What Should You Do When You Feel Lost? 7 Ways to Reignite Your Purpose Without Having It All Figured Out
You were never meant to have it all together. If you feel disconnected from your purpose, exhausted, anxious, uncertain, you’re not broken; you’re at a crossroads, and this place often holds the beginning of your return.
I’ve been there. After surviving a house fire in my early twenties, I lost everything. No insurance, no savings, just a futon in a chaotic apartment that never slept, surrounded by noise and people who didn’t see me. One night I climbed to the roof, stared into the sky, and whispered for help. No bolt of lightning came, but something quieter did: a nudge to return to what I loved. I grabbed a pen and wrote down every single thing that brought me joy. Every noun. That list became the spark that pulled me forward.
Seven reminders follow for when you feel lost, counted down to the one that surprised me most, with a personal story near the end that just might shift everything for you. If the fog you’re in feels more like loneliness, my article on finding connection keeps good company too. Wondering how a reading fits into a lost season?
The full picture waits at what to expect from a session, and my email list gets the rooftop-honest reflections and open booking spots before anyone else.
7. What If Purpose Isn’t Loud?
Some callings arrive as whispers with excellent timing.
You don’t have to change the world to live meaningfully. Sometimes purpose is in how you listen, or how you show up for someone in silence. It’s not always a calling; sometimes it’s a whisper, and whispers require a quieter life to hear.
The Japanese concept of ikigai makes the same case from another shore: a reason for being can be as small as morning coffee poured for someone you love, an idea Positive Psychology’s guide to ikigai unpacks beautifully.
6. Are You in a Season or a Failure?
Winter isn’t the garden giving up. Ask any root.
Life moves in cycles, not straight lines. In tarot readings, I often sense what season someone is in: a time for planting new ideas, nurturing quiet growth, or simply resting below the surface. More than that, I can often sense which seeds of inspiration are ideal for you to plant in this exact phase, and how to care for them so they grow into your own personal spring.
Not every moment is for blooming; some seasons are for rooting, and yours is still unfolding.
If you’ve been wrestling with the big question of why am I here?, BetterUp’s deep dive into finding purpose examines how people actually find it in real life, not just in theory.
5. When Are You Allowed to Pivot?
A baby book, a wrench-operated shower, and a resume with skulls on it.
While everyone around me seemed to be finding their path, I was biking between jobs and living in a sectioned-off upper landing of a staircase in an old, haunted house. The place was so run-down and pest-infested that the only way to turn on the shower was with a wrench. Still reeling from the fire that took everything I owned, I had no direction and no plan, just survival mode.
Then something unexpected shifted everything. My mom sent me a baby book, and flipping through it, I noticed I was always smiling whenever I placed something on someone’s head. That moment hit like a lightning bolt: hairdressing. I applied at a salon using skulls as bullet points on my resume and Old English font for my name. They hired me, and eventually the owner even loaned me money to help cover my tuition.
Your purpose often reveals itself through small signs, ones you can only hear when you stop searching for perfection.
My reflection on navigating career change might speak to you here, and Calm’s guide to finding purpose explores how stillness gently reconnects you with what matters; the quietest approach is often the most powerful.
4. Do You Need to Prove You’re Worthy of Love?
No. Next question.
This life isn’t meant to break you. It’s here to teach you how to love and be loved, without conditions or expectations, and you deserve love simply because you exist.
Even in the hardest moments, a deeper current of strength runs through you, one that has already weathered so much. Take heart: the storms pass, and what’s real within you endures. You are enough, just as you are, flaws and all.
3. Is Sensitivity Actually Weakness?
Feeling deeply means you’re awake, not fragile.
The most intuitive people often feel the heaviest. That doesn’t mean you’re fragile; it means you’re awake. Feeling deeply is not a flaw but a gift that lets you perceive what others miss, and only showing strength all the time can cut you off from connection, from healing, and from the very guidance your intuition is trying to give you.
When you’re overwhelmed, don’t shut it down; get curious. Ask yourself: What is this emotion pointing me toward? It’s okay if you don’t have the answer. What do I need right now that I’ve been ignoring? Write it down, say it out loud, or bring it to someone safe who will really listen. Let your sensitivity guide you, not bury you.
My experience after writing these down is waking the next day with a refreshed sense of purpose; perhaps our subconscious seeks out the answers our conscious mind couldn’t find.
2. Can Giving Bring You Back to Yourself?
Toni Collette answered a question I’d asked the sky that morning.
After years behind the chair, my career evolved into styling hair for the film industry. From the outside it looked like a dream; over time, the pressure and pace left me drained and questioning everything. One morning while driving to set, I asked aloud, “What am I supposed to be doing with my life?” That very afternoon, actress Toni Collette, someone I’d only ever spoken with professionally, unexpectedly asked me for a tarot reading.
After the session, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “You really need to do this for a living.” It wasn’t just confirmation; it was permission.
On the drive home it hit me: she had answered the exact question I’d asked that morning. In the early days of going professional, when I had no clients, I offered free readings to people in need, not just for practice but because I needed something to believe in, and the act of showing up for someone else was often what brought me back to myself.
If you’re feeling directionless, don’t wait for the perfect plan. Go help someone. Skip the formal volunteer gig; just show up. Buy someone lunch, pick up litter, smile at a stranger. Kindness and love are free, and more often than not they return your spark before anything else does. Whatever your gift is, use it, practice it, and stoke that spark into a flame that shines not only for you but for the people you’re here to impact.
For research-backed structure around this instinct, Harvard Business Review’s guide to finding purpose breaks it into small, actionable steps, and if the heaviness feels energetic rather than emotional, my guide to reclaiming your space helps clear the fog. Be brave. Take action. Reach toward something greater than yourself.
1. Does Imposter Syndrome Ever Go Away?
Even A-listers hate hearing their own voice. Show up anyway.
Here’s the most profound lesson from my years in the upper echelon of the entertainment industry, and the reason this reminder holds the top spot: even the most successful actors hate hearing their own voice and seeing themselves on camera. Everyone feels like a fraud at times. The key is showing up anyway, even afraid, even unsure; that’s where your path finds you.
Imposter syndrome doesn’t dissolve with success; if anything, success adds pressure to it. Do what you love and pour your heart into it each and every day above ground. If you’ve made it this far, here’s the truth: your story isn’t over, and what looks like the end might be the beginning. Start small. Make a list.
Ask for a sign; my post on recognizing messages from spirit breaks that down in simple steps. Light one spark, and when it lights something inside you, follow it.
Still wondering whether you even need a life purpose? Mark Manson’s seven strange questions offer a refreshingly grounded, slightly cheeky case that clarity comes from dropping the pressure, and the Greater Good Science Center rounds it out with seven research-tested ways to find purpose.
Ready to explore that spark with someone who found his on a rooftop? Book a Life Path reading with me here, held exclusively online from wherever your crossroads happens to be.
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Chris Bennett has been a punk kid with a mohawk, a hairdresser hired off a skull-bulleted resume, a Universal Pictures hair department head, and a man whispering questions to the sky from a rooftop, all before becoming one of the most recognized tarot readers and evidential mediums in the world. He reads exclusively online for clients across the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, with 200+ published articles and hundreds of five-star reviews lighting the trail. His table holds the lanes steady, tarot for psychic insight and mediumship purely through the clairs, while therapy keeps its honored place as the deeper healing every lost season deserves.
