Wondering what you really want? Tracey Gee to the rescue.
This is an excerpt of The Magic of Knowing What You Want: A Practical Guide to Unearthing the Wisdom of Your Desires by Tracey Gee
People I looked up to had told me that mid-life was something to be excited about. They used phrases like “fabulous forties” and talked about how freeing it was to live truer to oneself when age gives you the gift of caring much, much less about other people’s opinions. And I believed them. I had started to taste some of that freedom, and I anticipated more.
On the other hand, I do not recall any mention of life-changing inciting incidents that could leave you questioning yourself and everything you ever thought you knew about where you were headed. Nobody talked about being blindsided. Or maybe they did, and I simply tuned it out.
However, when I hoped for a promotion and got a rejection at work instead, it triggered a mid-life spiral I didn’t even know was possible. Suddenly, my experience of being in my 40s felt more freefall than fabulous.
It was during this time in my life that I was drawn to think about what I wanted.
And not only to pay attention to how I related to my own desires but also to trust that this clarity would lead to a more fulfilling and meaningful life. I wasn’t looking to be selfish, but I sensed that finding my way back would somehow be connected to paying attention to what I really, truly wanted. I’ve never been the gambling type. It’s probably because I’m no good at it, and I always lose. But this was a bet I wanted to take.
Fast forward many years later, the gamble paid off. Paying attention to what I wanted led me away from the organization I thought I’d retire from and toward starting my own thing as an entrepreneur, which was a dream job for me, even if it was challenging at many points. In this capacity as a leadership coach and consultant, I had the opportunity to have thousands of hours of conversation with people about their unique strengths, aspirations, and challenges. Over and over, I noticed that the real issue wasn’t about finding one perfect solution—it was about figuring out what they truly wanted. But I was taken aback by how that turned out to be surprisingly difficult for many people to express and define.
“Paying attention to what I wanted led me away from the organization I thought I’d retire from and toward starting my own thing as an entrepreneur, which was a dream job for me, even if it was challenging at many points.”
What do you want?
It’s an age-old question but one that we may never outgrow. Inner and outer transitions can cause this question to come back repeatedly, even if a past version of you had it all figured out. It’s a big question, but one that affects the very smallest elements of our lives. It’s a question that’s everywhere, but we aren’t taught where to go to find answers for it. Based on the countless conversations I’ve had with others, as well as my own story, “What do you really want?” is only a simple question until you try to answer it meaningfully.
Shouldn’t it be easy to know what you want? Isn’t it as natural and unconscious as breathing? Listening to people’s stories has shown me that our desires aren’t always obvious and easy to decipher. There’s a lot more to them, and sometimes, we need help to uncover and understand them. Uncovering and understanding our true desires can be challenging, and not discussing this reality makes it much harder to navigate.
These repeated conversations showed me how the simple question of what you want can go from straightforward to complex fast. When you are lost about how to answer, that confusion feels like a crushing wave of confusing emotions. I call this desire fog, and it is frustrating, stress-inducing, and tricky to navigate.
How to know what you really want
On the other hand, some things help combat desire fog and see more clearly what we truly want.
They are:
1. Calibrating your inner compass
We all have an inner compass, but sometimes we haven’t taken the time to pay attention to it and notice what uniquely makes us come alive and what doesn’t, what we’ve learned about ourselves that we want to bring into the future, and what we need to leave behind. Sometimes, when we don’t know where we want to go next, it’s because we don’t yet know enough about who we are.
2. Reprioritizing the roles of clarity and action
Most people assume that they need clarity before they can act. This is logical and makes sense. But there are thinking questions, and there are doing questions. Sometimes, you can find the clarity you’re looking for through reflection and being thoughtful. And sometimes, you can only find the clarity you’re looking for by taking action. Instead of waiting for clarity before you can act, I help people see that action leads to clarity.
3. Viewing outcomes as invitations
Lastly, most people don’t tend to be curious enough about the outcomes of their desires. If I get the job, that’s success. If I don’t, that’s failure. That’s definitely how I saw things. However, there are many more layers and nuances to the things we will encounter as we experiment with our desires, and we need to learn how to interpret these outcomes for our desires to become reality.
4. Not minimizing your desires
Many of us have wants, but we try to downplay them and make them as small and convenient as possible. Often, this is because we don’t want to open ourselves up to the possibility of being disappointed, so it feels safer to settle. But I find it essential to engage with what we want with more creativity and expansiveness.
I’d like to invite you to take a moment to pause to try a quick exercise that can help you get in touch with what it feels like to intentionally choose to be expansive with what you want. It won’t take you too long, I promise. Grab a pen and a piece of paper and set a timer for three minutes. For this brief amount of time, I want you to write down everything that you want. Don’t get caught up with what is and isn’t realistic. Instead, just allow yourself to be open and honest with whatever you find. Author Emily P Freeman talks about how you want what you want whether you admit it to yourself or not. So, this is an exercise in naming what is there, even if it feels a bit vulnerable to do so. You can even pause right now to do this before reading on. In fact, I think that is great.
Because when you take just a brief three minutes to try to be as expansive as you can be with what you want, you’ll learn so much. When I did this recently at a workshop, I found the responses so fascinating. One person said, “I found myself trying to come up with a good reason for everything I wrote down like I had to justify this to someone else. But I’m doing this only for me, and no one will even look at this, so why am I doing that?” Another person said, “It sounded so simple but surprisingly hard. I’m not used to thinking this way about myself. I do this for other people in my life — my kids, my loved ones — but not me.” Other people found it lovely and enjoyable, and it helped them get even more in touch with their true desires. The point is what you write down, and it’s also what it’s like to be more curious about your desires and let yourself flex your dreaming muscles.
When we do this kind of inner work in our lives, it builds a positive relationship with our desires, much like that of a good friend who wants what is best for us, sees beautiful possibilities ahead, and helps us become who we’re meant to be in the world. I’ve seen this time and time again in my life and the lives of the people I am privileged to work with. It’s why I’ll never not be passionate about helping people uncover what it is they truly want.
Recently, I was talking with a client of mine who had recently retired at the age of 65. He had been successful by most of society’s measures — a family, a successful career in finance, and a respected member of his community. When we were talking about what lay ahead in this new chapter of his life, he was asking a lot of questions. “I know what others want me to do, and I also know what I want to be doing, what lights me up the most, and what brings me joy. I’ve noticed how those aren’t usually the same thing these days. My question is — does that difference matter?”
I’ve thought a lot about this conversation and his questions. I believe the inquiries were his way of seeking permission to focus on what his life showed him he wanted most. I knew that deep down, he already knew the answers. That his desires matter and that leaning into them would help him continue to grow and evolve in a thriving and joyful way. I was so grateful for the courage and honesty of his inquiries and how he reminded me there is no wrong season of life to ask these deeper questions.
