Sometimes I feel like ending it all. How can I find motivation and direction?

Hello Mark,

I need to find motivation and direction, but I am indecisive and feel lost. Help, please. I can’t continue living like this. Sometimes I feel like ending my life, but what keeps me alive are my two beautiful daughters. I'm trying for the best of them and me.

This question was submitted by 'Jacqueline'

Mark says...

Hi Jacqueline and thank you so much for writing in.

First off, please don't do anything rash. I'm so glad to hear that your daughters give you meaning and prevent you seriously considering taking your own life. It's truly been said that suicide isn't so much something you do to yourself as something you do to other people.

Please also find someone calm, kind, and decent to talk to if you ever find yourself feeling that desperate again. And remember that those feelings will pass. Ending it all is, to repeat a clichéd but accurate phrase, a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

We all need meaning and purpose and the more meaning and purpose we have, the more motivation we have. Check out the primal human needs in this blog and notice how they all point to a greater sense of meaning. Ask yourself how your life currently fulfils those needs for you and if it doesn’t, then you have a tool to use to begin to meet your needs.

Your beautiful girls need you and that gives you a huge amount of purpose, but it's also true to say that many of us need to find purpose in varied aspects of life. Your community, the people around you, and even people you don't know yet need you. We are here to contribute as well as consume experiences. Think about what kind of person you are, what you are good at, what feels right for you. Think about what you love to do and focus on that. What you can do to improve the world can spring from what you like or even love to do.

I love Viktor Frankl's powerful book Man's Search for Meaning, which I recommend you read. It's a short but powerful book. You could also listen to the 'Self Motivation Booster' download.

Motivation and a sense of meaning ebb and flow for all of us throughout life, but rest assured your life already has great meaning and you can enjoy discovering more.

All best wishes,

Mark