I don't know what I want next.
You don't have to hate the life you have to know that you want something to change.
Perhaps work doesn't feel quite right anymore. Perhaps the things that used to motivate you don't have the same pull. Or perhaps you simply have a growing sense that you don't want the next five, ten or fifteen years to look exactly like the last.
The difficult part is that knowing you want something different isn't the same as knowing what different looks like.
Perhaps you're asking yourself too big a question.
When we don't know what comes next, it's tempting to start with:
What should I do with my life?
What career would make me happy?
What's the right choice?
Those are enormous questions. And when you can't answer them, it's easy to conclude that you simply don't know what you want.
But you may know considerably more than you think.
Instead of trying to find one big answer, start by collecting some smaller clues.
KEEP. LEAVE. LEARN
You don't need to know exactly what comes next. Start with what you already know.
KEEP.
What still matters?
What from your life now would you want to take forward?
Think about the work you enjoy, skills you value, people, ways of working, responsibilities, freedoms, experiences or parts of yourself that you don't want to lose simply because something else needs to change.
LEAVE.
What no longer fits?
What would you happily have less of?
Think about the things that drain you, frustrate you or simply don't feel important anymore.
They don't have to be terrible. Sometimes we've simply outgrown things that once suited us perfectly well.
LEARN.
What are you curious about?
What would you like to try, explore, experience or understand more about?
Don't ask whether it's sensible, profitable or something you could turn into a career yet.
Just notice what catches your attention.
Take five minutes.
Make three lists: Keep. Leave. Learn.
Don't try to turn them into a plan. Don't worry about whether the answers fit neatly together.
Just write.
You don't need an answer yet. You need clues.
Look at what you've written.
Five minutes ago, you may have been thinking:
“I don't know what I want.”
But now you may already know something about what you want to keep, what you want less of, and what you're interested enough to explore.
That's not a complete direction. But it isn't nothing.
And if you look a little more closely at your own experience, there may be more clues waiting there.
What if there are more clues in the life you've already lived?
Keep. Leave. Learn. is a starting point.
But some of the most useful clues about what you might want next may already be there — in the things that give you energy, the times you've felt genuinely useful, the achievements that have mattered to you, and the things you've become good at but no longer particularly want.
The Direction Reflection is a guided exercise designed to help you look for those patterns.
It won't give you a score, put you into a type or tell you what you should do next.
Instead, it will help you explore your own experience, notice the threads that keep appearing, and begin to identify what you might want more — and less — of in whatever comes next.
You don't need to find the answer.
You need enough clues to begin exploring.
Get your free Direction Reflection
Enter your first name and email address below and I'll send you the Direction Reflection — a 36-page guided workbook you can download and work through in your own time.
There's no need to complete it in one sitting. Give yourself some space, take your time, and see what you notice.
Knowing what matters is only part of the picture.
Sometimes the difficult part isn't finding the clues.
It's what happens when we begin to think about acting on them.
Is it too late to change?
What if I make the wrong decision?
What would I have to give up?
What will other people think?
What if I'm simply being unrealistic?
Some of those questions may point to very real things that need to be considered. Others may come from assumptions, habits of thought or ways of seeing ourselves that we've carried for a long time.
Think Differently is about learning to tell the difference.
It explores how perception, memory, reason, will, imagination and intuition shape the way we interpret what's happening, the possibilities we can see, and ultimately the choices we make.
You don't need to reinvent yourself overnight.
Sometimes progress begins simply by seeing your situation — and your choices — a little more clearly.