This blog comes with a worksheet to help you find your goals, passions and purpose.

When I speak to friends or family about this website, we often talk about ‘reaching goals’, ‘following a passion’ or ‘finding a purpose’. On the regular, we share what we love about life and how we see our future. But sometimes, it happens that the person I’m speaking to cannot really relate when they hear the words goal, passion or purpose. I can see in their faces that they don’t know what to answer when I ask them about their dreams for this year, or things they want to work on.

Sometimes they say ‘I don’t have a passion for anything’ or ‘what do you mean by “goals”?’. Of course, it’s completely fine to not strive for anything and simply be content with your life. But I suspect that in many cases, something else is actually going on. So what could be the reason you don’t have any goals, passions or purpose? These are some options.

You’re unfamiliar with the used lexicon

Sometimes, when I give people examples of what I call ‘goals’, ‘passions, or ‘a purpose’, it’s the first time people learn or think about the extent of these things. We often think way too big. We are used to calling something like ‘becoming a millionaire’ a goal. We think of passion as something only a professional athlete has. And we associate purpose with something that has to be really special, and reaches a lot of people or changes the world.

But a goal can also be just to read every day. A passion can be drawing, cooking, or being social. A purpose can be: spreading kindness among the people around me. Or: teaching kids English one day. You don’t have to do magic here. You also don’t have to focus on one thing only. Start small, be easy on definitions, and I’m sure you can find a goal, passion or purpose you can identify with.

You’re scared to disappoint yourself

Another reason people are reluctant to set goals is because of a similar experience we have with new years-resolutions. We don’t want to admit (to ourselves or others) that we want certain things, because we are afraid we won’t follow through, and will just disappoint ourselves again. Or we’re scared that if we follow through, things just won’t work out (the rest of the world doesn’t play along) anyway.

If this is something you think you’re doing, realise that not reaching a goal or not following through is not worse than not setting goals at all. If you don’t try, you won’t get what you want either. Yet if you try but fail – don’t matter, try again later. It’s only one disappointing moment and not the end of the world. Besides, you can’t lose something you’ve never had, so don’t let your fear of disappointment hold you back. Your dreams are supposed to feel like they are hard to reach – otherwise you wouldn’t have to put any effort in at all. Some people even say: if your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.

Another trick is to start with small steps, and start keeping small promises you made to yourself. Once you see yourself following through on these small promises, you’ll have more faith in yourself and will be less scared to disappoint yourself again in the future.

You want few and simple things

Some people never set any goals, follow any passion or never have any purpose simply because what they want, doesn’t take effort. Or: they already have what they want. These people are often very easy-going, don’t really stress on many things, and find happiness and joy in the smaller things in life. They only need a few simple things to be happy, and they already have these things, or are likely to get them in the near future without any effort.

These people are completely content, which is why they seemingly have no goals, passions or purpose. If this is truly your nature – this is completely fine and I’m even a little bit jealous of you. If, however, you claim to be this personality, while in fact you’re struggling to hide the situation in the previous paragraph, you’re simply falling yourself short and deserve better.

You don’t believe you have any power (or don’t want to)

The last reason I can think of for not having any goals, passions or purpose, is because you simply don’t believe in or like the theory of goal-setting, striving for something, or having a plan for the future. Maybe you don’t believe in free will, or maybe you don’t believe that you can have any effect on how your life plays out. Maybe you believe in a higher entity who has the final say (or should I say: all the say?) or you are a necessarian who believes life is pre-determined.

Or maybe you simply don’t like the idea of planning, challenging yourself, and keeping your own promises. That’s completely fine too. I am partly that person. I like to think that the universe has its own plan with my life, and I just have to (and like to!) go with the flow. However, I also believe that I have some choice in what my life looks like, and I how I feel about this plan of the universe and how I react to it. There’s some balance there.

This is why I believe in journalling, meditation, manifestation and all that jazz. It’s also the reason why I started this website: to share that we at least have some say in what our life looks like, and probably even more than we often think.

What do you think about these reasons? Do you find it hard to think of your goals, passions or your purpose? Maybe my worksheet can help you out!

xx Coco

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