Just Tell Me What You Want!

Is what you want what you really want for yourself? Or is it what an important person in your childhood wanted for you?

How can you tell???

We may think that we’re making all the decisions in our lives based on our own desires, but that may not be the case. Society gives us so many messages about what we should do and should want and we may not understand that our decisions as adults are based on those societal messages.

What should I want?

And we have parents and other important figures we may be trying to please, who have their own ideas of what’s acceptable and worthy for us. That doesn’t mean that those choices are motivated by our own desires. Then by the time we factor in religion, teachers, friends, advertising, influencers, and other important “others,” what we think we want may be far removed from what we actually desire.

The problem is that we may think we’re coming to our decisions independent from these other influences, but that’s because we’re all unconsciously swayed by these other forces.

“Unconsciously” means that we’re unaware of the effects of these other influences.

We’d like to believe that our conscious mind is in charge of our decisions, but our consciousness is “like a monkey riding a tiger,” as one of my mentors says. The monkey (our conscious mind) thinks it’s in charge, but the tiger (our unconscious) is going wherever it wants.

Okay, so what do we now do with this information? Good question!

Don’t “should” on yourself!

If you find yourself thinking “I really should do….” or “I shouldn’t….” you’re dealing with trying to please or avoid the condemnation of others. You’re thinking the thoughts of dependency, rather than of autonomy. If you have trouble with questions like “Where would you like to go for dinner?” or “What would you like to eat?” or “What movie would you like to see?” you’re likely trying to come up with the right answer to please someone else.

Remember, the question asked wasn’t “Where do you think I’d like to go for dinner?” it was “Where would you like to go?”!

Great Expectations

You may have been raised with a set of expectations that have little to do with you. In some families the message is we need to have a doctor or lawyer in the family: pick one. In other families there’s an emphasis on becoming a teacher, or someone in a creative field, or a scientist, or an athlete, or whatever.

But these expectations may have nothing to do with the child’s interests and/or talents. Or the child may be very talented in a particular field, but not have an interest in pursuing it. Many parents and extended family members are more focused on image and income than in supporting children growing into who the children are. And the children become would-be mind readers trying to get it “right” for someone else, rather than learning about themselves and what they actually enjoy.

I’m not advocating selfishness, but instead authenticity. Being true to ourselves.

Society tells us that if we want to be happy, we must marry and have children. But not everyone wants to marry; not everyone wants to have children. It takes courage to buck these expectations, and there’s more than one version of happiness. So much dissatisfaction comes from trying to contort ourselves to fit someone else’s idea of happiness, without ever having checked in with ourselves to think about what we really want in life and why.

If you have trouble knowing what you want, if you get anxious when someone asks what you think of an issue, a movie, a dish, an outfit, this may be because you’re trying to guess what the person would think or like, so you can please them by giving “the right answer.” Trying to get it right for someone else, whether another person or society, will lead to anxiety. Read about anxiety treatment here.

If this is something you struggle with, reach out to me. I won’t tell you “the right answer” about your relationship or your career. That would be incredibly arrogant, as if I’m someone with all the answers. No one is! Instead I’ll encourage you to think about what is important to you, rather than trying to please everyone else—including me! (Pleasing me is MY job, not yours!)