When Did You Last Stop to Think About What You Actually Want?

Life has a habit of keeping us busy, doesn't it?

There are responsibilities to manage, expectations to meet, decisions to make and seemingly endless things competing for our attention.

We get on with things. We solve problems, make plans and do what needs to be done.

And often, we're pretty good at it.

But somewhere amongst all that activity, how often do we stop and ask ourselves a slightly different question?

What do I actually want?

Not what I should be doing. Not what other people expect of me. Not even what seems like the most sensible next step.

What do I want?

Sometimes, we don't know what we don't know

I think there's an assumption that we should have a clear sense of direction. That we should know what we're working towards and have some sort of plan for getting there.

But what if we don't?

What if we know something needs to change, but we're not quite sure what? Or we're so focused on dealing with what's immediately in front of us that we haven't really considered the alternatives?

I've seen how easy it is for people to become caught up in finding solutions before they've had the opportunity to properly explore the situation.

And sometimes, the most useful thing we can do is stop trying to find the answer quite so quickly.

The power of a different question

I remember coaching someone who came to our conversation with a very clear idea of what they needed to achieve and how they were going to achieve it.

The situation they were describing was in an industry I knew very little about.

And actually, that turned out to be quite useful.

Because I wasn't familiar with their world, my curiosity was completely genuine. I asked questions that perhaps someone with more knowledge or experience might not have thought to ask.

Some were probably quite naive!

But as we talked, something interesting happened.

They began thinking out loud, questioning some of the assumptions they'd made and looking at the situation from a slightly different perspective.

There wasn't a dramatic revelation or a complete change of direction.

In fact, the changes were relatively small.

But the impact of reframing what had initially been presented as a problem was significant.

What struck me was that they hadn't needed me to provide a solution. They needed the opportunity to explore their own thinking without someone jumping in with advice or answers.

And that can be incredibly powerful.

You don't need to have it all figured out

Whether we're thinking about our careers, relationships, ambitions or simply how we want life to feel, it's easy to put pressure on ourselves to know what comes next.

But perhaps we don't always need a five-year plan.

Perhaps we don't even need to know what the end goal looks like.

Sometimes, we just need the space to be curious. To challenge what we've always assumed, explore different possibilities and allow ourselves to think beyond what's immediately in front of us.

And perhaps to recognise that the question we started with isn't necessarily the question we need to answer.

A final thought

If you've been feeling unsure about what you want or where you're heading, perhaps you don't need to rush to find the answer.

Instead, ask yourself:

"If I didn't have to know the answer right now, what might I give myself permission to explore?"

Because sometimes, discovering what's possible begins with simply allowing ourselves to be curious.