How Do You Find Your Direction in a World Seeking to Give You None?

The following is adapted from What About Me by D. John Jackson.

As a young kid, I remember trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Did I want to be an attorney? An engineer? 

I was very blessed, and my parents exposed me to different concepts and ideas. They encouraged me to think big.  Additionally, key people came into my life at the perfect time along my journey to provide insights and to broaden my thinking.

However, for many Black children and other children of color, figuring out their path was particularly challenging, because they didn’t have examples of Black attorneys or engineers to look up to. Typically, the world stereotyped them into only three potential career paths: athlete, entertainer, or criminal. Seemingly, If you didn’t fit into one of those paths, your options and direction were limited. Conventional wisdom didn’t envision chemists, doctors, entrepreneurs, rocket scientists, lawyers, executives, mathematicians, computer scientists, teachers, professors, and CEOs, to name a few, coming from this segment of the population.

This is something we all experience, to some extent. The world doesn’t tell us what to do but simultaneously boxes us into narrow paths. If both your parents are doctors, maybe they pressure you to be a doctor as well. If almost everyone in your neighborhood works a minimum wage job, you’ll think that’s your future too.

These limitations are false, but powerful. To break free of these constraints, you have to be assertive.  The world isn’t going to give you your direction; it’s up to you to go out and find it. Here’s how.

Go Outside Your Comfort Zone

You never know where you’ll find your direction, so the first step is to seek out new knowledge and experiences. This requires going outside your comfort zone. 

In a lot of cases, people have very closed networks, and they stay in a narrow zone of comfort. They have their own way of doing things, they know what they like, and they don’t explore other options. To use a lighthearted example, it would be like eating only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and refusing to try anything else, because you already know you like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

This is a limiting way to live. It’s one thing to say, “I’ve tried sushi, and I don’t like it.” It’s another thing entirely to declare, “I don’t eat sushi,” without ever trying it. It’s okay to try something and decide you don’t like it, but if you never try it at all, you shut off a channel in life. You could be missing out on something amazing.

This applies to far more than food—hobbies, books, sports, job opportunities, travel. In every area of our life, we have a comfort zone. We don’t like venturing outside of that zone because of fear. We’re afraid we’ll look foolish if we try something new and aren’t good at it right away, or we’re afraid we won’t like it, or we’re simply afraid of the unknown.

You need courage to push the envelope, because that’s how you discover things you love and things you’re really good at. Imagine if Mozart never tried out music, or if Maya Angelou never tried poetry. You could have untapped skills waiting to be discovered. You just need to get out of your comfort zone first.

Expand Your Network

You never know what—or who—could lead you to your direction. Just as new experiences are important, new points of view are also important. The more you expand your network, the more you expand your perspective.

I personally believe that every interaction is cosmically linked. I don’t believe in chance. Somebody you meet and talk to for fifteen minutes could be the key to your direction. Maybe something they say gives you an idea, or they know someone who can hook you up with your dream job opportunity. 

Don’t be dismissive of anyone, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, socioeconomic status, age, etc. The second you do that, you’ve set yourself up for failure. If you believe you don’t have anything to learn from someone simply because they didn’t go to an Ivy League school, or because they’re younger than you, or whatever the case, you’re wrong. You have the opportunity to learn from anyone who thinks differently from you—which is everyone.

You truly never know who is going to make a difference in your life. When I was five years old, these older women came into my life, and they encouraged me to do speaking engagements, sometimes church-related, sometimes civic-related. At the time, I remember getting tired of it. Why do they keep coming to me? I wondered.

Now, I see. They saw something in me that I couldn’t yet see myself, and they were in my life to help me find my direction. They made me comfortable talking to people, so that today, I can get up and speak in front of a crowd of 15,000. 

In every interaction, whether it’s a few minutes or a few hours, treat everybody with respect. This doesn’t mean you have to like everyone. You’re going to meet some undesirable people, but you can still learn from those people. They can teach you what you don’t want to be. 

Every person you meet is an opportunity to solidify your direction and what you want out of life. So be a sponge and soak up those experiences: good, bad, or indifferent. 

Think About Your Place in the Larger World

Your direction is about more than just your career. It’s about your purpose—who you are and how you want to use that for the broader good. So to find your direction, you need to think about your place in the larger world.

A lot of things can drive you, such as ambition, money, or a desire for a certain kind of job. But you can achieve those things in many different ways. If all you want is to make enough money to buy yourself a nice car, you’ll lack direction, because there are so many different paths to take. A guiding purpose keeps you focused, driving you in one clear direction.

For me, for instance, I’ve had many job titles, including Fortune 50 leader, motivational speaker, author, and executive producer. I feel very thankful and blessed to have gotten to these positions, but they’re not my direction. They’re just a piece of the puzzle that enables me to fulfill my purpose: connecting, educating, encouraging, and inspiring people. 

Your direction is not all about you. It is about how you want to move through the world.

You stand on the shoulders of many other people; entire generations stretching back centuries. You are here where you are today because of your ancestors and because of complete strangers who bled, suffered, and died to make the world a better place for not only you, but all of humankind. How do you want to honor their legacy? How do you want to use your gifts to give back? 

Keep Persevering

Finding your direction is not a magical journey you can complete in a single day or even a single year. You can’t try four new activities, meet eighteen people, think about your purpose for an hour, and then expect to be on the perfect path.

It’s a lifelong endeavor. There are always new things to try, new people to meet, and new ways to give back. You are constantly changing and growing, and so your direction will evolve as well. But as long as you keep persevering—keep going outside your comfort zone, keep expanding your network, and keep thinking about your place in the world—you will keep moving in the right direction.

For more information on finding your direction, particularly as an African American, you can find What About Me on Amazon.

D. John Jackson is a Fortune 50 leader with global responsibilities that include strategic planning, engineering, data science, and artificial intelligence. A creative visionary, he’s an executive producer of documentary films, an author, a strategist, a futurist thinker, a lecturer, and a motivational speaker. His speaking topics are diverse and range from leadership and world history to emerging technologies, economics, and competition in the global marketplace. He is also the founder of 5J Entertainment, a company committed to educating, informing, entertaining, and promoting positive images of African Americans through various forms of media. Its first film documentary, What About Me, explores the untold, unheard, distorted, and misunderstood stories of Black men in America. Learn more at https://5J-Entertainment.com/.