How to Know What You Actually Want (When You’ve Ignored Yourself for Years)

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Why clarity starts with listening, not logic

If you joined us for Step 1, Why Clarity Starts In the Body, Not the Mind, you may have tried some things, regulated your nervous system, and be feeling a lot better. You may also be wondering why you are just as confused as ever. Wasn’t this supposed to free your mind so you could decide? What is going on?

All totally fair responses, and nervous system regulation is a critical first step in this process. But it is just that – a first step. Now that your mind is calmer and less reactive, you are ready for step two, which is relearning how to listen to yourself. And I know, this seems a little woo woo and squishy. I get it. But part of the reason you may be where you are is telling yourself that how you feel and what you truly want is not important, that work or your to do list or getting to everything on time or that promotion or whatever your thing(s) are what is MOST important and therefore your feelings and wants will be pushed down and away.

The funny thing is, when you repeatedly push away what you want and how you feel, two things happen. The signals actually get both quieter and louder at the same time (I’ll make it make sense, hang in there). The actual individual signals – like the “little voice” telling you what you feel or think in a situation, truly you and not what you think you SHOULD feel or think, gets quieter. Your reactions to things may be pushed down and be colored by the reaction that you know is expected of you. Right now, when you’re trying to understand your next step in your career or life or whatever, you’ll likely have a hard time hearing yourself because you’ve silenced that voice for so long.

On the flip side, the signals may be getting loud in other ways. If you ignore chronic stress, dissatisfaction, lack of fulfillment, misalignment of your work with your values, skipping physical needs like food and sleep for work, etc for too long, the body says “ok, you’re not hearing it this way, let’s let it out another way.” That way is different for everyone – maybe panic attacks, depression, physical symptoms like pain or autoimmune issues, any number of things. When we stop listening to ourselves, the body gets quiet via the traditional signals and starts screaming in other ways.

SO all of that to say – step one is nervous system regulation, as that can help quiet the screaming. Step two is allowing that little voice, the internal impulses, all of the original ways your body tried to talk to you to come back.

Listening to yourself isn’t all relaxation and bubble baths

Before we start following every spark of intuition, let’s talk about what listening really means. To be very clear – learning to listen to yourself does NOT mean that you “hear” that life is hard, everything is hard, let’s just all sit around and do nothing because it feels good. It might actually mean incredibly hard work – maybe you realize that what you truly want is a different job that requires school while working, or that you start your own business, or that you take on a role that feels like a stretch and requires more hours. Hard? Yes. But working like that when you’re doing something you actually care about and not what you think you “should” do, or what ten years ago you thought you should do, or what you are doing because you’re afraid of what might happen if you stop, are two TOTALLY different things. It doesn’t mean chasing what’s easiest, it means being very honest about what’s true for you, even if it asks a lot.

The exhaustion that comes from working towards something that you don’t truly care about feels completely different from the exhaustion that comes from running hard towards work you actually choose.

Relearning to listen to yourself

Learning how to listen to yourself again is a PRACTICE. You will not flip a switch and have the voice back. That’s not how it left, either. It’s a daily effort to listen to yourself, to act based on what you hear, and over time, it will get louder and easier.

Does it seem crazy that it’s hard? I agree. But when we’ve conditioned ourselves for external metrics for YEARS – e.g., performance, approval, salary, “perfect” fill in the blank (mom / dad, wife / husband, employee / entrepreneur, you get it) – the internal metrics just fade away.

How do we do it? Lots of ways. Try what resonates with you (see, listening to yourself!) and continue with what works. If you feel uncomfortable, that may be the old perspective fighting for life, the one that wants you to optimize for other people, not for you. Part of the work is discerning what is truly you and what comes from the “shoulds” – I should be like this, do that, etc.

Here are some practices that you can try to get you started:

• Internal check-ins: Set 3 check-in alarms on your phone for points in your day when you can stop for five minutes (that’s all you need!) and consciously ask yourself “How do I feel right now? Is there anything my body needs? What is making me feel that way?” This starts to teach the body that you want to hear from it again, and while it may be hard to discern at first, it’ll get easier the more you do it.
• Morning Pages: Credit for this goes to Julia Cameron and her book The Artist’s Way. Morning Pages are just a piece of her whole program, which I recommend as well. To do Morning Pages, you simply wake up, grab a notebook and (ideally) hand write for three pages. This isn’t meant to be read by anyone later (even you), isn’t meant to achieve anything, and if you don’t know what to write, just write anything that’s on your mind. Write that this exercise is hard, that you’re bored, what your grocery list is. It doesn’t matter. The idea is that you’ll start to write what you’re truly thinking and feeling, and you’re telling yourself that those things are welcomed.
• Body check-ins during emotional reactions: Another simple one. Anytime you have a noticeable emotional reaction to something, whether good or bad, try to stop for a few seconds and notice where you feel it and what you feel. If you’re angry or stressed, do you feel a tightening, or a burning, or something else? If it’s happy, is it a lightness, or floating, or racing heart? Everyone feels different things, there is no right or wrong, the point is to just notice.
• Notice “I’m fine” overrides or when you don’t mean the “yes”: This may take some practice because you are so used to doing these things. Anytime you say that you’re fine and you’re not, or you say yes but you want to say no, just notice it. You don’t even have to change it, not right away, not if you’re not ready or if the consequences don’t make sense. The point is to notice and acknowledge. Are you pushing yourself for a deadline and your boss wouldn’t want to hear that you feel awful? Did you say yes to something for the kids that you truly don’t want to do because you’re exhausted in all ways? Just notice.

The Energy Audit

Once you’ve done some of the practices above, you’re likely starting to hear yourself again. This is a good time to try the Energy Audit so you can translate that information into data you can use to inform your next steps. It sounds fancy, but all you have to do is track what gives you energy and what drains your energy over 3-5 days. This is helpful because often we have misperceptions of how we truly feel about things. Maybe you think you should be good at and enjoy giving presentations because that’s what a professional (or at least the picture you have of one in your mind) should be, and therefore you’ve convinced yourself that you like them. Meanwhile, every time you have to get up on stage it wipes you out for the rest of the day and you have to go hibernate in your hotel room before you can talk to more people. It’s amazing what we can hide from ourselves to try to contort into these “shoulds” we harbor.

How to do an Energy Audit:

• Create a check-in plan: Set alarms throughout the day, or schedule meetings on your calendar, or set a midday and end of day review – whatever works for you. Create a structure that ensures that for the next 3-5 days, you are stopped in your tracks at some interval each day to make note of your energy levels related to your activities.
• Check-in on your energy: At each check-in, ask yourself how you feel, how high your energy is, and what is driving that. Notice what made time fly by, even gave you energy, and what made it feel like the clock stopped. What exhausted you, or put you in a bad mood, and what you felt neutral about. Keep a journal (written, in a document on your computer, in the Notes on your phone, whatever works for you) of each of these check-ins and what you notice.
• Review the audit for patterns: After the 3-5 days, carve out some time to look through it. Now that you’re a little removed, consider whether any other factors contributed to your energy. Did you blame a post-lunch slump for a task that you truly hate? Did you give credit to work that you love when really you just like the people on the team? Make note of what you notice. Start a list of what drains you, what is neutral, and what gives you energy. You may also have a column for “still deciding,” and that’s ok too. This will evolve over time, just as you do.

You’ll use this information as we continue through the framework, and as you think about what your life might look like in a world where you’re doing what you truly choose, what you want to do.

Identify Non-Negotiables

The next step is to determine what your true non-negotiables are. These are things where, if you had the perfect situation in all other ways, one of these things would still ruin it for you. Where you’d turn down your dream job or role if one of these things wasn’t fulfilled there. As such, these are NOT your wish list – things you’d like to have. They are things you cannot and will not live without.

How to build your list of non-negotiables:

• How long should the list be?
  • Because we’re so strict about these – turning down a dream job is not nothing – there shouldn’t be a long list. Think something like 3-7 items on this list.
• How do I make my list?
  • Long list: It’s easiest to make a low pressure long list of things you think might be non-negotiables for you, then cut from there. Try asking yourself the following questions and reviewing the list of examples and writing all of your answers down on one long list of potentials.
    • What would make me miserable even if everything else was perfect?
    • What have I compromised on that I still regret?
    • What did I identify during my Energy Audit that drained me?
    • Examples: autonomy, commute, meaningful impact, financial rewards, flexible schedule, creativity of the work, work environment, type of co-workers or customers, type of work, individual contributor vs manager, hours required, location, and many more
  • Short list: Once you’ve made the long list, read through and consider what items on the list would make you actually turn down a role or opportunity that was perfect in all other ways. It should truly be a filter, not a wish list.
• What do I do with this list?
  • This is the list of things that will filter opportunities and paths for you as you consider what you want to do next. Keep the list and the Energy Audit for your next steps in this framework.

The Ideal List

Next, just like we identified, the dealbreakers, we want to identify the dealmakers. These will work a little bit differently – the idea isn’t that you have to have every one of these for a future path or opportunity to make sense, but that you want to have some. These are the things that help you to thrive. They make you the best version of yourself, they make you better at whatever you’re doing. They’re not just a list of preferences, they’re the things that you know specifically will be extra leverage for a situation working for you. Keep in mind that these aren’t job titles or specific things you might do – they’re characteristics that could apply across lots of jobs or activities.

You will create this list in much the same way that you created the non-negotiables:

• Long list: Make a long list of things that you’d like in a role / situation / next step. Some thought starters:
  • What type of work or situation or people put me in “flow”?
  • What types of things did I identify during my Energy Audit that gave me energy?
  • What scenarios have generated positive feedback or reviews for me in a professional setting, and do I want those in a future role?
  • What type of work makes me lose track of time because I’m so into it?
  • Examples: collaborative work, solo work, creative, analytical, sales oriented, working with smart people (and what this means to you), environment
• Short list: Review your long list and select 5-7 things that truly help you thrive. Limit yourself to 7 to ensure that you’re selecting the most relevant things to you. If you’d like to keep a second “nice to have” list, that can be helpful as well.

Putting it all together

Now that you’ve worked through the energy audit, the non-negotiables, and the ideal list, you have a powerful data set for yourself as you move into determining what you truly want. You may have been surprised by what came out of these exercises. Maybe you thought you were gunning for a C-level role, or a partner track, but once you truly had to winnow it down, you realized that you care a lot more about the impact of your work and flexibility to see your kids. Or maybe you realized that you DO want those high-powered jobs…but in a different company or industry or type of work than you’re doing now. Or maybe you realized that you want to do exactly what you’re doing right now and you have the same goal you had before, but that there are some things about your current situation that absolutely have to change, like a commute or an environment. Sit with what came through for you for a few days, apply your newfound skills in listening to yourself, and make sure it’s right. Trust what you find. The more clarity and certainty you can get here, the easier the next step will be.

Now that you’ve completed this step, the idea is that you are now equipped to make a decision that is truly based on what you want, not on a program you’ve been running that’s influenced by others or the you from ten years ago. You’re ready to apply this information to the real world, to your situation, to gaining true clarity about where you might go next. In step 3, we’ll walk through how to do that.