If you’re a driven woman and know that you want to achieve significant things in your professional life, but have no idea of what your professional calling actually is – or whether you would be able to dedicate yourself to a particular path over the long term – the situation can naturally generate a lot of inner turmoil.

Often, when people discuss professional success, the bulk of the emphasis is placed on practical steps for maintaining discipline, practising sophisticated time management, maintaining a dynamic task and project management system, and so on.

But what if you’re not sure if you should try something new, like looking up health and social care courses online, or investigating a career in finance?

Here are some tips for finding your professional calling when you’re not sure where to start.

Gather as many “references” as possible, to give you inspiration

The writer and motivational speaker Tony Robbins is just one of many people over the ages who has emphasised the importance of gathering as many “references” as possible, in order to obtain perspective and inspiration on the best direction to take in life.

These “references” can come via inspirational people you’ve known in your own life, or experiences you’ve had that give you a particular perspective – but they can also come from reading autobiographies, among other things.

The more of these references you can gather that can give you a glimpse of what a particular path through life might entail, the better able you will be to “follow your bliss” at any given moment.

Get busy doing anything, and keep an eye out for opportunities to pivot when you find certain directions that seem to call to you more

On the one hand, it’s important to keep in mind that it will very likely be extremely difficult – if not impossible – to actually figure out exactly what you want to do, without taking initial action.

Sometimes, the best way of identifying your calling in life is to simply get busy doing anything, professionally speaking, and to then be aware of the situation as it develops and look for opportunities to pivot in more meaningful directions when they arise.

Often, through on-the-job training, or jumping to parallel fields, you can edge yourself closer towards the professional situation that is most true to you.

Engage in a variety of hobbies, and regularly step outside of your comfort zone – a lot of perspective can only be gained through experience

It’s one thing to know things intellectually, or to have an idea of how certain things are likely to play out, but it’s a different thing altogether to actually have in-person, hands-on perspective.

One of the best ways of generating plenty of direct experience and perspective that can help point you towards your calling, is to engage in a variety of hobbies and regularly step outside of your comfort zone and experience new things.

Maybe something as seemingly off-the-wall as trying a SCUBA-diving class could end up revealing a love of the oceans to you that can then shape the direction of your future career.