Get unstuck using these journal prompts
Most people lack clarity for the future and default to a life of discontentment as a result.
Without even realizing it, they end up living a life they never intended to live.
- Working an unfulfilling job
- Giving up on their dreams and aspirations
- Settling for comfort instead of living to their full potential
The solution to this is finding time for self-reflection.
Self-reflection leads to self-awareness. Self-awareness leads to the meaningful pursuit of solving your own problems.
And all of this can be done through journaling.
You will save yourself a life of regret by becoming aware of problems in your life before they spiral out of control.
Journaling (+ writing) allows you enough time notice these problems, actively work to solve them, and eventually learn to help others through similar struggles.
Self-improvement precedes others-improvement.
Seeking Discomfort: An Effective Way to Recognize Problems
Now we know that self-reflection is the missing piece to most people’s problems.
If you don’t know what you don’t want — how will you know what you do want?
And if you don’t spend time reflecting on where you are, where you’ve been, and where you want to go… how will you know if you’re on the right track?
I let 5 years slip by while working a 9-5 because I didn’t take the time to truly reflect on my (personal) discontentment with work.
Time flies when you’re comfortable.
The goal of journaling is to make yourself uncomfortable.
Sit with your thoughts.
Provoke your problems.
Discover what you don’t want.
And begin taking action towards the opposite direction.
When reflecting on my life three years ago, I realized how far “off path” I had gotten.
It wasn’t until I took some intentional time to sit down with a pen and paper to make this difficult realization.
For me, it was clear I didn’t want to work a 9-5 job for the rest of my life. It felt like every waking hour was consumed by something I didn’t even care about.
So, I needed to ask myself. “What’s a realistic way to escape the 9-5 and work on my own terms?”
The answer led me down the path of entrepreneurship.
I wasn’t inherently interested in starting my own business, but my desire for time and location freedom piqued my curiosity for it.
But still, I had so many questions:
- What business should I start?
- How long will this take?
- What am I good at?
And all of these wonders have led me down the rabbit hole of constantly learning new things and discovering what’s possible.
If I feel strongly enough about the negative effects of working an unfulfilling 9-5 job, it becomes my responsibility to find out how to sustain a one-person business that I’m stoked to wake up each day and work on.
This is why “passion” is not typically found… it’s created.
You must learn to become passionate about something by first discovering the things you dislike.
Only then can you find purpose in pursuing the opposing side of your discontentment.
Passion is found in the pursuit of something you genuinely care about.
Here’s what I wish I could tell myself three years ago:
You don’t have a purpose because you don’t have something to work towards. And you’re not passionate because you’re not working towards something you feel called to.
Taking action is easy when you have clarity.
Taking action is impossible when you don’t.
The Clarifying Questions (To Uncover Your Life’s Work)
These are the exact journal + writing prompts that I would use if I was feeling “stuck” in life with no clear direction on where to go next.
Within the past 6 months I’ve finally discovered the clarity that I had been seeking for years. And I’m so grateful for that.
Using questions similar to these, I was able to visualize a clear path that leads to my “ideal life” that serves others in an impactful way AND grants me the freedom to work on my own terms.
Stop seeking motivation (to do things you were assigned to do) and start seeking clarity for your own vision.
This is the only way to find enduring passion and purpose in your work.
Take 10-15 minutes and answer these questions today or this week.
I strongly believe that reflecting on these questions every month will greatly benefit your present and future self:
Creating an anti-vision:
- What do I NOT want my life to look like?
- If I was living my ideal life, what would I do differently today?
- If I spent the next year doing what I did today, would I be getting closer to, or further from my ideal life?
Provoking your passion:
- What do you strongly dislike? What do you wish you could change about the way the world works?
- In what ways could you work towards solving this problem, starting on a smaller scale?
- What’s a realistic daily action that allows for progress towards this goal?
If you’re interested in more prompts like this, I do a deep dive on this subject in the Content Clarity Crash Course.
–Eric Pfohl