April 28, 2026 • 18 mins
Are you waiting to feel certain before you make a move?
Do you know something needs to change but not what?
What if feeling lost isn't a flaw, but a signal?
In this episode of A Really Good Cry, Radhi breaks down the real psychology behind feeling lost and why it's not about lacking ambition or motivation, but about unmet needs you might not even know you have. From the Self-Determination Theory to envisioning your future selves, this episode gives you a practical, honest framework to stop spinning and start moving.
Rather than telling you to "follow your passion" or make a dramatic leap, Radhi explores how small experiments, values clarity, and the right questions can create more direction than any five-year plan ever could. Because sometimes the path forward isn't found by thinking harder, it's found by understanding yourself better.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why feeling lost is often a sign of an unmet psychological need, not a life crisis.
- How to identify whether you're missing autonomy, growth, or connection.
- A powerful exercise to envision three versions of your future self.
- Why values always matter more than goals.
- How to run low-stakes "micro-experiments" instead of making terrifying leaps.
- Three questions to return to whenever you feel stuck again.
Clarity doesn't come from overthinking; it comes from honest self-reflection, small brave actions, and knowing what actually lights you up from the inside.
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWe9A4kMf9V_AHOXkGhCzQ
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https://www.tiktok.com/@radhidevlukia
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let me start with what's actually happening when you feel lost,
because if you don't know where you are, it's hard
to know where you want to get to or how
to get out of it. I'm Raley d Wlukiah and
on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the
messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw and
fields of conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to
tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone,
(00:22):
and welcome back to this week's episode of A Really
Good Cry. Today, I wanted to share something that I
went through myself, and I created this, well, not a system,
but tried an error of so many things to try
and help me to figure out what it was that
I wanted to do in life in a time when
I was the most lost, whether it's your career, whether
it's just figuring out what my purpose is in this
(00:45):
world and how I'm supposed to navigate life and what
I'm meant to be doing. These tools and techniques that
I'm going to be sharing with you are things that
helped me immensely. And I go through this quite often,
to be honest, more often than I probably should have
sudden confusion about what is it I'm supposed to be
doing right now? And am I doing the right thing?
And I think it's really important to actually have that
(01:07):
regularly in life, to make sure that you are on track,
to make sure that you are doing what you love doing,
doing things in your life that make you happy, that
make you feel content, and to feel like you're on
the right path. I think feeling lost can be a
really difficult feeling to navigate. And I read this quote
that said, what if you're actually not confused about what
you want? What if you're just craving something your current
(01:27):
life isn't giving you. And I was thinking about that,
and I realized that maybe feeling stuck about what you
want to do in life may not actually be confusion
at ll. Maybe it's something much simpler and something more fixable.
And I think most things in life are like that.
When you end up creating this big idea of feeling lost,
it feels so vast, it feels like so difficult to navigate,
(01:49):
But actually if you try and break it down, most things,
when you break it down into smaller bits, smaller chunks,
and you really think about what you want to feel
and work backwards. Often it can feel a lot SMA,
and I don't want you to have to go through that.
I've already been through it, so I thought, let me
share the things that I've done to help me through it,
so you don't have to navigate it yourself or go
(02:09):
through as much trial and error as I did. So
today I'm going to share some research backs and also
experience backs frameworks that completely changed how I thought about
this question. And these frameworks and questions have really helped
me to decipher life the work that I should be
doing every single time. I actually think most of the
time when we say we don't know what we want,
we do know what we want, we just don't know
(02:30):
how to get there, or we're just missing something in
our current life that's making everything else feel really foggy.
So hopefully, by the end of this episode, I'm really
really hoping that you'll be well on your way to
understanding exactly what that is and have a clearer path forward.
So let's get into it. Let me start with what's
actually happening when you feel lost, Because if you don't
know where you are, it's hard to know where you
(02:51):
want to get to or how to get out of it.
So when people are lost, I think they feel like
they have a direction problem, like somewhere out there there
is this perfect career, this perfect calling, and they just
can't find it. But I actually came across this theory.
It was by these two scientists called Edward Decci and
Richard Ryan, and they developed this theory called the self
determination theory, and they said that humans thrive when three
(03:13):
core psychological needs are met. And the first one is autonomy.
You feel like you have choice and you're steering your
own life. The second one is competence. You feel capable,
like you're growing and getting better at things that matter
to you. And the third one is related this, you
feel connected, like you belong somewhere, like people really see you.
So what they're saying is it's not that you don't
(03:33):
know what you want. It's that something fundamental is missing
right now in your life and that emptiness is clouding everything. So,
for example, if you feel trapped in your job, like
you're just going through the motions, like someone else is
writing the script for your life, that's an autonomy problem
because you don't feel like you've got a grasp on
your own life. You don't feel like you have a choice.
If you feel stagnant or bored, like you've stopped growing,
(03:55):
like your skills aren't being used, that's a competence problem.
If you feel alone in your past, like nobody gets it,
like you're disconnected from the people around you, that's a
relatedness problem. And so here's the first question that I
asked myself, and I want you to sit with. Which
of these three feels most empty for you right now?
Is it autonomy, not being able to make your own decisions,
(04:17):
is it competence, or is it relatedness? You feel lonely,
you feel like you're not understood in this world. And
when you identify that real gap, you can stop asking
the question of what should I do in my life
and start asking what would help me feel more free,
or more challenged or more connected. That feels like a
much easier to answer question than some of the bigger
questions that we ask. And so starting with that, which
(04:37):
one of these feels like it's missing in my life
or feels a little bit empty in my life? And
I really recommend sitting with these questions for a long
period of time. I know you're listening to them right
now as you go through the podcast episode. But I
also think writing them down and coming back to them
over and over again until you feel like you've really
thought about them, until you feel like you've written out
(04:58):
as much as you possibly can on each question, will
be really useful to you because it will help you
to realize what your mind is feeling, thinking, what it's
fearful of. So much will come out of it if
you really give enough time and energy to answer them.
So now you have a diagnostic tool and you understand
what might actually be missing through answering that question, but
you still need direction. You need to figure out where
(05:18):
to actually point your energy. Once you figured out this
is what's missing, what do I now do with that information?
And for that I want to share research on this
other theory called the possible selves theory, and the core
idea of that is that we make decisions based on
the future versions of ourselves that we can imagine. If
you have this visual or you know exactly where you're going,
(05:38):
all the type of life that you can envision for yourself,
it makes it easier to make day to day decisions
deciding on whether this is taking me towards that or
away from it. You can take more consistent action, and
you can feel more pulled forward in the right direction
rather than feel like you're making choices in the dark.
So if your future self is blurry, you feel stuck.
You don't know what choices feel right for you or
wrong for you. It's almost like getting into an uber
(06:01):
and the driver says, give me directions to your destination,
but you actually don't know where you're going. How would
you know what roads to take or the bridges to
cross if you don't actually know where you are going.
And so we're going to do a little exercise right now.
And you can do this in your head, but like
I said, it works better if you write it down.
I want you to imagine three possible versions of your
future self, not career titles, but actual lived experiences, what
(06:24):
your days look like and how you feel going through
that day. So the version one is your safe self.
This is the version of you that plays it smart.
You stay in the lane, you take the secure path
that feels the most comfortable. Maybe you stay in the
job that you're in right now, or you pick something
stable and predictable. Really, picture it five years from now.
What does a Tuesday look like for this version of you,
(06:46):
where do you live, who you with, how do you
feel when you wake up? The second version is your
bold self. This is a version that takes that leave,
that does the scary thing, that starts the business you've
been thinking about, that makes the move, and you essentially
change everything. What does that use they look like? What
are the risks, what are the rewards? How does this
(07:07):
version of you feel in their body? Who does it include?
Who does it not include? And then version three is
your comfortable self. This is different from safe, but this
is the version of you that prioritizes ease, flexibility, low stress.
Maybe it's less ambitious, but definitely more peaceful for you,
more time, more space. And so what does that feel like?
(07:27):
What did you have to trade in to actually get
this feeling of more peace? What did you gain? And
what did you feel like you lost if you ended
up living that life. So, after imagining all three, here
are the key questions that you need to ask yourself.
Which one feels more expensive, like your chest opens up,
like something in you says yes, I feel so good
about this. Which one feels like contraction, tightness in your chest, obligation,
(07:52):
the feeling of I guess I should be doing this,
and which one feels like relief, not excitement necessarily, but
just ease and pe and calmness in your body. While
you're going through that, pay attention how is your body feeling?
It often knows before your mind does. And here's something
I found for myself. The version that scares you and
excites you is usually the one that matters the most.
(08:14):
Your fear and desire often live in the same place.
And if something makes you feel nervous but you can't
stop thinking about it, there might be something there. In
my own experience, the safe path never makes you really
feel lost, but the unlived path definitely does. This idea
of potential, this idea of what if, this idea of
fulfilling your desires or the thoughts or the dreams that
(08:35):
you have. So now, through answering those questions, eventually you
should have some clarity on what's missing, and you started
imagining all these possible futures that you could be living.
And the problem is sometimes we just jump straight into
job titles. Should I be a writer because of this?
Should I be a therapist? Should I start a business?
Should I be going back to school? And I actually
think those are the wrong questions to be asking, at
(08:56):
least at first, because what's more important are your values,
and when you clarify your values, you can make much cleaner,
more conscious decisions. And values are not goals. Goals are outcomes.
They're the things that you achieve and you check off.
But values are directions. They give you an insight into
who you are and whether the things that you want
to do actually align with you. They are what dictate
(09:17):
how you move through life. So let me give you
an example. Becoming a lawyer is a goal, but why
someone becomes a lawyer could be totally different values. One
person might want justice, they want to fight for people
who don't have power. Another person wants security, they want
a prestigious, stable career with a good paycheck. Someone else
might choose it because they want an intellectual challenge. They
love arguing and researching and fixing problems. Same job title,
(09:41):
but with completely different values driving it. And that matters
because if you don't know your values, you will end
up chasing goals that look right but feel really wrong.
So you'll end up landing a job and still feel
really empty because the values underneath do not match yours.
So what I want you to do next is I'm
going to list ten values and notice which one calls
at you, which one feels like non negotiables. These are
(10:03):
ten core values that most of us lean towards freedom, security, creativity, impact, recognition, stability, adventure, contribution, mastery,
or community. So take a look through them, think about
what they mean for you, and then decide what your
(10:25):
top three are. Now what sounds good, Not what you
think you should value, not what other people around you value,
but what actually drives you when you're really being honest
with yourself, and none of better than the other. They
just give you a clear indication of what you value
and what you're going to thrive by following, or doing
or considering in your life. And then ask yourself, does
my current path honor these top three? How I live
(10:47):
my life on a daily basis the job that I'm doing,
the people I surround myself with, am I creating a
life that allows me to keep those core values in
the center. If yes, you probably don't need a career change,
but maybe you need an environment change of role shift
different people around you. If it's no, then you know
that something feels off. So instead of asking yourself, what
(11:09):
job should I have ask yourself what do I want
my days to feel like? Don't want them to be
fast paced, calm, structured, flexible, independent or collaborative, creative or analytical.
And I think we all trained from a young age
the first question answered what do you want to be
when you're older. It's a conditioning that runs deep. We
think of career before we think about how it's going
to make us feel or how we want to feel
(11:30):
in our life, and so there is a reconditioning that
has to happen a new way of thinking when you
start having these moments in life. Rather than thinking of
what career am I switching to, it's really about what
am I trying to feel? From that. What you're doing
is you are clarifying the lifestyle you want before you
decide on the title that you want. When you figure
out how you want to live, the what gets so
(11:51):
much easier to figure out. So now you have a
sense of what's missing, whether it's autonomy or competence or relatedness.
You have a vision of your possible future selves, and
I'm sure one of them you will pulled to more
than the others. You have clarity on what your core
values are, and now is the time you make decisions
in your life. And most people store this. They wait,
(12:12):
they over think, they try to figure it all out
in their head before making any moves. But the thing is,
when it comes to decision making, action creates clarity and
not the other way around. You don't think your way
into knowing what you want. You experiment your way there.
And so I want to introduce you to my next concept,
which is little micro experiments. Instead of saying I'm going
to change my whole entire life, which is absolutely terrifying
(12:35):
and really vague, you say I'm going to test this
one thing for thirty to sixty days. It has low stakes,
but you get a lot of information from it. Le
we say, we talked to a family member a lot,
and she's really unhappy in her job. She's been saying
it for years and years, and she has this idea,
this really incredible idea of a business she wants to start. Now.
Her first in thing was maybe I should just quit
(12:55):
and really throw myself into it, And instead I said, well,
why don't you create it as a side hustle on
the side, Why don't you go to courses that teach
you about what this job actually entails what it will
take to actually create this business, what it will look like.
Why don't you start creating designs for the things that
you want to create and start envisioning what that looks
like for you. Having that on the side of what
(13:18):
you're doing is a much safer way to do something
than just quitting everything and jumping into the next thing,
especially if you haven't really thought it out properly. So
if you think about starting a business, don't quit your job.
Start a tiny side project for sixty to ninety days
and see how it feels to work on it. If
you want to know if you'll be happier in a
different city, you don't need to move there permanently spend
a month there. If you can work remotely, actually live it.
(13:39):
If you're curious about exploring a different career path, you
don't need to go back to school just yet. Find
someone in that field and shadow them for a day,
ask them questions, interview them, really understand what it involves.
Use your connections to speak to people. And I think
this is really important because we forget that we have
such a huge community around us. We have friends who
(14:01):
know people, we have family members who might be able
to help us, And this is not the time to
get shy or let your ego get in the way
because you're worried about being a beginner or asking people
for advice or help. There's actually never a good time
to feel like that. I think we really hold ourselves
back when it comes to these big decisions by not
engaging people in our life to help us, by not
(14:24):
inquiring and asking questions and asking people to connect us
with others. The worst thing that could happen is they
say no and you can google it instead. But ideally,
what you want is a real life experience, and so
we rob ourselves of that sometimes based on our ego
or judgment from other people, thinking of how they'll perceive
us if we're going into this specific job, or what
(14:47):
they would think of us. But really that just holds
us back. The worst thing that can happen is you
can get a know and you move on to the
next thing. So all these little micro experiments really work
because they lower the pressure, you know, deciding your whole
tire future straight away. You're just gathering data and information
and getting a glimpse of what it looks like. They
create real information, not this hypothetical dream or vision that
(15:10):
you've got in your mind, and they build momentum because
when you take a little step towards something, it creates
this idea of possibility of what can be. Or sometimes
something really unexpected lights you up and it takes you
a completely different trajectory. You cannot know until you try.
If you take anything away from this, pick one thing
that you've been curious about. Design a small experiment. What
(15:32):
could you try for thirty to sixty days that would
give you real information on a dream or a desire
that you have, and then set a review date for yourself.
At the end of the experiment, ask yourself, did this
energize me? Did this drain me? Do I want more
of this? Or do I want to stop this right now?
Am I fascinated by this? Or am I board of
it already? And then you run another experiment and another experiment,
(15:52):
and eventually you should be gaining some clarity based on
the information that you're gathering. And this is really how
I built for myself a life that I wanted to
part it in, and I did everything from yoga teacher training,
I went back to study. I experimented with things online
where I was just sharing recipes where I was sharing
the things I was learning. A lot of it worked,
(16:13):
a lot of it didn't. I had to experiment with
the way that I was communicating, whether I wanted to
put myself on screen or not, whether I wanted to
become a teacher in something like. There were so many
things that I explored and I spoke to people. I
asked them what they're doing, I asked them how it
impacted their life. I asked them how they feel every
single day doing that job. These little tests they really
(16:35):
compound over time and they just give you more and
more information to base the decision on. Okay, so I
feel like I've thrown a lot at you in this podcast,
but it's definitely one to keep coming back to, or
at least writing down these questions and answering them in
your own time. But I'm going to simplify everything into
three questions that you can come back to whenever you
feel stuck. However many times you get stuck in life,
(16:56):
which for me has been many, These are some questions
that have really helped me to clarify. The first one
is what energizes me without external validation. I think we're
used to getting a lot of making a lot of
our decisions based on other people's view of us. But
what you have to try and figure out is what
lights me up, what energizes me without other people's validation involved.
(17:16):
There's so much research to show that we are so
much more fulfilled in life when we pursue goals that
are meaningful to us, not because they impress people, not
because they make money, not because they're expected. And so
asking yourself, if nobody was to ever know that I
did this thing, would I still want to do it?
The second question is which version of my future self
feels really expansive rather than safe. Usually there is a
(17:39):
path that makes you feel nervous but will not leave
your mind, and that's usually the one that matters the most.
Safe choices rarely cause existential confusion or questions. But I
think it's those unlived possibilities that do create these moments
of lost feeling in life. And the third question is
does this path give me autonomy, growth, and connection. If
(18:00):
a path checks all three boxes, you'll probably thrive in it.
If one or more is missing, you will eventually feel
like there's a gap, no matter how successful you are
on paper. So I hope I really do. Hope that
these questions gave you as much clarity as they've given
me in my life. Let me know if you try them,
let me know if it helps you to make a
decision that you've been wondering about, and give me some tips.
(18:22):
I would love to hear from you what has helped
you or things that you've tried in your life where
you've taken that leap through answering these questions and how
it ended up for you. But thank you so much
for listening, and hope you have a really wonderful day.
Let me start with what's actually happening when you feel lost,
because if you don't know where you are, it's hard
to know where you want to get to or how
to get out of it. I'm Raley d Wlukiah and
on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the
messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw and
fields of conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to
tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone,
(00:22):
and welcome back to this week's episode of A Really
Good Cry. Today, I wanted to share something that I
went through myself, and I created this, well, not a system,
but tried an error of so many things to try
and help me to figure out what it was that
I wanted to do in life in a time when
I was the most lost, whether it's your career, whether
it's just figuring out what my purpose is in this
(00:45):
world and how I'm supposed to navigate life and what
I'm meant to be doing. These tools and techniques that
I'm going to be sharing with you are things that
helped me immensely. And I go through this quite often,
to be honest, more often than I probably should have
sudden confusion about what is it I'm supposed to be
doing right now? And am I doing the right thing?
And I think it's really important to actually have that
(01:07):
regularly in life, to make sure that you are on track,
to make sure that you are doing what you love doing,
doing things in your life that make you happy, that
make you feel content, and to feel like you're on
the right path. I think feeling lost can be a
really difficult feeling to navigate. And I read this quote
that said, what if you're actually not confused about what
you want? What if you're just craving something your current
(01:27):
life isn't giving you. And I was thinking about that,
and I realized that maybe feeling stuck about what you
want to do in life may not actually be confusion
at ll. Maybe it's something much simpler and something more fixable.
And I think most things in life are like that.
When you end up creating this big idea of feeling lost,
it feels so vast, it feels like so difficult to navigate,
(01:49):
But actually if you try and break it down, most things,
when you break it down into smaller bits, smaller chunks,
and you really think about what you want to feel
and work backwards. Often it can feel a lot SMA,
and I don't want you to have to go through that.
I've already been through it, so I thought, let me
share the things that I've done to help me through it,
so you don't have to navigate it yourself or go
(02:09):
through as much trial and error as I did. So
today I'm going to share some research backs and also
experience backs frameworks that completely changed how I thought about
this question. And these frameworks and questions have really helped
me to decipher life the work that I should be
doing every single time. I actually think most of the
time when we say we don't know what we want,
we do know what we want, we just don't know
(02:30):
how to get there, or we're just missing something in
our current life that's making everything else feel really foggy.
So hopefully, by the end of this episode, I'm really
really hoping that you'll be well on your way to
understanding exactly what that is and have a clearer path forward.
So let's get into it. Let me start with what's
actually happening when you feel lost, Because if you don't
know where you are, it's hard to know where you
(02:51):
want to get to or how to get out of it.
So when people are lost, I think they feel like
they have a direction problem, like somewhere out there there
is this perfect career, this perfect calling, and they just
can't find it. But I actually came across this theory.
It was by these two scientists called Edward Decci and
Richard Ryan, and they developed this theory called the self
determination theory, and they said that humans thrive when three
(03:13):
core psychological needs are met. And the first one is autonomy.
You feel like you have choice and you're steering your
own life. The second one is competence. You feel capable,
like you're growing and getting better at things that matter
to you. And the third one is related this, you
feel connected, like you belong somewhere, like people really see you.
So what they're saying is it's not that you don't
(03:33):
know what you want. It's that something fundamental is missing
right now in your life and that emptiness is clouding everything. So,
for example, if you feel trapped in your job, like
you're just going through the motions, like someone else is
writing the script for your life, that's an autonomy problem
because you don't feel like you've got a grasp on
your own life. You don't feel like you have a choice.
If you feel stagnant or bored, like you've stopped growing,
(03:55):
like your skills aren't being used, that's a competence problem.
If you feel alone in your past, like nobody gets it,
like you're disconnected from the people around you, that's a
relatedness problem. And so here's the first question that I
asked myself, and I want you to sit with. Which
of these three feels most empty for you right now?
Is it autonomy, not being able to make your own decisions,
(04:17):
is it competence, or is it relatedness? You feel lonely,
you feel like you're not understood in this world. And
when you identify that real gap, you can stop asking
the question of what should I do in my life
and start asking what would help me feel more free,
or more challenged or more connected. That feels like a
much easier to answer question than some of the bigger
questions that we ask. And so starting with that, which
(04:37):
one of these feels like it's missing in my life
or feels a little bit empty in my life? And
I really recommend sitting with these questions for a long
period of time. I know you're listening to them right
now as you go through the podcast episode. But I
also think writing them down and coming back to them
over and over again until you feel like you've really
thought about them, until you feel like you've written out
(04:58):
as much as you possibly can on each question, will
be really useful to you because it will help you
to realize what your mind is feeling, thinking, what it's
fearful of. So much will come out of it if
you really give enough time and energy to answer them.
So now you have a diagnostic tool and you understand
what might actually be missing through answering that question, but
you still need direction. You need to figure out where
(05:18):
to actually point your energy. Once you figured out this
is what's missing, what do I now do with that information?
And for that I want to share research on this
other theory called the possible selves theory, and the core
idea of that is that we make decisions based on
the future versions of ourselves that we can imagine. If
you have this visual or you know exactly where you're going,
(05:38):
all the type of life that you can envision for yourself,
it makes it easier to make day to day decisions
deciding on whether this is taking me towards that or
away from it. You can take more consistent action, and
you can feel more pulled forward in the right direction
rather than feel like you're making choices in the dark.
So if your future self is blurry, you feel stuck.
You don't know what choices feel right for you or
wrong for you. It's almost like getting into an uber
(06:01):
and the driver says, give me directions to your destination,
but you actually don't know where you're going. How would
you know what roads to take or the bridges to
cross if you don't actually know where you are going.
And so we're going to do a little exercise right now.
And you can do this in your head, but like
I said, it works better if you write it down.
I want you to imagine three possible versions of your
future self, not career titles, but actual lived experiences, what
(06:24):
your days look like and how you feel going through
that day. So the version one is your safe self.
This is the version of you that plays it smart.
You stay in the lane, you take the secure path
that feels the most comfortable. Maybe you stay in the
job that you're in right now, or you pick something
stable and predictable. Really, picture it five years from now.
What does a Tuesday look like for this version of you,
(06:46):
where do you live, who you with, how do you
feel when you wake up? The second version is your
bold self. This is a version that takes that leave,
that does the scary thing, that starts the business you've
been thinking about, that makes the move, and you essentially
change everything. What does that use they look like? What
are the risks, what are the rewards? How does this
(07:07):
version of you feel in their body? Who does it include?
Who does it not include? And then version three is
your comfortable self. This is different from safe, but this
is the version of you that prioritizes ease, flexibility, low stress.
Maybe it's less ambitious, but definitely more peaceful for you,
more time, more space. And so what does that feel like?
(07:27):
What did you have to trade in to actually get
this feeling of more peace? What did you gain? And
what did you feel like you lost if you ended
up living that life. So, after imagining all three, here
are the key questions that you need to ask yourself.
Which one feels more expensive, like your chest opens up,
like something in you says yes, I feel so good
about this. Which one feels like contraction, tightness in your chest, obligation,
(07:52):
the feeling of I guess I should be doing this,
and which one feels like relief, not excitement necessarily, but
just ease and pe and calmness in your body. While
you're going through that, pay attention how is your body feeling?
It often knows before your mind does. And here's something
I found for myself. The version that scares you and
excites you is usually the one that matters the most.
(08:14):
Your fear and desire often live in the same place.
And if something makes you feel nervous but you can't
stop thinking about it, there might be something there. In
my own experience, the safe path never makes you really
feel lost, but the unlived path definitely does. This idea
of potential, this idea of what if, this idea of
fulfilling your desires or the thoughts or the dreams that
(08:35):
you have. So now, through answering those questions, eventually you
should have some clarity on what's missing, and you started
imagining all these possible futures that you could be living.
And the problem is sometimes we just jump straight into
job titles. Should I be a writer because of this?
Should I be a therapist? Should I start a business?
Should I be going back to school? And I actually
think those are the wrong questions to be asking, at
(08:56):
least at first, because what's more important are your values,
and when you clarify your values, you can make much cleaner,
more conscious decisions. And values are not goals. Goals are outcomes.
They're the things that you achieve and you check off.
But values are directions. They give you an insight into
who you are and whether the things that you want
to do actually align with you. They are what dictate
(09:17):
how you move through life. So let me give you
an example. Becoming a lawyer is a goal, but why
someone becomes a lawyer could be totally different values. One
person might want justice, they want to fight for people
who don't have power. Another person wants security, they want
a prestigious, stable career with a good paycheck. Someone else
might choose it because they want an intellectual challenge. They
love arguing and researching and fixing problems. Same job title,
(09:41):
but with completely different values driving it. And that matters
because if you don't know your values, you will end
up chasing goals that look right but feel really wrong.
So you'll end up landing a job and still feel
really empty because the values underneath do not match yours.
So what I want you to do next is I'm
going to list ten values and notice which one calls
at you, which one feels like non negotiables. These are
(10:03):
ten core values that most of us lean towards freedom, security, creativity, impact, recognition, stability, adventure, contribution, mastery,
or community. So take a look through them, think about
what they mean for you, and then decide what your
(10:25):
top three are. Now what sounds good, Not what you
think you should value, not what other people around you value,
but what actually drives you when you're really being honest
with yourself, and none of better than the other. They
just give you a clear indication of what you value
and what you're going to thrive by following, or doing
or considering in your life. And then ask yourself, does
my current path honor these top three? How I live
(10:47):
my life on a daily basis the job that I'm doing,
the people I surround myself with, am I creating a
life that allows me to keep those core values in
the center. If yes, you probably don't need a career change,
but maybe you need an environment change of role shift
different people around you. If it's no, then you know
that something feels off. So instead of asking yourself, what
(11:09):
job should I have ask yourself what do I want
my days to feel like? Don't want them to be
fast paced, calm, structured, flexible, independent or collaborative, creative or analytical.
And I think we all trained from a young age
the first question answered what do you want to be
when you're older. It's a conditioning that runs deep. We
think of career before we think about how it's going
to make us feel or how we want to feel
(11:30):
in our life, and so there is a reconditioning that
has to happen a new way of thinking when you
start having these moments in life. Rather than thinking of
what career am I switching to, it's really about what
am I trying to feel? From that. What you're doing
is you are clarifying the lifestyle you want before you
decide on the title that you want. When you figure
out how you want to live, the what gets so
(11:51):
much easier to figure out. So now you have a
sense of what's missing, whether it's autonomy or competence or relatedness.
You have a vision of your possible future selves, and
I'm sure one of them you will pulled to more
than the others. You have clarity on what your core
values are, and now is the time you make decisions
in your life. And most people store this. They wait,
(12:12):
they over think, they try to figure it all out
in their head before making any moves. But the thing is,
when it comes to decision making, action creates clarity and
not the other way around. You don't think your way
into knowing what you want. You experiment your way there.
And so I want to introduce you to my next concept,
which is little micro experiments. Instead of saying I'm going
to change my whole entire life, which is absolutely terrifying
(12:35):
and really vague, you say I'm going to test this
one thing for thirty to sixty days. It has low stakes,
but you get a lot of information from it. Le
we say, we talked to a family member a lot,
and she's really unhappy in her job. She's been saying
it for years and years, and she has this idea,
this really incredible idea of a business she wants to start. Now.
Her first in thing was maybe I should just quit
(12:55):
and really throw myself into it, And instead I said, well,
why don't you create it as a side hustle on
the side, Why don't you go to courses that teach
you about what this job actually entails what it will
take to actually create this business, what it will look like.
Why don't you start creating designs for the things that
you want to create and start envisioning what that looks
like for you. Having that on the side of what
(13:18):
you're doing is a much safer way to do something
than just quitting everything and jumping into the next thing,
especially if you haven't really thought it out properly. So
if you think about starting a business, don't quit your job.
Start a tiny side project for sixty to ninety days
and see how it feels to work on it. If
you want to know if you'll be happier in a
different city, you don't need to move there permanently spend
a month there. If you can work remotely, actually live it.
(13:39):
If you're curious about exploring a different career path, you
don't need to go back to school just yet. Find
someone in that field and shadow them for a day,
ask them questions, interview them, really understand what it involves.
Use your connections to speak to people. And I think
this is really important because we forget that we have
such a huge community around us. We have friends who
(14:01):
know people, we have family members who might be able
to help us, And this is not the time to
get shy or let your ego get in the way
because you're worried about being a beginner or asking people
for advice or help. There's actually never a good time
to feel like that. I think we really hold ourselves
back when it comes to these big decisions by not
engaging people in our life to help us, by not
(14:24):
inquiring and asking questions and asking people to connect us
with others. The worst thing that could happen is they
say no and you can google it instead. But ideally,
what you want is a real life experience, and so
we rob ourselves of that sometimes based on our ego
or judgment from other people, thinking of how they'll perceive
us if we're going into this specific job, or what
(14:47):
they would think of us. But really that just holds
us back. The worst thing that can happen is you
can get a know and you move on to the
next thing. So all these little micro experiments really work
because they lower the pressure, you know, deciding your whole
tire future straight away. You're just gathering data and information
and getting a glimpse of what it looks like. They
create real information, not this hypothetical dream or vision that
(15:10):
you've got in your mind, and they build momentum because
when you take a little step towards something, it creates
this idea of possibility of what can be. Or sometimes
something really unexpected lights you up and it takes you
a completely different trajectory. You cannot know until you try.
If you take anything away from this, pick one thing
that you've been curious about. Design a small experiment. What
(15:32):
could you try for thirty to sixty days that would
give you real information on a dream or a desire
that you have, and then set a review date for yourself.
At the end of the experiment, ask yourself, did this
energize me? Did this drain me? Do I want more
of this? Or do I want to stop this right now?
Am I fascinated by this? Or am I board of
it already? And then you run another experiment and another experiment,
(15:52):
and eventually you should be gaining some clarity based on
the information that you're gathering. And this is really how
I built for myself a life that I wanted to
part it in, and I did everything from yoga teacher training,
I went back to study. I experimented with things online
where I was just sharing recipes where I was sharing
the things I was learning. A lot of it worked,
(16:13):
a lot of it didn't. I had to experiment with
the way that I was communicating, whether I wanted to
put myself on screen or not, whether I wanted to
become a teacher in something like. There were so many
things that I explored and I spoke to people. I
asked them what they're doing, I asked them how it
impacted their life. I asked them how they feel every
single day doing that job. These little tests they really
(16:35):
compound over time and they just give you more and
more information to base the decision on. Okay, so I
feel like I've thrown a lot at you in this podcast,
but it's definitely one to keep coming back to, or
at least writing down these questions and answering them in
your own time. But I'm going to simplify everything into
three questions that you can come back to whenever you
feel stuck. However many times you get stuck in life,
(16:56):
which for me has been many, These are some questions
that have really helped me to clarify. The first one
is what energizes me without external validation. I think we're
used to getting a lot of making a lot of
our decisions based on other people's view of us. But
what you have to try and figure out is what
lights me up, what energizes me without other people's validation involved.
(17:16):
There's so much research to show that we are so
much more fulfilled in life when we pursue goals that
are meaningful to us, not because they impress people, not
because they make money, not because they're expected. And so
asking yourself, if nobody was to ever know that I
did this thing, would I still want to do it?
The second question is which version of my future self
feels really expansive rather than safe. Usually there is a
(17:39):
path that makes you feel nervous but will not leave
your mind, and that's usually the one that matters the most.
Safe choices rarely cause existential confusion or questions. But I
think it's those unlived possibilities that do create these moments
of lost feeling in life. And the third question is
does this path give me autonomy, growth, and connection. If
(18:00):
a path checks all three boxes, you'll probably thrive in it.
If one or more is missing, you will eventually feel
like there's a gap, no matter how successful you are
on paper. So I hope I really do. Hope that
these questions gave you as much clarity as they've given
me in my life. Let me know if you try them,
let me know if it helps you to make a
decision that you've been wondering about, and give me some tips.
(18:22):
I would love to hear from you what has helped
you or things that you've tried in your life where
you've taken that leap through answering these questions and how
it ended up for you. But thank you so much
for listening, and hope you have a really wonderful day.
Host
Radhi Devlukia
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