What Do You Want?

What do you want?

The first thing that always pops into my mind is that famous scene in The Notebook where Ryan Gosling is screaming this at Rachel McAdams.

To be quite frank Ryan, just chill out for a second, it’s a hard question to answer mate.

Personally, this is a question that I avoided for most of my life. I had already partially answered it, quietly in the deep caverns of my mind but it always felt so much easier to focus on what other people wanted.

I honestly think that taking the time to explore this question might be one of the most profound things we can ever do. It is one I have forcefully practised asking myself, daily, for the last 12 months of my life. The results have been incredible; I’ll get to them shortly.

I used to be a people pleaser. I was a really good one as well. For most of my childhood, I was one. Throughout my adolescence, I was one. And for most of my young adult life I was too.

On the surface, it can often look like “oh what a nice person”, or “they’re so thoughtful”. Beneath that is a compulsive behaviour that winds up serving nobody sincerely. The problem with this trait is that you live to serve others. This comes at the expense of neglecting your own needs, which can lead to resenting the people you are “serving”, all because you can’t look after what you want in the process.

When I began ironing this out, I really had very little idea about how to answer questions about what I wanted. I’d be asked something like “do you fancy a chippy for dinner?” and you would get “I don’t mind really, what about you?”. Inquire about what I wanted to do on a day off and “I dunno... was there not something you really wanted to do though?”. This is no good for anyone. I was sadly out of touch with what I wanted at almost every level of decision-making.

I’ve shared classrooms and lecture halls with people who proudly “just knew” what they wanted. My god, did the right part of my brain think they were insufferable at the time, but wow did my left brain admire them. I was resentful because I didn’t have the guts to figure things out for myself like they had. I would think that I would probably find a graduate job and then just stumble into making some sort of dream come true, I guessed. Right? Oh, so wrong again Calum.

If you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it - that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything - Oscar Wilde

I like this quote because it offers some comfort to two both avenues. If you know what you want to be so inherently, you will make it happen. If you don’t know but are actively searching, then you should explore, and enjoy the process.

So… what do you want?

Some of us might answer that question with “tons of money”, or “just to be happy” or maybe “a new job”. While these can be part of the real answer, we can do better than this. We can dig a little deeper and get beneath the surface, into some more details. That’s where you find answers that you can actually work with, at more of a core level.

You want to be happy? Solid philosophy. So what exactly does that look like for you? (Ryan Gosling needs to know specifically). Is it a dream house in the countryside? Maybe that’s part of a deeper desire to provide a home for a family one day. What is your vision for your future? What do you want to do for work? Maybe you want to work for yourself? Can you monetise a skill of yours? What will your side hustle business be called? Who do you want to work with? Maybe you uncover a core value of yours, independence, and so to be your own boss is really important.

You get the idea…

What do you really want?

This is tough work; really. It’s not something that is easily answered straight away. In my experience, it is something you chip away at. And then a little more. And discard the things you find out you don’t want. And slowly, slowly get clarity on those that you do. And all of a sudden, you realise the life you want has a tangible description. It’s grounded in plausible reality because now you can actually visualise it in detail.

Ok, so now you have really thought about what you want. That’s the first part of the game. Now you’ve got a target to aim for! Now how are we going to make that happen?

I know... more questions than a pub quiz. Unfortunately, this time the answer isn’t Game of Thrones, but there are many paths to help you find some. One that I have found personally useful is a framework made famous by Robert Dilts, a famous consultant in the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. The Dilt’s Pyramid helps to dissect our lives, gain clarity around them, and therefore makes planning more feasible. Each section can be viewed as a neurological level.

He explains that if you want to make lasting change, do it at the highest level possible in the pyramid. This is where the strongest and longest-lasting changes will be. Once we connect with things like a vision/ mission for ourselves that we truly want, once we form a strong attachment to a desired identity, the levels below (like your environment and behaviour), will follow suit. We naturally reverse-engineer paths, once we gain clarity at the top. The stuff below then forms more organically and we start to be able to answer all of these questions more easily.

This is the planning part.

And once you’ve got a plan, you’ve got the first part of your way forward.

I can tell you from my own personal experience that after taking the time to stare down the barrel at this question, my life has never been so enjoyable. What I want has never been clearer. I have goals. Big goals. I have plans in order to achieve these visions. It takes work, just constantly chipping away a little bit at a time. Consciously moving towards what you want. Doing things that serve you. Cutting out bad habits that don’t. Life became exponentially better for me when I started doing this consistently.

Here are some of my own specific wants:

• To become a truly great speaker and brilliant storyteller
• To have a family
• To help as many people as I can to live a better quality of life through my work
• To build my own hotel and wellness retreat
• To have financial freedom,
• and honestly… to one day walk into an Aston Martin showroom and drive my very own DBS 770, dream car, back home!

I am now connected with these answers like never before, and as such I’ve been able to build a general roadmap of how I am going to get there and achieve them.

The whole point is to know what you want; what it is that matters specifically to you.

So… what might that be?