and angry considering much of your work is supporting something that you don't agree with. You now tin can recognize this and work to find a job that likewise values dark-green free energy so they tin can marshal with your values.
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Focus on the present. Not knowing what you want or not beingness able to decide frequently leads to feelings of worry or uncomfortableness. A lot of this worry comes from beingness afraid of making a wrong decision.^[8] As you begin to make decisions about your life, keep your focus on the nowadays or the near-present. Trying to go likewise far into the time to come can lead to stress.
- Enquiry shows that our ability to predict what we'll want in the future is skewed, so you can simply make decisions that are right for you in the present with the information you have now. Don't focus so much on getting it right for your future-self.^[9]
ii
Get-go by making small decisions. Making decisions can be difficult and scary. You may need to determine what you want from life, or you may need to determine how to get what you want after you know. If you lot don't know what you want, making decisions can be hard. Learning how to make decisions tin help you become better at deciding what is right for y'all. Get-go with pocket-size decisions start, so that you become more comfy and confident in your power to make decisions for yourself.^[x]
- Not making any decisions at all is also a deciding choice. Sometimes, not making a decision at all oftentimes causes more regret than making whatsoever decision.^[11]
3
Country the conclusion that needs to be fabricated. Being able to brand informed decisions is helpful considering poor decisions or no conclusion at all can sometimes bring about feelings of pain or regret.^[12] You can start building these skills by stating specifically the decision that you lot want to make.
- You can write down the decision or country it mentally. You need to arrive known to yourself what decision has to be made so you tin start working towards what you want.
- For example, if you are trying to make up one's mind which college major to cull, you would write downwards, "Determine between engineering and nursing." If you are trying to decide how to deal with a friend, write, "Make up one's mind how to deal with my friend who makes me feel bad sometimes."
4
Gather more data. In this stage, yous should assemble as much information every bit you can almost your options. Making an informed decision is extremely important because this helps you experience like you take made the right decision. Make sure to include data that is important to your values. You lot can make a pro/con chart, list details about each option, and brand notes about how each pick will impact your life, time to come, and other'southward lives.^[thirteen]
- For example, you may look up salaries, task opportunities, and amount of fourth dimension in schoolhouse when choosing a career. Yous may consider that nurses deal with and help people daily while engineers deal with numbers and building plans.
- List out all of the information which is important to you.
5
Expect for alternatives. In this phase of the decision-making procedure, you should ask yourself if there are options yous haven't idea of or considered yet. This may take a few days to complete. You can exercise research, talk to people, or retrieve the topic over for a few days. Ask yourself if these are the only choices you can make in the conclusion. Have you been off-white to yourself? Is there some other conclusion you can brand that you haven't written downward? Brand sure you accept all your options listed before making the decision.^[14]
- For instance, mayhap you've limited yourself also much in just deciding between engineering and nursing. Possibly, yous could also consider a general business major, an fine art caste, a career every bit a contractor, or even medical schoolhouse.
six
Evaluate your options. At this stage, look at all the information and possibilities you've gathered. Now imagine each possibility carried out through the finish and what that would entail. Imagine the event of each decision and evaluate your emotional response. Do you lot feel satisfied with this picture? Does the outcome support your values? The answers to these questions can help yous make your decision.^[15]
- For example, you can imagine yourself in technology classes working with computers and numbers, then to your first job at an engineering firm. Imagine yourself doing this type of piece of work every day and evaluate your emotional response. Are you satisfied with this picture? Does your work back up your values? Then do the same process with nursing.
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Implement the pick. Review all of your information, and make the best possible selection that is right for you, has fulfilled your values, and seems to marshal with your professional goals. And so implement the choice. This is the action part of knowing what you desire. This is where y'all start going after what y'all want.^[16]
- For example, you tin get to your academic counselor or the dean and formally modify your major. Then you tin sign up for the appropriate classes.
2
Exist willing to make mistakes. Sometimes knowing what yous want will not be articulate until you've tried something out. Once you've tried something, you can find out if information technology isn't for you or if it'due south a perfect lucifer. And so if you don't know if it's what you want, go and endeavour it. Making mistakes is role of learning what we want and discovering what we want.
- Studies show that not knowing an outcome causes more anxiety or discomfort more than knowing that the outcome will be unfavorable.^[17]
- For example, if yous're notwithstanding undecided about nursing or applied science, take active steps to decide which you volition like. Await for internships at an engineering office to get a experience for what the piece of work environment might exist like. Ask an engineer to show you lot what he or she does all day. Enquire questions to sympathise more near what the job entails and what to expect. Y'all can shadow a nurse and follow him or her effectually during the shift to run across what a nurse actually does.
- Another possibility would be to take a class specific to engineering and at the same fourth dimension volunteer at a infirmary. Maybe at the terminate of the semester you'll observe that you actually can't stand working with computers all twenty-four hour period and that y'all have a knack for calming patients at your volunteering job. Even if you don't go into engineering, the class wasn't a waste of fourth dimension — it helped you lot make a more informed determination, and yous probably still learned a lot from the course.
3
Reevaluate your decision from time to time. Just because you lot want something at one point in your life doesn't mean you lot may want something different after. Periodically, get dorsum to your choices and determine if they are still what you want.^[eighteen]
- Reflect on the decision to see if it yet fits with your goals and values. If information technology does, y'all can stay on your current grade, merely if not, it may be time to reevaluate and go through the decision making process again — and that'due south okay.
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Article Summary X

To know what you want, you should beginning figure out what you don't want by separating the things you think y'all "should" do, from the things you lot actually want to do. In gild to pin down your real desires, effort writing out a list of everything you would practice if you lived without fearfulness. From hither, y'all should be able to figure out what dissatisfies y'all and what is of import to you. If you demand more aid, ask yourself what moments in your life so far have been the about satisfying or fulfilling, and determine what y'all admire the most nigh the people that you respect. Once you've pinned what's of import to you, brainstorm making changes in your life to ameliorate align your actions with your values. For more than advice from our co-author, similar how to successfully get after what you desire, coil down!

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