Mel Robbins argues that asking "What should I do with my life?" is the wrong question. Instead, try different things, notice what brings you joy, and pay attention to what feels natural. Purpose emerges through varied experiences and serving others, not through endless planning.
Chapters
If you're sitting there like a lot of us get to at various moments in our life, you're like, well, I'm not sure what I should do next, or I'm trying to reinvent myself, or I hate what I do, but I don't know what to do next. You, Carla, just laid out that a lot of us make a major mistake and we ask ourselves, well, what could I do? There's another layer to the could, which is, well, what should I be doing? And then the third one is, though, because you're saying, I want you to ask yourself not what you could, what you should, but what I want to do. You react— you went, should. You were like, oh.
When you said should, it hit me because that is a little bit of what I'm going to call the disease that I think millennials and Z-ers have right now. They are so preoccupied with what's my purpose? What should I be doing? And yesterday, just yesterday, a young man heard me speak and he caught me as I was walking out of the building. And he said, I'm really trying to work this out. Here's where I am in my life, you know, and what should I be doing now? And I laughed and I had the same reaction that I just had with you. And that is, I said, uh-uh, it's not what you should be doing. I don't want you to think about your purpose. I know you're thinking, because he clearly was a Zia. I said, I know you're thinking about your purpose now. But let me tell you, in my view, the way purpose is defined is by your collecting a lot of different experiences. And through those experiences, something's going to hit you and you're going to say, ah, but I like this. Well, let me get a little more of that. Well, I like this. And oh, by the way, I'm really good at it. And oh, by the way, it doesn't take a lot of effort. For me. I don't have to do a lot of prep. I don't have to invest. I don't have to take 5 courses. I kind of just can do this thing. There it is. And especially if you can do that thing in service of others, because I believe purpose is, is tied inextricably to what you're giving to other people, because that's how you get it. And you could see— I was so pleased, Mel, because you could see his eyes opened up and he's like, Oh, yeah. I can stop worrying about this thing. And everybody has power. And it is within your power. And I'm going to use your words to give yourself permission to do the thing, to spend an hour, a day, a week, a weekend on the beach, just thinking about what would bring you joy to get up every morning and go do.
