A common roadblock in finding purpose is the fear of failure. That other people are going to judge us. That things won’t be perfect and we’ll make a fool of ourselves and be embarrassed, ashamed, made fun of, etc.

There’s a toxicity built into our minds from an early age that it’s not okay to fail. From an evolutionary perspective that was very useful – if we didn’t fit in with the tribe, we’d be cast out and left to die. But this self-doubt, uncertainty, and fear of failure and rejection is not so useful in modern times for setting goals, doing personal growth work, and thriving in life.

If you take a look at the history of most successful people who have found an aligned purpose in their lives, they were not overnight successes. It took years, if not decades, to break through and find fulfillment, success, and life purpose. It took several different jobs, attempts at building companies or trying different creative pursuits, maybe going to school for something and realizing a few years into school or into their professional career that they were miserable and void of purpose, fulfillment, and meaning in their lives.

Some people may know from an early age exactly what they want to do in life. They may have some natural talent, passion, or inherent drive and need toward something that brings them a sense of purpose. But ultimately that’s a very select few.

Most of us need to experience a significant number of failures in order to find our way forward. Just as important as finding what we’re good at and love to do, figuring out what we’re not so great at (or finding what we don’t want to do, or consistently put in the effort to do) can help us find our purpose in life. We can’t do that if the fear of failure keeps us stagnant.

If you have absolutely no idea what you want to do in your life, or what brings you joy, fulfillment, and a sense of purpose, then you’re going to have to take action to figure it out – and this requires failure.

Playing it safe and trying to avoid failure and rejection will keep you stuck. Sitting and dwelling on what could potentially bring you purpose will also keep you stuck. I say this, having done this myself for several years, but just as not doing anything in your free time to discover more about yourself and your life purpose will keep you stuck, so will ruminating everything in your head and not taking action in the real, tangible world.

Beyond learning and ideation, the action-taking and doing the work, gaining the experiences, getting the external feedback, and exploring various topics, ideas, and areas of interests – this is all paramount to uncovering what truly motivates you, brings you fulfillment and purpose, and will enable you to take steps in alignment with who you are and what you ultimately want in life.

I hope that you can see that failure is an important precursor that is essential to finding your life purpose. Rather than something that we should shy away from, getting comfortable with failing, failing fast, and failing often, helps drive us toward a life in alignment with what we ultimately want. And you only get there by trying a ton of different things, failing at most, and finding the gold in the process. Are you with me? Let’s get to work.

Action items:

Make a list of several different interests that you want to pursue.

Over the next year, commit to trying (an actual, honest try) each of these ventures for a month. Learning about it, applying what you’ve learned to create something or to do something in the domain and to teach others about the topic.

Don’t put the expectations of success, monetization, perfection, others judgments, or even the pressure of finding purpose in each activity. Just be open, be curious, and identify what you like and what you don’t like about it.

If you’re getting joy and fulfillment out of it, great – keep expanding on it. If you find that you hate it or don’t find it as meaningful or interesting as you thought, take note of that and move on to the next interest.

By the end of the year, you will have made significant strides in uncovering what truly motivates, inspires, and lights a fire in you – as well as what didn’t turn out to be what you wanted or thought or expected.

You can always pick one of them back up if you’d like, or if the first was compelling enough to stick with it for a year, you’ll have a much better idea of what makes you tick, what you’re good at, and how it’s valuable, purposeful, and meaningful to you.