How to find direction when you are totally lost

Most people feel lost.

They feel directionless.

They lack clarity on what to do with their lives.

The image of the unemployed young man squatting in his mother's basement, stoned out of his mind, playing the newest release of call of duty while wearing the same Dorito and cum encrusted shirt from last week is an exaggerated stereotype I am getting stick of hearing.

Most of you are not like that.

I know you have vices. I know you have bad habits. I know you feel like you're the villain of your life not the hero.

But I also know for most of us, life is okay.

School is okay. Work is okay. You are getting by but you can't shake the feeling that something isn't right. Days and weeks blur into each other and it feels like time is slipping by.

You probably have been through self improvement hell at least once before. Picking up ambitions like getting in shape to be more attractive, making friends to cure your loneliness or any other goal you saw online and latched onto to create a sense of direction in your life.

Self improvement hell is learning but not starting. Starting but not maintaining. Maintaining but not experimenting. Meanwhile you consume content that gives you a distorted view of reality.

The exaggerated problems you see online get projected into your experience and they only deepen the despair you feel towards yourself and the world (we will come back to this in a different idea)

It's no wonder why most people stay where they are.

It's no wonder why most people live the same six months of life 150 times and then die.

If you don't know what you are doing or where you are going with a huge stack of whys behind you, then my friend, you are fucked.

Everyone knows you need goals, direction and purpose in life. But as we all know this is far easier said than done.

The question I want to answer today is an overlooked question "when i feel lost, unsure about everything, where do I start?"

Here are some things i learnt

The life you didn't choose

The reason why you feel lost is because you never learnt how to figure it out.

Since the moment you were born the world had a plan for you. Your parents, the education system, the government — all assigned you a plan.

Your parents had a mold ready to pour you into. What you were going to do, what you were going to believe, who you will become was already laid out for you. You needed to fit that mold to survive.

This was necessary. You were a kid. Your parents did what you couldn't. That was their job

At school, an outdated education system told you exactly what you need to learn.

At university your professors told you what you needed to do to pass.

At work, your days are filled with projects and tasks given to you by your manager.

If you questioned or push back against these narrow goals assigned to you at birth, you were punished.

The problem here is, you failed to develop agency. You never had to. There was always someone else telling you what to do focus and how to achieve it.

You didn't need to figure it out yourself

Why do you think so many people turn to the internet for advice on how to do anything? Yes it is a faster path to an answer for something like unclogging your kitchen sink.

But in life, the answers are always more nuanced and messy. Every time you turn to someone else to tell you what to do, you deny yourself the opportunity to figure it out.

The truth is, you are looking for that one thing, that one true path that is going to change everything for you. If you just found that one thing then life wouldn't be just ok — it would be amazing.

I'm hear to tell you the one true path doesn't exist.

Go Yourself and Go Alone

You need to give yourself permission to do to what you want.

If you want to stay up to 3am jerking off to porn — do it

If you want to try that fad diet — do it

If you want to sink 6 hours into scrolling tiktok — do it.

Allow yourself to do whatever your heart desires.

But you must be paying attention.

You must notice when the things you do are a mistake.

Staying up late into the night watching video (explicit or not) is a mistake if it prevents me from waking up well rested to write ideas the next morning.

Mistakes are the things you do that is holding you back from the life you want and the goals you set for yourself.

Because if the thing you are aiming at was really important to you, you wouldn't want to do anything that gets in the way of it.

Do you see what I am saying. Don't worry about your vices. Don't worry abut your bad habits. Don't worry about discipline. None of that matters right now.

What matters is pouring yourself into your own project that brings everything else into alignment.

Flip the switch

When you are lost, how do you know what project to pour yourself into?

What you want out of life becomes much clearer when you understand what you do not want.

As you feed your desires, you need to feel into your situation.

Notice what you don't want.

Notice what makes you disgusted with yourself.

Notice how angry you are at yourself.

Sink into those feelings. Sink into the pain. Sink into the negativity.

Write down everything you don't want.

The distracted mornings. The empty evenings. The lonely weekends. The constant tiredness. The weak body. The underpowered mind.

Say goodbye to all of them.

Now flip the switch

Disappear

If you don't have somewhere to channel all of the negative energy, it will build up in your mind and it will destroy you.

You need a project that brings everything into alignment.

But the project is never clear at first. It always starts as taking an educated guess.

Aim the stream of problems in your life

"I think I want to get stronger"

"I think I want to start a youtube channel"

You need to disappear from your old life and leap into the unknown. Give yourself 3 months of pouring your heart and soul into your own goal.

Two weeks is not enough time to allow yourself to overcome the initial challenges and see some progress.

That is how a project is developed. It is created through effort not found in a quick fix. The project becomes important to you. It becomes woven into your identity and everything else falls into place.

There is no answer until you create it for yourself.

Take the risk

It starts by taking a risk.

Leave the comfort zone that is keeping you small.

Place the bet on yourself for a goal you know deep down is achievable. You will struggle. You will be challenged. You will doubt yourself. That's good. These are signals for growth. These are signs you are moving in the right direction.

Sometimes the risk was a mistake. That's good too. You learnt something new. It gives you more information to know what you do not want.

If you are not making mistakes then you are not pushing yourself hard enough to get to where you want to be.

So in summary:

1. Sink into the pain of your situation

Be disgusted with everything you do not want in your life.

Channel that negativity into something productive.

Flip the switch

2. Leap into the educated guess

Make the decision.

Force yourself to leave comfort zone.

Pour your effort into creating something important for yourself.

3. Make the mistakes

Learn from your stupid decisions. Fill your mind with available information.

Channel everything you have into that one project you have created.

Generate that stack of why's behind you that forces everything else into place.

You won't be lost anymore

Josh