It's often said that if you want to hear God speak, read your Bible. If you want to hear Him speak out loud, read it aloud. Although I understand the point of this saying, I don't necessarily agree with it. God, being sovereign, may communicate with any human being in any way He wants, and His word does tell us to ask Him for wisdom. Thus, this "Bible or bust" mentality may actually be quite the hindrance.
Nevertheless, the Bible is the ordinary means by which God speaks to us today. Your chances of receiving special word from Him outside of Scripture are... I don't want to say "slim", but I will say entirely subject to His will. He will speak to you directly if He wants to, but there is no formula to guarantee He will speak to you directly.
In fact, it does seem there are more ways to stop Him from doing so than to so incline Him. James, for example, tells us "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." (James 4:3). But many Christians act as if they have God on speed dial. "God told me this", "God wants that", "God told me to tell you...". The convenient thing? It always seems to be aligned with their will. And it has the same effect one might expect.
Mike Winger often tells a story of a man he knew who was so besotted with a particular woman, he got in a relationship with her and moved to a whole different country. "God told me to marry this girl", he said. Then, amazingly, he came back home. "God told me it's not working out". Wait, so God changed His mind? Of course not! What actually happened, as James says, is this guy asked amiss (assuming he asked at all), and thus God didn't answer him at all. God did not tell him to marry the girl, nor did God tell him to break it off. Folly told him to marry the girl, and folly told him to break it off.
I heard another example more recently. A friend of mine, going through a rough time, made a particularly difficult, yet wise decision. One of her friends, lacking all the relevant information, decided to give her some unsolicited advice. The problem? He attached God's name to it. "God told me to tell you...". But then my friend explained the context of her decision, and he immediately apologised. Evidently, God didn't tell this guy anything. God has full access to all details, and would not have given such shoddy advice. But a human being disguising his own voice as God's absolutely would.
The list could go on. We so often expect God to speak to us, yet He often does so in our voice. His will conveniently aligns with our will, His promises are what we want Him to promise, and we don't even hesitate to attribute to Him that which He does not actually speak. And so God just releases us. Knowing we, being so set on our own will, will not listen to His actual voice, He withholds it, He lets us listen to our own deceitful, desperately wicked hearts, and He lets us crash. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, as they say.
But this particular stupid game is called "blasphemy". In the Old Testament, this was actually punishable by death. If you, being under the law of Moses, claimed God told you something which He did not, in fact, tell you, God's command was to pick up stones and throw them at you until you were in His actual presence, and could hear exactly what He would say to you. It's that serious a crime, yet we commit it as flippantly as we use His name as a cuss word. Like it's no big deal. We're just going to say what we want, and act like that carries His authority.
Thank God for the cross. But also, thank God for His other blessings. For access to prayer, which, if we yield to Him, will bring actual wisdom, even if not through His actual voice. For the multitude of counselors, some wise, some foolish, and for discernment to help us distinguish. And for Scripture, which contains the explicit will of God.
If you want to know God's plan for your life, you can know it without shadow of a doubt by meditating on the word day and night. You will hear His commands. Do not murder, do not steal, do not covet. Flee sexual immorality, gluttony, drunkenness, sloth, gossip, blasphemy. Above all, love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. These things, and more, are God's will for your life. Thus, as Christ says, "“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (Matthew 6:25-34). In other words, as long as you obey God, His will for your life will be revealed.