Do You Know What You Really Want?
Why it's harder than it sounds — and what gets in the way
JUL 21, 2026
I was a junior in college, visiting a friend in Washington DC over Thanksgiving. Walking near the Lincoln Memorial, crossing an empty field, a voice said to me: why do you want to be a lawyer?
I stopped and looked around. It sounded like someone was right behind me. There was no one there. I kept walking.
The voice said it again. Why do you want to be a lawyer?
I stopped. I thought about my mother — her voice in my head since I was a little kid: go to Harvard or Yale, be a doctor or a lawyer. I hadn’t gone to Harvard or Yale. I wasn’t going to be a doctor. So I was pre-law. Not because I wanted to be a lawyer.
Because that’s what was left of her script.
Well, if I didn’t have to go to Harvard or Yale or be a doctor, I certainly didn’t need to be a lawyer! And I didn’t particularly like my pre-law classes. I’m not going to be a lawyer!
I kept walking. I felt liberated. And then the voice said: so what do you want to be?
I immediately thought of a Soviet Studies course (it was the Cold War) I was taking that semester — the hardest course, the hardest professor — and I had pulled two all-nighters for it right before flying to DC. And I loved every minute of it. I said to myself: I want to be a Soviet expert. I want to help prevent World War III.
I felt great.
The next day I got on the plane home. I was the first one boarding and the cleaning crew was coming off. Every seat was empty except mine, which had a Time magazine on it. I opened to the back page — always a guest columnist. The article was about why America needed more Soviet experts.
Clearly an omen.
That moment set up the rest of my professional life — grad school, the Foreign Service, becoming a diplomat. Eventually an activist and educator. Now a life and leadership coach. An amazing path. All of it because I finally stopped following someone else’s script long enough to hear my own voice.
But I was twenty years old before that happened. And it only happened because a literal voice appeared out of nowhere on an empty field in Washington DC.
Most of us don’t get that kind of help.
Why do we have such a hard time figuring out what we want and giving ourselves permission to even want it?
I need to go back even further to unpack that for myself. I was probably four or five years old, sitting on my mother’s lap. I don’t remember what I asked for or said. But I remember her response: that I was being selfish. And the way she said it made clear that selfish was just about the worst thing you could be.
That wired something in my brain. I learned that advocating for what I wanted — even acknowledging what I wanted — was dangerous. Selfish. Wrong.
Our family didn’t have much money when I was growing up. We were on food stamps for a lot of it. When I was young, I deeply wanted to play the piano, or even the guitar.
I was told no — we can’t afford a piano, can’t afford lessons. My aunt and uncle were selling an organ once. Same answer. Even my aunt told me, “You can’t afford this organ.” Same deal with guitar lessons. And so the desire got stifled. Got wired in my brain as something that wasn’t okay to want. Not possible. Not for me.
It was only in my 50s that I finally gave myself permission to want that. To start pursuing the guitar in a serious way. It’s much harder to learn at this age than it would have been as a kid. But when I’m doing it consistently, my soul feels different.
That’s what it costs when we shut down our own wanting early. Decades. Sometimes a lifetime.
I’m a life coach. Knowing what you want — and helping people figure it out — is literally my work. And when someone recently asked me what I wanted, I got locked up. Stress and anxiety. A blank stare.
That’s how hard this is.
When you ask a lot of people what they want, you often get a blank stare. Or they answer a different question entirely. They tell you what somebody else wants. They tell you what they think they should want. They tell you what seems appropriate or possible given their age or circumstances. They answer those questions — but not the one you actually asked.
Isn’t that fascinating?
So how do we end up here? How do so many of us lose touch with what we actually want?
Some of us were never really asked what we wanted growing up. Or we were told — explicitly or implicitly — that what we wanted had to fit into a certain box. Comply with certain expectations. Fall within acceptable limits.
Some of us have spent so long managing other people’s hopes, desires, expectations, and preferences that it’s started to feel like those are our preferences. The accommodation becomes invisible. We think we’re okay with it because we don’t complain out loud. But there are a lot of us who suffer in silence, in many ways, in many aspects of our lives.
Some of us have been following someone else’s script for so long that we’ve forgotten how to think for ourselves. That was true for me. I was following my mother’s script without even realizing it — until a voice on an empty field in Washington DC asked me why.
And some of us — and I’ve struggled with this too — are afraid to acknowledge what we really want because we’re afraid we won’t get it. That fear of rejection, that fear of failure, can be really palpable. Particularly when it comes to expressing wants and needs to people we love and care about. If we’ve been wired to believe that our wants aren’t as legitimate as other people’s, even the internal acknowledgment feels dangerous.
And then there’s the mother’s lap problem. Some of us have been taught that having wants at all is selfish. And that selfish is the worst thing you can be.
I’ve thought a lot about that over the years. And here’s where I’ve landed: there’s good selfishness and bad selfishness. Bad selfishness is pursuing what you want at the expense of other people’s well-being. That’s not what we’re talking about. But if you’re not harming anybody else — pursuing what’s good for you, what you want, what you need — that’s healthy. And it puts you in a better position to be of service to other people as well. You’ve got to be able to take care of yourself.
There’s only one person who’s along for the whole ride, and that’s you. Only you can truly know what you want and need. Only you can effectively advocate for it.
There’s a distinction worth understanding: what you want right now that would bring comfort, relief, or approval from other people — and what you really want for your life.
All too often we seek out what’s comfortable, what feels safe, what feels familiar. And we equate that with what we want. But often those are polar opposites. This is where mindfulness becomes so helpful — to really be aware of your thoughts, to be curious about where they’re coming from. Is it fear? Conflict avoidance? People pleasing? Or is it what you genuinely want, because it’s in alignment with who you really are?
My favorite book — one I’ve read I don’t know how many times, one I used to give to all the kids at the lab school I ran — is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. The first agreement is be impeccable with your word. Mean what you say. Say what you mean. Use your word as a force for good. And that includes your inner dialogue. Many of us can’t even be honest with ourselves about what we really want. That’s the first place to start.
You can’t have a life of integrity and authenticity if you’re not connected to your truth — to what you really want and what really matters to you. If you’re performing for other people and losing contact with your true self, you’re wearing a mask with everybody else too. That precludes authentic, meaningful, deep connection. With other people. And with yourself.
I also think it’s worth saying something about relationships specifically.
We’re often attracted to what’s familiar — and what’s familiar is often negative traits or experiences from our parents, or the relationship between our parents when we were young. Those are strong memory engrams. It’s why so many people end up with the wrong person. Not because they’re foolish. Because they’re following an unconscious script.
And we’ve been sold the idea that what we’re looking for is fireworks — that nervousness, that agitation, that disruption of the nervous system. Butterflies. A little fight-or-flight. We think that’s the signal.
But what we actually want is our nervous system to be calm. That’s the signal. Someone who calms your nervous system. Because that’s what will allow you to feel safe enough to be honest about what you want and need. To deal with conflicts together. To resolve them as a team. That’s what we want. It’s very different from fireworks. And if you’ve experienced it, you know how wonderful it is.
This is something I’ve been working on for myself. I can tell you, it is so much better — and genuinely more exciting — when you find someone who calms your nervous system instead of triggering your anxiety and need for reassurance!
Here are three prompts worth sitting with — in meditation, in journaling, on a walk. Pick one. See what comes up.
If nobody would be disappointed or inconvenienced, what would you want?
What have you stopped letting yourself want because it seemed too big, too late, or too selfish?
If your life five years from now felt genuinely right — not perfect, but aligned with who you are and what you want — what would be different from today?
Let your subconscious chew on these for a night or two. Then write. See what surfaces.
And then this week, try one small thing: notice what you want. Make that your intention. Just notice it and allow yourself to actually want it. Don’t talk yourself out of it. Don’t immediately check it against what’s realistic or what other people need or what seems appropriate. Just notice it and let it exist.
That in itself is a practice. Often the hardest one.
There’s only one you. If you’re trying to please other people and deny yourself your truth and deny yourself what you want and need, you’re denying the world the presence of the unique beauty that is within you.
You owe it to yourself. And honestly — you owe it to the rest of us too.
I’m a life coach and founder of Integrity and Joy. If this resonated, I’d love to connect — book a free consultation at https://calendar.app.google/CsBx5mnpX7g9PFuP9 or find me at https://www.integrityandjoy.com. Or just reach out — I’d love to hear what resonated with you.
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