To create your own story and to live it, you need to know how you want to live and what you need to do in order to live the life you want to live, and to take action.

This sounds simple, but I believe it is simple like this. If you know what you want and what you need to do in order to get it, and if you do the things you need to do, then that’s great. Even if you may not get it straight away, I’m sure you will get closer and that process will make your life more fulfilling than living a passive life.

If these things are essential in creating your own story and living it, then failing to do them is a guaranteed way to fail you in creating your own story and living it.

You say you don’t know how you want to live. What can you do?

If you actually don’t know how you want to live, then I suggest you take some time to think about it. “I’m too busy” is not a good excuse, because you can choose to prioritize it and to create some time for clarifying what you want in your life.

But perhaps you do know how you want to live. You are just afraid of what others might think or afraid that you are not capable of living the life you want to live, and you don’t admit even to yourself about how you want to live.

Regarding what others might think… Again, ultimately, whether to choose to follow your own guts or others is your choice. What do you want to do?

Regarding your capability. There is a difference between hard and impossible, and I believe there are many more possibilities than you might think. The laws of nature put constraints on what’s possible or not in this world, but apart from that… go crazy. I bet many of the things you want to do aren’t impossible.

If these things are indeed really, really hard or actually impossible, then my backup suggestion is to consider what’s close enough to what you want to do, or to consider what kind of feelings you want to get from the things you originally wanted to do. I’m sure there are things that make you feel the feelings similar to the ones you would get from the things you originally wanted to do.

Let’s move on to the case where you don’t do what you need to do to live the life you want to live.

Why not?

Here’s some reasons I can think of.

You are not confident about yourself.
You are afraid of change.
You are not ready to pay the cost.
You don’t know that you need to do what you need to do to live the life you want to live.
You don’t know what you need to do.

What can you do about these situations?

You are not confident about yourself.
You can start from somewhere easier and build the momentum from there. Confidence is what you build through taking action. You do need to have courage to take the first steps, but once you get the momentum, you can keep building your confidence and get to the next levels.

You are afraid of change.
Unless you are already living the life you want to live, change is necessary. You probably have to get rid of what’s not working and to start growing. The question to ask yourself is: Do you really want to live the life you want to live?

You are not ready to pay the cost.
It’s similar to being afraid of change. You don’t want to give up your current life. You don’t want to commit some of your time to improving your skills. You are afraid of changes you need to make. What do you want?

You don’t know that you need to do what you need to do to live the life you want to live.
Perhaps you are misguided and believe that successful people were just lucky and you don’t have that kind of luck. Of course, there’s no guarantee that your life will be exactly like what you wanted it to be like if you do the things you need to do to live the life you want to live. But showing up and doing these things are probably the only things you can control and these things are more likely to get you to a better place than waiting for your dream life to happen to you.

You don’t know what you need to do.
I sometimes feel like I don’t know what I need to do, but as far as I’m concerned, the following seems to be quite basic and seems to work pretty well: identifying what’s not working and replacing it with what works. It can be painful to admit that things are not working as you like. Admitting this is a great move and helps you be more objective towards yourself. You might have to find what works by experimenting on your own, but you can choose to have fun with this process too.

How do you want to live your life? What do you need to do in order to live your life that way?