Feel like I've outgrown my current life purpose, but having trouble finding another

[Yarco]

I first did the Life Purpose Course 2-3 years back, and I've been pursuing that to great success so far.

But for months now it's felt like it's not really my purpose any more. I don't feel passionate about it, I don't feel like I'm having a greater contribution to the world and it's not fulfilling me.

It's not just drudgery or the normal level of resistance that comes and goes, I know what that feels like. I've put in time to master something and now I feel like I'm at the limit of what I can do to keep growing, and I want something different. I haven't put in 10,000 hours, but maybe about 4,000.

So I went back through the course to try and find a new life purpose. The problem is that most of my results came out the same. My top 3 values, signature strengths, ideal medium, high-consciousness virtue to build my career around all came out very similar to the last time.

What do I do in that case, where the course points me back toward what I'm already doing? I've tried finding other things I can do that fit the same values/strengths/etc but I'm blanking.

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Life Purpose: Summarizing information in an easy-to-digest format and empowering people to pursue their dreams.

My top 3 values are:

1. Contribution/Impact/Significance

2. Health/Vigor/Energy

3. Personal Growth/Development/Self-Actualization/Self Improvement

My 3 signature strengths are:

1. Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness

2. Perspective wisdom

3. Love of learning

The high-consciousness virtue I want to build my career around is: Richness: complexity, intricacy, depth, differentiation

Ideal medium: Writing, blogs, courses, video

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Currently I'm a freelance writer. I write blogs/articles for other people to earn a living, and then I've also been creating a couple blogs/websites of my own on the side, with the hopes that I eventually get enough passive income from those to pursue whatever I want.

My websites are doing just okay... one has 4,600 views in the past month, the other has 2,200. But I've only made a couple hundred bucks in ads and affiliate sales so far this year, basically it pays for the hosting and domains and not much else. It feels like nothing significant is happening, and even if I 10x the amount of content on my sites I'll only be making a couple hundred dollars per month.

Writing for other people is steady money but usually about topics that I'm not passionate about. I'm getting a one-time payment to help someone else get ahead, instead of setting up something more recurring for myself. Just trading my time for money. I've also hit a rate where it seems hard to find clients willing to pay above that much, like I can't advance any further. Honestly I don't know how these companies are paying me $100+ per blog and turning a profit, when I write the same quality and style of content on my own site but can't make a living from it.

I also tried to start a Youtube channel. I put up 45 videos so far (I was uploading regularly 3x a week) that I felt were providing useful information and answering questions people would search on a particular topic, but I've got 8 subscribers and less than 300 total views between all of them since May, so I feel a bit disheartened and pretty much gave up.

I started a webcomic recently on a whim, but I don't see that going anywhere.

I don't know where to go from here... except maybe starting another website on a different topic, or another Youtube channel... something I'm more passionate about right now... do it for a few months and see if it gets any traction... if not, repeat until I find something that sticks.

Funny enough, the thing that has probably always brought me the most satisfaction, the thing I keep doing even when I'm not getting paid for it, is answering questions or giving my opinion on Reddit or forums like this. But how the heck do I monetize that? Unless I make like an "Ask Amy" newspaper column type thing where I answer questions from random people. But I'm already offering lots of advice on specific topics through the things I've outlined above.

[UDT]

You need to innovate or niche down. 

Summarizing information on the internet is great, but you have to have a unique way of presenting the information. This cant be standard blog posts Im afraid. You need to innovate on that.

 

[Guest SirVladimir]

37 minutes ago, Yarco said:

I've also been creating a couple blogs/websites of my own on the side.

Okay. But then...

Quote

with the hopes that I eventually get enough passive income from those to pursue whatever I want.

Your life purpose is hidden in the last three words: whatever I want. A few general guiders I give to fellow humans: Let it be natural. Whatever purpose you are seeking you already are. You're not seeking a purpose of somebody else, of some future you. Whatever you seek is buried within you NOW. Otherwise you wouldn't be seeking it. You only think it's hidden from you. A masterful trick. But it's here! That's why you're seeking it. Because you already have it.  

You don't need a passive income, you need to fill your days with whatever your soul craves for. 

[Girzo]

Your purpose statement and choice of skills look GREAT. It seems like you have made a right fit for your talents.

I see two potential solutions to your problem.

The first would be to do something to ditch your freelance business which forces you to work on non-inspiring tasks, but how can you do that? Your own blog and YT are the steps in right direction, but they can't be succesful unless you do this one thing: learn marketing. Learn marketing real good, put as much of your free time as you can into mastering it. If this pursuit was a game of chess marketing would be the Queen. To win the game without it is close to impossible.

If vision of learning new skill that you might not particularly like looks daunting to you, there is another solution. Pursue a career at some conscious organization, like Mindvalley for example. Maybe start your own or find a business like Blinkist, but with a more conscious content. There are plenty of effective NGOs having an impact on the world that would make good use of your skills. Think-tanks, political organizations, B Corps, a lot of impactful job oppurtunities out there. To get them you need to network a lot, make yourself visible to the leaders of these organizations, attend conferences, join local structures of grassroots movements. Networking, networking, networking.

Either way, your real issue IMO is not having enough impact in your day-to-day job. I value impact highly and have been a freelancer, too, and I know it can't possibly satisfy this thirst.

[Yarco]

On 9/27/2020 at 5:13 PM, SirVladimir said:

Your life purpose is hidden in the last three words: whatever I want. 

This I think is very helpful and pointing me back in the right direction, thanks. It seems silly to do things to set myself up in a position to do what I want in the future, instead of just doing what I want now.

However then the problem becomes... what do I want? I'm not sure what I would do every day if I had infinite money and everything that I wanted. There are times after I complete a big project and have no other work lined up, where I can do whatever I want for a month or two. But I just end up squandering it... browsing Reddit, watching Youtube for hours and hours at a time. Nothing that feels productive or meaningful. But there's also nothing I would rather be doing in those moments either.

When I do find some sense of purpose, it always seems temporary. I can never seem to do anything for long without wanting to jump to something else. I almost need a handful of projects on the go at any given time. That way I can switch from one to the other once I become bored of one.

Now the idea that my purpose is what I already am, what comes natural, that it's right under my nose, really has me questioning. Maybe it's something as simple as doing housework and cooking for my partner, and I'm just overlooking it because it's not very sexy or lofty.

Or maybe everything I'm doing is just a distraction and reason to avoid admitting that I don't really know what I want.

On 9/27/2020 at 6:29 PM, Girzo said:

Learn marketing real good, put as much of your free time as you can into mastering it. If this pursuit was a game of chess marketing would be the Queen. To win the game without it is close to impossible.

Do you have any specific marketing things that you would recommend? I feel like I already have a decent grasp of SEO, how to get web pages to rank at the top of Google search results. I've taken some internet marketing courses that cover those kinds of topics. 

Should I branch out into paid advertising like Facebook ads and stuff like that? Or is there some other marketing topic I'm overlooking?

I have considered trying to pivot into a business of doing full SEO for companies instead of just writing blogs/articles for them. I'm not sure if that would be more or less aligned with my life purpose compared to what I'm currently doing. Seems like a mostly sideways move, but might be a good way to branch out into new marketing stuff.

I'll follow up on your suggestion of working with more conscious organizations as well. I will try cold emailing some organizations that I would feel more passionate about working with, instead of just applying for what I find on job boards.

On 9/27/2020 at 6:29 PM, Girzo said:

Either way, your real issue IMO is not having enough impact in your day-to-day job. I value impact highly and have been a freelancer, too, and I know it can't possibly satisfy this thirst.

I agree with this assessment too. Part of me feels like I have unreasonably high levels of impact and contribution that I want to reach. Like I want Elon Musk levels of impact, I want my work to still be remembered several generations for now, and I'll never be satisfied with anything less. Not sure if that's just trying to overcompensate for something, how to overcome that feeling, or what. Other parts of me realize that's illogical, that I have a short finite life and I might as well enjoy every day while I'm here instead of wasting it trying to create some legacy. Hard to reconcile between the two.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Yarco

[Girzo]

4 hours ago, Yarco said:

Do you have any specific marketing things that you would recommend? I feel like I already have a decent grasp of SEO, how to get web pages to rank at the top of Google search results.

I wasn't thinking about technical skills like SEO, but marketing in a wider sense. What you do, who you do it for and how are you gonna reach them. I would start with reading Allan Dib's One Page Markering Plan to get some grasp what markefing fully entails.

[Hello from Russia]

You seem to have nailed down your medium and impact pretty neatly, but it seems what lacks is the project that will actually make the needle move and make you both financially on foot and pretty inspiring (can be a series of projects)

[Emerald]

On 9/27/2020 at 4:29 PM, Yarco said:

I first did the Life Purpose Course 2-3 years back, and I've been pursuing that to great success so far.

But for months now it's felt like it's not really my purpose any more. I don't feel passionate about it, I don't feel like I'm having a greater contribution to the world and it's not fulfilling me.

It's not just drudgery or the normal level of resistance that comes and goes, I know what that feels like. I've put in time to master something and now I feel like I'm at the limit of what I can do to keep growing, and I want something different. I haven't put in 10,000 hours, but maybe about 4,000.

So I went back through the course to try and find a new life purpose. The problem is that most of my results came out the same. My top 3 values, signature strengths, ideal medium, high-consciousness virtue to build my career around all came out very similar to the last time.

What do I do in that case, where the course points me back toward what I'm already doing? I've tried finding other things I can do that fit the same values/strengths/etc but I'm blanking.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Life Purpose: Summarizing information in an easy-to-digest format and empowering people to pursue their dreams.

My top 3 values are:

1. Contribution/Impact/Significance

2. Health/Vigor/Energy

3. Personal Growth/Development/Self-Actualization/Self Improvement

My 3 signature strengths are:

1. Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness

2. Perspective wisdom

3. Love of learning

The high-consciousness virtue I want to build my career around is: Richness: complexity, intricacy, depth, differentiation

Ideal medium: Writing, blogs, courses, video

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Currently I'm a freelance writer. I write blogs/articles for other people to earn a living, and then I've also been creating a couple blogs/websites of my own on the side, with the hopes that I eventually get enough passive income from those to pursue whatever I want.

My websites are doing just okay... one has 4,600 views in the past month, the other has 2,200. But I've only made a couple hundred bucks in ads and affiliate sales so far this year, basically it pays for the hosting and domains and not much else. It feels like nothing significant is happening, and even if I 10x the amount of content on my sites I'll only be making a couple hundred dollars per month.

Writing for other people is steady money but usually about topics that I'm not passionate about. I'm getting a one-time payment to help someone else get ahead, instead of setting up something more recurring for myself. Just trading my time for money. I've also hit a rate where it seems hard to find clients willing to pay above that much, like I can't advance any further. Honestly I don't know how these companies are paying me $100+ per blog and turning a profit, when I write the same quality and style of content on my own site but can't make a living from it.

I also tried to start a Youtube channel. I put up 45 videos so far (I was uploading regularly 3x a week) that I felt were providing useful information and answering questions people would search on a particular topic, but I've got 8 subscribers and less than 300 total views between all of them since May, so I feel a bit disheartened and pretty much gave up.

I started a webcomic recently on a whim, but I don't see that going anywhere.

I don't know where to go from here... except maybe starting another website on a different topic, or another Youtube channel... something I'm more passionate about right now... do it for a few months and see if it gets any traction... if not, repeat until I find something that sticks.

Funny enough, the thing that has probably always brought me the most satisfaction, the thing I keep doing even when I'm not getting paid for it, is answering questions or giving my opinion on Reddit or forums like this. But how the heck do I monetize that? Unless I make like an "Ask Amy" newspaper column type thing where I answer questions from random people. But I'm already offering lots of advice on specific topics through the things I've outlined above.

My guess is that you're just getting tired of this life-purpose because it's not really growing currently.

So, I recommend the following...

Optimize your YouTube uploads for search (tags, titles, description, and thumbnail). Look up videos on how to grow a YouTube channel. Once you know how, you'll probably be able to get views if your content is high quality and engaging. Also, be sure to brand your videos with a consistent and recognizable aesthetic, color scheme, and logo. These things will go a long way.

As far as income goes...

Create a 6-12 video digital course and offer it for $150+

You can even offer life-coaching if that's something you feel you have a strength with. Or you can offer your course for more ($600+) and have a weekly 1-2 hour Q&A session over zoom for everyone who paid for the program. Give them access to the weekly Q&A for 3-6 months.

Also...

You can create a free webinar and/or checklist to offer as a freebie, so that you can get people on your email list (you can set up a free Mailchimp account for this). Then, email them your blog posts or a couple times a month to share some valuable information.

But the main thing is to learn how to get traffic to your blog, your YouTube channel, and any other platforms you use. So, if I were in your position, I'd be doing some heavy duty research into SEO strategies and how to grow a following on any given social media platform.

***You can maybe even take down the videos you have, then re-upload them and re-do the thumbnail, retag it, put a description in with a ton of keywords, and retitle it. You want to optimize it for what phrases that people are already searching for. Then, you can post one video per week of the 45... one every Saturday or Sunday so that people get used to a consistent posting schedule. But only do this once you've made all your branding decisions and researched how to grow a YouTube channel!!!

 

 

 

 

 

[Girzo]

2 hours ago, Emerald said:

As far as income goes...

Create a 6-12 video digital course and offer it for $150+

You can even offer life-coaching if that's something you feel you have a strength with. Or you can offer your course for more ($600+) and have a weekly 1-2 hour Q&A session over zoom for everyone who paid for the program. Give them access to the weekly Q&A for 3-6 months.

Yeah, but to sell even a single copy of any info product you need to craft an amazing story and somehow get them eyeballs on it. That's marketing too.

@Yarco Example how it works: There's a guy named Rob O'Rourke who posted his journey to become a web designer on popular internet forum about making money. It was an exceptionally honest story, quickly gathered attention of users of that forum, which resulted in him creating a few internet courses on how to become web designer yourself. He is now trying to grow his youtube channel.

Or look at @Emerald here, I bet she got a few clients from this forum, heh.

That's a process I would try to replicate if I were you, in a niche you like and on a platform you like, reddit, forums, etc.

Basically, you are looking for an answer to the question you have asked yourself, "Honestly I don't know how these companies are paying me $100+ per blog and turning a profit, when I write the same quality and style of content on my own site but can't make a living from it.". This puzzle you have to solve.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Girzo