All tangled up in fear and overwhelm
The third major reason that we do not know what we want is our fear of what might happen if we did. Along with this comes the sheer overwhelm of making choices when there are so many things we could want.
Struggling to know what you want is a unique problem for recent generations in the richer parts of the world. Our ancestors had no problem working out what to do. Why? Because the answer was right in front of them – they wanted food, shelter, warmth and a mate; getting these was enough to fill their time. We, on the other hand, have money, freedom, time, comfort and more food than we could ever eat. In a way, all the more obvious and easier decisions have been taken care of. So we are free to think about what our lives mean and what they could mean and, perhaps, what they should mean. That’s not a simple thing to work out or nor is there a single easy answer.
The other problem is the sheer number of options open to us. Even buying toothpaste these days means coping with six or seven brands providing nearly 50 different choices. It’s no wonder that many people just shut down in the face of all this choice and default to what they bought yesterday or grab the first one they recognise.
Unfortunately, doing more of what you did yesterday or grabbing at the first choice you recognise, fails to satisfy that hollow feeling or quiet that voice whispering that there has to be more for you, somewhere and somehow.
A Blank Page Is Scary
Hand me a blank page, tell me I can draw anything I want and I freeze. My mind goes blank. Panic starts. What if I do it wrong? What if they laugh? Where do I start?
I’m not alone.
What about you?
If I gave the same page to a child, they would start creating something. They are completely unselfconscious but pick a teenager or an adult and you get a similar reaction to mine.
A blank future is just as challenging and scary for most of us.What if we do it wrong? What if they laugh? Where do we start?
Other Ways You Scare Yourself
We devise lots of interesting and exciting ways to frighten ourselves out of knowing what we want. Maybe we shy away from exploring other options because we frighten ourselves by thinking about the consequences: If I did what I wanted I’d have to leave this job, town, relationship.
We run catastrophic disaster scenarios in which we would have to turn our whole life upside down if we figured out what we wanted. So we don’t.
If you’ve been scaring yourself, it’s probably because you are denying to yourself some sort of change that you know you want to make. Remember that being clear about what you feel does not mean that you have to act on those feelings. For example, many people are unhappy in their job and long for more freedom and control over their day. They shy away from facing this because they frighten themselves with the prospect of having to run their own business. Silly, isn’t it? There are lots of ways to create more freedom and get more control over your daily life and few of them involve the risk of running your own business. If you never face up to how you feel though, you never get to make these changes.
In reality, most of the changes you are likely to make are actually incremental. It’s much more likely to involve small, deliberate steps towards your desires rather than the kind of life-changing, revolutionary fantasies you frighten yourself with.
And the good news is, if you are the kind of person who runs dramatic disaster scenarios in your head, you may just have uncovered a creative side of yourself. An imaginative ‘you’ who could probably do with coming out to play more often. Maybe the drama is a plea for more creative play?
We Frighten Ourselves With Stereotypes
Another way we frighten ourselves out of understanding our real desires is by the fear of what we might have to become, if we understood what we wanted. The argument goes like this:
If I gave way to what I wanted I would be an actor and since all actors are [poor, crazy, etc.] I don’t want to think about what I want.
I think I might want to be a stand up comedian but since presentations make me nervous I’m not going to think about it.
This is just another version of a dramatic disaster scenario. Again, the cure is to realise that running away from a stereotype prevents you considering the smaller, incremental changes that would bring your life much closer to living the way you truly want.
You Can Manage Fear
If some kind of fear, of an imagined possible future, of an imagined possible you, is getting in the way of you knowing what you want, then how do you deal with this? Having practised it for so long, it’s unlikely to disappear just because you wish it.
Remember that courageous and brave people are not people who have no fear. A brave person is someone who knows they are afraid but keeps going anyway.
Fear Is Not A Signal
Many of us assume that fear is an intuitive signal to keep away from something but it isn’t. It’s just your unconscious early warning system flagging up something for attention. Fear is not a red light that tells you something is broken and needs fixing; it is a red light that says: By the way, did you know this?
If you see the process of getting clear on what you want as a threat to your stability and wellbeing then your early warning system (fear) will start flashing whenever you go near it.
Being brave says: Yes I know this frightens me but I’m going to look anyway or I’ve never liked the sound of this but I’m going to ignore the alarm bells and explore it or whenever I think about this I feel nervous but I’m going to push through it anyway.
Fear is just data. Treat is as such. Your unconscious has alerted you for which you are grateful but you intend to go ahead anyway because you want to/you are curious. This puts you in charge and reminds your fear that it is not the boss here.
When You Face Overwhelming Choices
There are so many things you could do and some of them contradict each other. Some of them cost money you don’t have. Faced with this, it’s easier to ignore them all. You may have a sense that looking at what you want too closely would open a can of worms. For peace of mind it’s easier not to look.
Trouble is, as you know, you haven’t got peace of mind otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. What you need is a system. A way of figuring out what you want and managing your choices so they are less overwhelming.
Yep, You’ll Contradict Yourself
Absolute clarity about what you want is rare. It’s unlikely that you will find one desire that trumps all the others and makes clear to you what you should do. You are much more likely to have a handful of wants which all seem pretty important and some of which contradict each other.
We are complex beings. Ignore those who tell you to set a single big goal because we rarely, if ever, have the luxury of paying attention to just one big goal. I never understand how business people will pay to listen to the ‘lessons’ from famous sports stars. High achieving sports people operate in such a cosseted, artificial environment that they have little to say to the rest of us about achievement in the real world.
At some point you have to arrange your wants into a hierarchy. To know which one/s you want the most and the key to that, as we’ll see later, is to use your personal values to help you.
Key Points: Why Is It So Hard To Know What We Want?
- We lack practice – our decision making muscles are flabby and we coast along with decisions rather than deciding for ourselves.
- We’ve trained ourselves to look the wrong way – it’s become a habit and we are very good at knowing what we don’t want.
- When we think about it we get scared and over- whelmed – we know too much, we have too many choices and we let our fear stop us from standing out.
To learn more about how to overcome these reasons along with a step by step guide to finding your inner compass, please order the book:
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