In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I talk about about why not knowing what you want doesn’t have to mean something terrible and why it’s going to be tricky to listen to what you want if you’re not listening to (and meeting) your needs.
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Some nuggets from the episode
- Sometimes it’s that we don’t know what we want in a generalised sense, and this will often be as a result of never having focused on ourselves or from experiencing something that’s rocked our foundation. But we sometimes we don’t know what we want in a particular aspect of our life. We may, actually, be pretty happy in other areas.
- We give ourselves a hard time about seeming not to know what we want. All too often, we look at people who we admire and assume that they never question anything. Totally not true.
If you don’t know what you want, start by ensuring that you’re meeting your needs first.
- Your frustrations with ‘the thing(s)’ are telling you about your needs. Respond to those first and the wants will become clear.
- Is it that we knew what we wanted in the past, or is it that we did what was expected? Now that doing what other people expect of us even though it’s not what we want is no longer satisfactory, of course we’re going to be in a place of not knowing what we want.
- Sometimes we’ve mistaken our seeming need to be in control of all the things for ‘knowing what we want’.
- Things we don’t want are also part of the package of being, doing and having the things we want.
- If you’ve followed a path, there’s a linear mentality. It’s the assumption that you will want to keep going. No. You will be faced with the exploration of figuring out which choices are yours. Sometimes things have to become dissatisfying. The tension allows for self-excavation and aware commitment. You wake up.
Following the herd means that you get led to places you might not want to go.
- If you’ve woken up with a sense that you don’t know what you want in an area of your life, part of the self-excavation is acknowledging whether this is the outcome of living your life for others or assuming that something that satisfied who you were back then would satisfy you for all time.
- Being mad at you for not knowing what you want is like being mad at you for growing. It’s a lot to put on our younger self.
- If you’ve spent your time here on the planet pushing, striving, prodding and basically living for everyone else, you are being given an opportunity through not knowing what you want to become more acquainted with you. It’s about learning to say no so that you can say yes.
- If you won’t listen to and respond to needs, how can you listen to desires? Address burning needs first.
- Chasing after what you want without meeting your needs leads to you feeling confused and malnourished.
- Feeling guilty is often a sign that you are not used to paying attention to you and your needs.
Links mentioned
- Instagram post about what I’m giving up in 2020, including holding fees and delaying lunch to do “one more thing”.
- Freaking out over decisions (ep. 168)
- Are you exceeding your bandwidth? (ep. 100)
- Feeling stressed and overwhelmed isn’t an inconvenience (ep. 159)
- Emotional needs (ep. 149)
- Needs and Gary Chapman’s Love Languages
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