What Should I Do With My Life – Practical Exercises

The question we’ve all asked at one point or another – what should I do with my life? Of course, the only person who can figure this out is you. You can find the answer to this question by looking inwards.

How do you look inwards? I hear you ask. The most straightforward methods are asking introspective questions and practicing meditation. To further help you answer this question, I offer you several practical exercises.

Introspective Questions

Here are three introspective questions you can ask yourself. Try and spend at least 5 minutes on each question to realise the answer. Answering these questions will give you a much clearer idea about what you want to do with your life.

If you could only work for two hours each week, what would you choose to work on?

This question will help you to find the type of work that is most meaningful to you. It will almost force you to consider the type of work you want to do. Now, simply do it.

If you woke up tomorrow with 1 million pounds or dollars in your bank account, what would you buy? What would you buy first?

This question will help you to understand what external things are most important to you. This could be material goods, unique experiences, or making others feel good.

It also helps provide a clear sense of motivation. By knowing what you want to buy, you can then plan how you’re going to get there.

What would happen if you did the reverse for 48 hours?

This question provides perspective on how your life is currently operating. How much progress you are making towards your goals? Would this change be positive or negative?

The Five Whys

Another practical exercise is ‘The Five Whys’. This is beneficial to discover the reasoning behind your actions and desires. The Five Whys strips everything back to the core. It gets to the real root of your life.

The way The Five Whys works is simple. You ask ‘why’ five times.

Begin with asking ‘why’ about anything. This could be why you’re doing something. It could be why something is important to you. It could even be why you care about something. Why do you do the things you do?

For example, taken from my YouTube channel:

1. Why am I eating this food?
   • Because I’m hungry.
2. Why am I hungry?
   • Because I haven’t eaten in two hours.
3. Why haven’t you eaten in two hours?
   • Because I’ve been working on my video.
4. Why have you been working on your video?
   • Because it’s important to me to upload two videos every week.
5. Why is that important to you?
   • Because it’s important for me to keep my word, as honesty and integrity are core values of mine.

Although this was an exaggerated example, it explains the concept. The exercise takes quite a turn from what you’d expect. From the basic ask of why I’m eating food, I found that honesty and integrity are core values of mine. Sometimes the answer will be obvious, other times not. If the answer is unclear, keep asking why until you are satisfied.

It helps to do this exercise whenever you are feeling unsure about something. The Five Whys will help provide clarity and reasoning, as well as a sense of purpose. Additionally, this is an exercise to do more than once.

Asking why five times alone won’t tell you what you should do with your life.

Doing this exercise often will help you understand who you are and what your motives are. You can then use this information to figure out where you want to take your life.

Clarify Your Values

Another exercise is to clarify your values. Take a decent amount of time, such as 30 minutes to an hour, and sit down to consider what your values are.

Your core values are how you will live your life, consciously or unconsciously. What’s important to you? How would you like to live your life? If you’re struggling to decide, think of the person you’d like to become. What values do they live their life by?

The person you want to become may be financially free and in a loving relationship. Some values they would live by are likely:

• Honesty and Integrity
• Trust
• Being Organised
• Staying Devoted (to both their relationship and their finances)
• Being Open

Crazy, right? So simple, yet extremely powerful. This is life-changing stuff. Changing your values, or deciding core values, will shape who you are as a person. Your values shape who you are as a person, which shapes your life as a result.

To begin with, it will take some effort to actually live by these values. For everything you do, you need to be asking if it aligns with your values. If your home is messy, you’re not living by the core value of being organised. You get the idea. Be aware of everything you do, and your reason behind it.

Using The Five Whys can help you figure out what your existing values are. From there, you can begin to shift into your desired values, learned from this exercise.

If you’re struggling with self-awareness, try meditating daily. This will help to improve your own sense of self and self-awareness. That, in turn, will help you see the values you are currently living by.

Be, Do, Have

The Be, Do, Have exercise is a popular exercise used by life coaches and NLP practitioners. For good reason too; it’s incredibly powerful. Although this exercise takes some time, it’s insightful and can be super rewarding.

At the top of a page, title three columns with Be, Do, and Have. Then, list out beneath them all the things that you want to be, to do, and to have in life. Write them in the relevant columns. Anything and everything that you can think of, put it on the page. If needs be, continue onto a second page.

Once you can’t think of any more, go back and look over each item. Can you justify it? Why do you want that? Write a sentence beneath for each that you can.

If you can’t justify it with a good reason, cross it off the list. What’s remaining are the things that matter most to you. You now should have a very clear understanding of what you want to Be, Do, and Have in life. Boom.

Wrapping Up

Hopefully, you should now be able that dreaded question – what should you do with your life? If you’re still struggling, try going over the exercises again.

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