It feels like forever since my personal development journey began as an insecure, socially anxious 19-year-old.
Over a decade later, I’ve grown in ways I never could’ve imagined, achieved some of my biggest goals and dreams, and helped people do the same.
But the journey has been far from straight and narrow. It’s been filled with twists and turns, successes and setbacks, obstacles and opportunities…
The ever-present polarity of life.
I’ve had times when I thought I knew exactly what I was doing, only to end up doubting and questioning myself, wondering if I’d made the right decisions and if I was on the right path, as yet another unforeseen challenge presented itself.
In these times, it’s hard not to feel lost or confused.
“Am I on the right path? If not, how do I know? And how do I get myself on the best path for me?”
I’ve experienced plenty of ups and downs on my journey, and I’ve had to pick myself back up many times.
So today, I’m going to share some of the wisdom that helped me through these times and find my way.
I will give you some practical steps you can take to go from feeling lost and confused about your path in life to feeling calm and confident about where you’re going.
There are no true straight paths in life. The twists and turns are part of life’s natural ebb and flow.
But that does not mean your path needs to be dark and cloudy the whole way through.
What I’m about to share with you will help you start lighting the way forward.
To make meaningful progress, you need a strong foundation. A strong foundation begins with your mindset – your attitude.
No matter how much pain you may be in, if your attitude is predominantly negative, the struggle will continue. Righting the ship begins with righting your mindset.
Here’s an attitude to start with:
“This too shall pass.”
Recognize that what you’re experiencing now is just a phase. Like the phases of the moon, it will pass.
What you’re experiencing now is temporary and will pass when the time is right.
This simple mindset shift will give you some peace of mind and hope for the future.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been “down bad” about how things were going – whether it was a setback in my business, going through a long and difficult healing journey, or something else – but I reminded myself that what I was experiencing was just a phase and will pass when the time is right.
This gave me peace of mind and patience in the present moment. It gave me resilience, as well.
I experienced tons of heartache in the first four years of my business, but during that fifth year, I achieved one of my biggest goals and dreams. I made it to Thailand and traveled around Southeast Asia for ten months. It made everything I experienced in the previous four years worth it.
All the challenges I experienced in those first four years were just temporary. They passed, like all things do, and transitioned into something better.
Calm yourself. Remind yourself that things can and will get better over time.
Especially as you apply what I’m about to share with you next.
Actively Invest in Your Self-Discovery and Self-Development
Like it or not, you’re on a self-discovery journey. Finding your way is about finding you. It’s not a cliché. It’s the truth.
Is your purpose, passion, or calling not a part of you? Is it not just self-knowledge you haven’t acquired yet?
But are you actively invested in your self-discovery and self-development? Are you working on yourself each day?
Wallowing in self-pity and continuing to do what you’ve been doing isn’t going to get you where you want to be.
You’ve got to be active and proactive. You need to put yourself in a position for the clarity you’re seeking to show up in your life.
When was the last time you did something new? Or got out of your comfort zone? Or did something that scared you?
When was the last time you did something that really made you feel alive? Or that awakened your inner child? Or did something just for the hell of it because you wanted to?
When was the last time you truly lived your life to the fullest?
Sitting and waiting for clarity to come to you is probably the longest and slowest path to personal enlightenment.
The people who find themselves quickly (or, at least, faster than others) are the ones who fully engage with life.
Even if they have no clue what they’re doing, they’re putting themselves in positions for what they desire to come to them.
It’s the person who quits their crappy job and takes a solo trip to a foreign country to find themselves. It’s the person who says “yes” to things they might not like just to expand their life experience.
It’s the person who does the thing that requires the most courage for them to do because they know that what they desire is on the other side of their fear.
You don’t have to know everything right now. You don’t have to have your life all figured out right now. You don’t have to see the whole path in front of you yet.
You just need to be doing things that will open you up to that awareness and that experience. Being fully engaged with life is one of the best ways to do this.
What can you do to get to know yourself on a deeper level? What can you do to engage more with life and expand your life experience? And how can you make these things a habit?
The more you do this, the faster the clarity you’re seeking will come to you. Life itself will open up to you and reveal the answers you’ve been seeking all along.
If There Was a Clear Path To Discovering Your Higher Purpose, It Would Be This
“If this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing, what is my actual purpose?!”
I said that after yet another thing I tried to do to achieve my goals and dreams ended up not working out.
I was years into my journey, I was tired of doing things that weren’t right for me, and after yet another one didn’t work out, I was fed up.
I needed to start doing what I was truly meant to do in life ASAP. I wasn’t going to wait any longer.
But what was it? I’d tried so many things already, and only a few of them felt related to my purpose in life and what I was most passionate about.
Then I had a revelation…
I realized that this whole time my predominant attitude had been about me. “How do I achieve my goals and dreams? How do I figure out what I’m meant to do?”
Me. Me. Me.
Yet, the moments when I’d felt most aligned with my purpose were when I was helping others.
It was when I was posting content to inspire and empower people. It was when I was coaching people to help them achieve their goals and dreams. It was when I was creating something others could benefit from.
It was when I was helping others achieve what they wanted to achieve in life. That’s when I felt the most aligned with my purpose, the most happy, and the most fulfilled.
In short, it was the difference between “service to self” and “service to others.” If there was a clear path to finding one’s higher purpose, this would be it.
It would be shifting your focus from “How can I get what I want?” to “How can I help others get what they want?”
When I shifted my focus from “service to self” to “service to others” I started to align with my higher purpose almost immediately.
I started to think about how I could help other people in ways that would make me happy, and I started to do it. This blog, my book, and my course are a result of that shift I made years ago.
Zig Ziglar said it best:
“You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar
If you feel lost in life, one of the best ways to find purpose and direction is to find ways to be of service to others that you enjoy and make you happy.
Service to others is a powerful gateway to experiencing a higher sense of purpose, meaning, and fulfillment on a regular basis.
The good news is that people’s wants, desires, and needs are endless, and you only need to find one way you want to help people which can bring a world of purpose into your life.
The key is to find ways you want to help others that also bring you joy.
Most of the things people do in life help others in some way. They just don’t like what they’re doing or don’t care about it.
But when you’re helping people in ways you want to help people (or the environment, animals, etc), you enjoy what you’re doing, and you care about it, there’s almost nothing better when it comes to your life’s work.
Take your focus off yourself for a bit and start looking for opportunities to be of service to others.
How can you help others experience what they want to experience in life?
Your purpose, passion, and/or calling could be waiting for you in the answer to that question.
3 Steps to Go From Feeling Lost and Confused to Calm and Confident
To summarize, here are three steps you can take to go from feeling lost and confused to calm and confident about your path in life:
Whenever you’re feeling down, remind yourself that “This too shall pass.” It’s just a phase. It’s just a chapter in the book. Not the entire story.
Start getting to know yourself on deeper and deeper levels and work on yourself each day. The clarity you’re seeking is just self-knowledge you don’t have yet.
Change your mindset from “service to self” to “service to others.” Start looking for ways to be of service to others that make you happy at the same time.
After years of trial and error, these are the steps that helped me finally gain the clarity I needed to fully align with what I believe I’m meant to do in life.
No matter how lost you may feel, follow these steps and you will start finding your way in life.
Michael Karp is a personal development blogger and self-published author. He started his personal development journey in 2011 as a sophomore in college.
Since then, he has self-published several books, started an online business and became a digital nomad, achieved his dream of moving to Thailand and traveling around Southeast Asia, built a following of 18,000 people on Instagram sharing personal development advice, became a life coach, found his life purpose, and healed his body with the power of his mind.
With a deep passion for serving others, Michael continues his hero's journey on a mission to help people around the world to empower themselves, realize their true potential, and achieve their dreams.
