How to know what you want
I just want to know what I want. It sounds counterintuitive doesn’t it, like that should be the very least that you know. It’s fine that you might not know how to get it yet or exactly when, but you should at least know what it is you want. But I think sometimes this can be the hardest thing to know. When we have layer upon thin layer of expectation, of conditioning, of disappointment making up our desires they can be impossible to pull apart to see the truth at the centre. So we follow along on roads that never sit quite right but we decide to believe it’s what we want because we don’t know what else we do want. Or, we sit in paralysis, with choice aplenty but knowing none of them are right for us.
We seek a ‘one thing’, partly because of modern business books that tell us it’s that easy and partly because our brain would like it to be that neat and logical. I spend my days telling people that there isn’t just ‘one thing’, yet told my friend last week that I just wanted to land on the thing that would make everything go right. The trouble with ‘one thing’s, as well as being unicorns, is that they represent a commitment to a singular path – and what if that path isn’t right?
Business is as fraught with indecision and uncertainty as any other part of life, yet we feel we’re doing it wrong when we experience this. That it’s unprofessional, we’re not cut out for it, we should know exactly what we’re doing at all times otherwise we’re a fraud. If I may be self-indulgent for a moment, this is especially heightened when your business is helping others with their business. Because life and work are not separate entities, confusion about what you want out of life has a knock on effect on the other: ‘what do I want from my business if we move house?’, ‘what is my business end goal?’, ‘which of these directions is going to give me more time with my family?’.
Let’s get one thing straight first of all: you are not supposed to know what you’re doing all of the time. Let’s just let go of that as a benchmark, and replace it with the mantra “I don’t know but it’s ok. “I don’t know but it’s ok”. What we tell ourselves we believe, so just let that revolve around in your head for a little bit, say it loud. Can you feel the little flutter of relief, the easing of tension in your chest? Start with this is the benchmark, and below are some of the ways I have worked and am working to unravel the layers of knowing what you want.
A future vision based in feeling
This has been one of the biggest game changers for me and is the foundation of my Planning Kit. This is simply to spend a little quiet time to place yourself in an ideal future 6 months from now – no grounding in reality or where you are likely to be, but just what you would like your life to be. Where are you, what are doing, what are the smells and sights? Most importantly, how are you feeling? Rested, independent, accomplished, stimulated, connected, easeful? Bottle that feeling up in your brain so you can recall it when you need to.
This feeling then becomes ‘what you want’, what you’re working toward. It’s more intangible than a ‘thing’, but it’s more truthful too. As long as you’re working towards feeling that feeling in your every day, then you’re working towards what you want.
Get everything on the table
It may be that you have a load of ideas and you don’t know what to choose or do first, jumping from project to project and making no forward motion on any of them. Often, these are all stored in our head too where we can’t see them next to each other but rather they rotate on a kind of carousel. When trying to pick an option, we need to get it out of our heads and in front of us. When we do that we can evaluate them compared to each other, and hold them to the benchmark of our future vision to see whether they will help lead us to the life we want to live.
What’s the reality?
Quite often we think we want things because they massage our ego, not because it’s what we really want. Which is fine, we just need to be able to decipher which is which. I find it really helps to think about the reality of doing that thing, what it will take and what that experience will be like, to know if it’s something you want to pursue.
For example, I wanted to speak at more events. Whenever I saw others share their speaking gigs I’d get a jab of envy that made me feel that that was what I wanted to do. Until I started to think about packing my suitcase to go, the long train journey, finding somewhere to stay, the night-before nerves, all the prep work. I didn’t want to do those things, I wanted to be able to say “I’m good enough to be picked to speak”. All ego.
Be open to the unexpected
This is the hardest thing on this list because it requires a lot of trust and a letting go of control. We want to plan everything out to the nth degree and know exactly what we’re going to do, but what happens then is we remove possibility. If we fill all the space, there’s no room left for the unexpected extra, the thing that you can’t imagine right now but might come to you in a flash of inspiration in 3 months time. Or the person who’s been quietly following you for a while and in 6 months will get in touch with a dream project. I try to remind myself that if someone asks me to write a book or a magazine column, I want to be able to say yes. Not that I’m holding out for that, but I don’t want to be so booked up with projects that I can’t say yes to things I want to in the future.
I don’t think that ‘knowing what you want’ is a destination, a place where you can turn off the engine and lie back. What you want will shift and evolve as you shift and evolve, so really what we’re aiming for is rest stops, little pauses where the view is lovely before getting back into the car of life. It will also, of course, take time to get to each rest stop – this isn’t an afternoon’s activity to figure out what you want. It’s a practice of tuning in and trying out.
For a structure and guidance to help you clarify what you want in this iteration of your business, take a look at the Spring Immersion. Over three months we will reflect and take action together through lessons and weekly prompts to help you choose a road and feel more clear about where you’re going. Through the supported work in the Immersion you will work out where you want to go, connect to your motivation, refine your business model, make a plan and start taking action to get onto your open highway. Find out more here, I hope you can join us.
