What do you want?
It seems like a simple enough question, yet it’s one that many of my clients genuinely struggle to answer. Many can name benefits that flow from what they want, like “happiness,” or “success,” or even, “success without sacrificing time with my family.”
Don’t get me wrong, these are fantastic ideals toward which many of us strive day in and day out to achieve. But, do you know what you truly, deeply, unshakably want from the core of your being?
I was speaking yesterday with two different people steeped in two different cultural and faith traditions. The first person I spoke with in the morning is a deeply religious Jewish man from New York. This gentleman told me that he was horrified several years ago when he paused to realize that he was living his life centered around ensuring that he would be able to retire comfortably. With so many burning issues tearing at the fabric of society, he questioned what he was doing in his life that could improve the current state of humanity. Over the course of 12 years, he probed this question deeply and experimented with the answer he kept coming to: ethics-based solutions to chronic problems affecting the human condition. He has since launched a business helping people and organizations apply his method to solve previously intractable problems, and he couldn’t be happier with the outcomes his clients are achieving and the impact that’s having on the greater good.
That afternoon, I spoke with the second person. The second gentleman is also deeply religious, but happens to be from the South and an ordained priest. While we were talking, I mentioned that I felt like I was wrestling in the mud with what I want versus what I felt obligated to pursue. In some ways, I told him, I felt like Jacob wrestling with the angel and it was exhausting! We spoke some more, and about an hour later the priest offered a prayer to close out our time together. After the prayer, I asked him if I could offer one last observation before we said goodbye. Obliging my request, I told him, “As you were praying, the following image came into my mind: I was wrestling with myself in the mud of a riverbank when Jesus observed me and simply told me to get up and walk.” When that image entered my mind and pierced my heart, I could immediately feel myself letting go of the need to be in control of the river flowing beside us in my mind’s eye and the muscles in my face and my shoulders relaxed. Needless to say, it was a powerful image that shook something loose within me.
So, I ask you again: What do you want?
Got your answer? Great! No? Probe a little more—maybe think about your values, what sets your soul on fire, or brings a knowing smile to your face and lights up your eyes.
Now, what’s holding you back from digging deep and going for it?