How to Help Your Teen or Young Adult Find Purpose and Direction

If your teen or young adult has no idea what they want to do with their life, you're probably carrying more of that uncertainty than they realize. We know because we hear it from parents all the time, and because we're raising four teenagers and young adults ourselves. They don't seem motivated. They have no direction. Nothing really excites them. They keep changing their mind. They're spending too much time on their phone. What if they don't figure this out?

Underneath so many of those concerns is something much simpler: we're afraid. We love our kids. We see their potential, sometimes more clearly than they can see it themselves, and we desperately want them to build a life they love. So when they seem stuck, our instinct is to help them find an answer. What college? What major? What career? What internship? What's the plan? We start looking for the destination because finding one would make all of us feel a little safer.

But what if we're starting with the wrong question?

To help a teen or young adult find purpose and direction, start with self-discovery rather than pressuring them to choose a career or have their future figured out. Help them understand their values, strengths, interests, and curiosities, then encourage small real-world experiences that allow them to learn more about themselves. Direction often develops through exploration and action, not by having all the answers in advance.

As parents ourselves, and through more than 20 years of combined coaching and professional experience working with teens, young adults, parents, and families, we, Erin Verdis and Chris Adang, founders of Extraordinary Purpose, have come to believe something deeply:

Purpose doesn't start with knowing what you want to do. It starts with knowing who you are and what matters to you.

At Extraordinary Purpose, we call this Identity Before Direction. And when you understand that, the way you help your teen or young adult begins to change.

Identity Comes Before Direction

When a young person doesn't know where they're going, our natural instinct is to focus on the destination. We focus on college, a major, grades, internships, jobs, careers, productivity, and plans. Those things matter, but asking a young person to choose a direction before they understand themselves can lead them toward a life built around what they think they're supposed to do rather than one that genuinely fits who they are.

We believe there is a better place to begin: start inside. Who am I? What matters to me? What am I naturally good at? What energizes me? What kinds of people do I want around me? What am I curious about? What do I want my life to feel like? What kind of person do I want to become? These are much bigger questions than choosing a major or finding a job, but they're also the questions that begin creating the foundation for those decisions.

Those questions are at the heart of the Extraordinary Purpose Framework: Self-Discovery & Identity → Direction & Purpose → Action & Ownership. It's the progression behind our work in life coaching for teens and high school students and life coaching for young adults and college students. We don't believe a coach, parent, teacher, or anyone else should hand a young person the answer to their life. We want to give them the space, support, tools, experiences, and perspective to discover enough about themselves that they can begin creating the answer for themselves.

Because ultimately, the goal isn't dependence on a parent or a coach. It's self-leadership.

Before You Worry About Their Journey, Remember Yours

When I (Chris) think back to being 19 or 20 years old, I remember having enormous dreams and almost no idea what to do with them. At different points, I wanted to be an actor, a director, a talk show host, a radio DJ. I had all these interests and ideas bouncing around inside me, but instead of possibility making me feel excited, I often felt completely overwhelmed. I didn't know how to turn an idea into action, and the more I tried to figure everything out in my head, the more stuck I became.

Eventually, a mentor named Russ came into my life and helped me do something I desperately needed: slow down. He didn't tell me what I should do with my life. He helped me create enough space to start seeing myself differently. I began noticing my strengths, values, interests, and qualities, and, more importantly, I started seeing those things for myself. Then I started exploring. I researched things. I talked to people. I followed ideas further instead of immediately dismissing them. I went deeper. Some paths led somewhere and others didn't, but every experience taught me something about myself. Eventually, enough of those pieces started connecting.

That's worth remembering when we're looking at our own kids. Most of us didn't arrive at our lives through one perfectly executed plan. We tried things, changed our minds, took jobs, quit jobs, met people, made mistakes, had relationships, lost relationships, discovered things we were good at and plenty of things we weren't. Somewhere inside all of that living, we began figuring ourselves out.

Our kids need some room to do that too.

Parent Reflection

Think about yourself at your child's age. Did you know exactly who you were? Did you know what you wanted to do? Did your life turn out exactly the way you thought it would?

Instead of only sharing the wisdom you've gained since then, try sharing the unfinished version of you. Tell them about the uncertainty, the wrong turn, the major you questioned, the job you hated, the dream you were afraid to pursue, or the person who changed how you saw yourself. Sometimes the greatest way into our kids' world isn't through advice. It's through vulnerability.

Values Are Direction Before You Have Direction

If your teen or young adult doesn't know what they want yet, there is still something incredibly important they can begin discovering right now: what matters to them. We call these values.

Values are more than words on a worksheet. They're the qualities and principles that help make someone who they are. They influence the people we're drawn to, the environments where we thrive, the choices that feel aligned, and the person we want to become. For me, kindness is one of my core values. Positivity and motivation are others. I'm certainly not perfectly aligned with those values every moment of every day, but when I'm encouraging someone, coaching, connecting deeply with another person, or helping someone see something new in themselves, I feel more like me. That's the kind of recognition we want young people to begin experiencing for themselves.

So forget grades, college applications, productivity, screen time, and career plans for a moment and ask a different question: Who is your kid underneath all of that? What matters to them? When do they seem most alive? What qualities do other people appreciate about them? What makes them different? What seems to come naturally to them? Those are clues, and when we slow down enough to notice them, they can begin telling us something important.

Values can give your teen or young adult direction before they know exactly where they're going.

Values are only one part of identity. Strengths, personality, passions, interests, talents, experiences, relationships, and unique qualities are additional pieces. Your teen or young adult doesn't need to see the entire picture yet. They simply need opportunities to begin discovering the pieces.

Curiosity Is One of the Fastest Paths to Purpose

This may be one of the most important shifts we can make as parents: your teenager or young adult doesn't know everything about themselves yet, and that's okay. How could they? There are people they haven't met, places they haven't visited, classes they haven't taken, books they haven't read, jobs they haven't tried, conversations they haven't had, interests they haven't explored, challenges they haven't overcome, and parts of themselves they haven't even had an opportunity to meet yet.

That's not something to fear. That's possibility.

And possibility begins turning into direction through curiosity. Instead of repeatedly asking What are you going to do?, try asking What are you curious about? What's something you'd love to learn more about? What's something you'd try if you didn't have to be good at it? Who is doing something you find interesting? What's one experience you'd like to have this year? One set of questions demands that they produce an answer about their future. The other creates space for them to explore it.

Less pressure to decide. More permission to explore.

Curiosity might lead to photography, a new sport, volunteering, researching an industry, joining a club, traveling somewhere, reading a book, reaching out to someone with an interesting career, attending an event, starting a small project, or something completely unexpected. None of those things needs to become their life's purpose, because that's not the point. Exploration is valuable because of what they discover about themselves along the way.

Don't Just Explore. Go Deeper.

There's another piece of this that we think matters enormously right now. Our kids are growing up in a world that makes it incredibly easy to skim the surface of almost everything. They can scroll, click, watch, swipe, try something once, get bored, and move on to the next thing before they've spent enough time with an idea or experience to understand whether it actually means something to them.

Meaningful self-discovery requires enough presence to truly experience something. If an interest catches your teen or young adult's attention, encourage them to go one layer deeper. Learn about it. Try it. Talk to someone doing it. Spend time around people who share the interest. Put the phone away and stay present with the experience long enough to notice how it actually feels. You can't really know whether something resonates with you from the surface.

Sometimes finding direction isn't about discovering more and more options. It's about going deeper into the ones that keep pulling you back.

Purpose Is Discovered Through Action

This is where a lot of teens and young adults get stuck. They think, Once I know what I want, I'll start. But after working with so many young people who initially felt lost or uncertain, we've seen again and again that the sequence often works the other way around: you start so you can discover what you want.

Every experience gives you information. Maybe you loved it. Maybe you hated it. Maybe you discovered you're surprisingly good at something. Maybe you found people who make you feel more like yourself. Maybe an environment you thought you'd love completely drained you. Maybe something you knew almost nothing about suddenly made you want to learn more. Even discovering this isn't for me is progress, because you've learned something you didn't know before.

You don't have to know exactly where something will lead before you're allowed to take the first step.

We sometimes think purpose is something we're supposed to uncover through enough thinking, planning, or searching for the perfect answer. But much of purpose is discovered by getting out into the world and bumping into possibilities. Everything you try, every conversation you have, every place you go, every book you read, and every curiosity you explore can become a step toward your purpose, not because every experience leads directly to the answer, but because every meaningful experience has the potential to teach you something about you.

And when enough of those experiences begin stacking on top of one another, patterns emerge. You start seeing what energizes you, what matters to you, who you want around you, what environments bring out your best, and what kind of contribution feels meaningful. That's when purpose stops feeling like one enormous answer you're supposed to magically find and starts becoming something you're actively creating.

Try This: The Ideas & Curiosities List

Here's one simple practice we shared in the podcast that you can try as a family. Create a note on your phone called Ideas & Curiosities. Whenever something catches your attention during the week, write it down. It could be an idea, a place you'd like to visit, a person you'd like to meet, something you'd like to learn, something you'd like to try, or simply a question you keep thinking about. Don't judge whether it's practical, productive, impressive, or something that could eventually become a career. Just notice it and capture it before it disappears.

Then once a week, look at the list and choose one curiosity to take one small step toward. Research it for 20 minutes. Send an email. Watch an interview. Visit somewhere. Try a class. Read something. Attend an event. Talk to someone. The step doesn't need to be huge because the goal isn't to figure out your life in a weekend. The goal is to move curiosity out of your head and into the real world, where it can teach you something.

And parents, go first. Share something you're curious about. Let your kids see you trying something new, pursuing an interest, getting uncomfortable, changing your mind, learning, and continuing to discover yourself. That's one of the ways we create influence without trying to create control. Our kids are watching how we live, and when they see us continuing to learn, explore, grow, and pursue things that matter to us, we're showing them that self-discovery isn't something they're supposed to finish by 18 or 22. It's something all of us can keep doing throughout our lives.

Your Small Step This Week

Have one conversation with your teen or young adult about curiosity. Don't ask about their major, don't ask what they're going to do with their life, and don't turn their answer into a five-step action plan. Simply ask:

“What's something you've been curious about lately?”

Then listen. Stay curious about their answer instead of immediately deciding what should happen next. Ask another question. Let the conversation wander a little. The goal isn't to walk away with a plan. The goal is to open a door into their world.

They Don't Need the Whole Map. They Need the Next Step.

If you're worried that your teen or young adult doesn't have purpose or direction right now, we want you to remember this: they don't have to solve their entire future today. Purpose isn't necessarily one career, one passion, or one giant revelation. At Extraordinary Purpose, we think of purpose as something that becomes clearer as you understand who you are, what matters to you, how you want to contribute, who you want around you, and what kind of life you want to create.

It develops through hundreds of smaller moments of self-discovery: recognizing a value, noticing a strength, following an interest, meeting someone new, having a meaningful conversation, trying something uncomfortable, discovering what doesn't fit, and taking another step. That's also why a young person who seems unmotivated may not simply need more motivation. It's hard to feel motivated when you don't know what you're moving toward. Help them discover themselves first, and direction can begin to follow. When there is direction, it becomes easier to take action, build confidence, and begin taking ownership of what comes next.

That's the progression at the heart of the Extraordinary Purpose Framework: Self-Discovery & Identity → Direction & Purpose → Action & Ownership.

Discover Who You Are. Create Your Direction. Become Who You Want to Be.

Go Deeper: Listen to the Extraordinary Purpose Podcast

We explore this conversation much more personally in our latest episode of the Extraordinary Purpose Podcast: How to Help Your Teen or Young Adult Find Purpose and Direction. In the episode, I share more about my own experience feeling lost as a young adult, the mentor who helped change my direction, why values matter so much, how curiosity leads to self-discovery, why young people need opportunities to go deeper into their interests, and how parents can create more influence by changing the conversations we're having at home.

If your teen or young adult feels stuck, overwhelmed, unmotivated, or unsure what comes next, we'd love for you to listen and then bring just one idea back to your family. Maybe it becomes a conversation at the kitchen table, during a walk, or in the car when nobody is looking directly at each other and somehow the best conversations seem to happen. You don't need to turn it into a big family meeting or solve anything. Start with one conversation and see what opens up.

Helpful Resources for Parents

If you're navigating some of these challenges right now, we've created additional resources to help you understand what's happening beneath the surface and decide how to support your child without taking ownership of their journey away from them. You can learn more about our life coaching for teens and high school students, explore our life coaching for young adults and college students, or read Why Your Teen Is Pulling Away From You (And How to Reconnect Without Pushing Them Further Away) for a deeper look at connection, communication, and what may be happening as your teen becomes more independent.

We also work directly with moms and dads through our parent coaching, because sometimes the most powerful change in a family begins not with figuring out how to change our kids, but with becoming more intentional about how we show up for them.

A Final Thought From Us

If you're carrying the weight of trying to figure out your child's future for them, we want you to know that you don't have to. Your role isn't to hand them the map or make sure they never take a wrong turn. It's to help create an environment where they can discover who they are, explore what's possible, learn from their experiences, make mistakes while the stakes are still relatively small, and gradually develop the confidence to choose their own direction.

Sometimes that means asking a better question instead of offering another answer. Sometimes it means sharing your own unfinished story so they know that you didn't always have everything figured out either. Sometimes it means backing away from the solution long enough to really listen. And sometimes it means bringing another trusted person into their world who can give them the space, perspective, structure, and support to begin discovering answers for themselves.

That's the work we do every day at Extraordinary Purpose with teens, young adults, and parents. With more than 20 years of combined coaching and professional experience, and as parents raising four teenagers and young adults ourselves, this work isn't theoretical to us. We're navigating many of these same moments right alongside you, and we know how much hope can come from seeing a young person begin to understand themselves, believe in themselves, and take ownership of their next step.

If your teen or young adult feels stuck, lost, unmotivated, or unsure about what's next, or you're simply wondering how to support them without pushing them away, we'd love to talk. You can schedule a complimentary discovery call with Extraordinary Purpose. There's nothing to prepare and no obligation. It's simply a conversation about your family, what you're seeing, what you're hoping for, and what the right next step might look like.

Your kid doesn't need to have their entire life figured out. They need opportunities to discover who they are, permission to explore what interests them, experiences that help them learn and grow, and people who believe deeply in what's possible for them while giving them enough space to begin seeing that possibility for themselves.

Identity before direction. Direction before action. One small step at a time. That's where purpose begins.