How do you figure out what you want?
February 12, 2023 12:07 PM Subscribe
I am realizing, through working on myself with a therapist, that I don't know what I want day to day or in life in general. I think about what other people would want for me, or what seems socially acceptable, and then I go with that. I'm sure I have specific desires in me somewhere, I just don't know how to access them. Has anyone here faced this and overcome it? How?
This seems like a super basic thing to be able to do, but for some reason I'm blocked. A sibling and I are both dealing with pest infestations in our apartment. Her building's management are helping her out with it, my building's management refuses, so I'm going it alone. I'm experiencing a massive amount of anxiety around this situation - dealing with these pests is a lot of work to do on your own and it's expensive and mentally taxing. This morning I caught myself thinking things like "I'd better clean and sanitize and seal and spray my bedroom closet today or sibling will be unhappy with me" and feeling really stressed and pressured. Then I thought, "wait... what do *I* want to do? What can *I* handle right now?" and my brain short-circuited a bit. I have no idea how I want to handle this. I have no idea what would make me feel ok or less anxious. And then I realized that this is how I live my life! That is always my thought pattern. "How do I please this person/avoid making this person angry with me" or "what's the right thing to do?" And then I spend ages thinking about all the pros and cons and possible backlash to my decision. (E.g., if I don't spend hours sanitizing my closet my sibling won't want to visit me or have me over and I won't see them for a long time.) I never think, "what would make me feel good? What would work best for me, and only me, right now?" When I ask myself those questions I can't answer them. I actually feel weirdly selfish and guilty when I try.
I have strong boundaries around what I don't want, and I think I got that confused with knowing myself and what I do want. I also don't have specific desires or dreams for my future. My therapist once asked me where I'd go on vacation if I could go anywhere in the world. I couldn't answer and then felt upset with myself because that should be an easy question! Going on vacation has never been a possibility for me so I just... don't want to go anywhere I guess? I also can't imagine a future for myself, or what I'd want to do or where I'd want to live if I could choose anything. I just wish for basic stuff like"feel safe." I used to have dreams. Silly ones like, "I want to live by the sea in a house with a widow's walk" or "I want to work in fashion making ridiculous gowns" but that's all gone and it makes me sad.
If any of you have faced blocks like this and overcome them - what did you do? How did you figure out what you want and what makes you happy?
This seems like a super basic thing to be able to do, but for some reason I'm blocked. A sibling and I are both dealing with pest infestations in our apartment. Her building's management are helping her out with it, my building's management refuses, so I'm going it alone. I'm experiencing a massive amount of anxiety around this situation - dealing with these pests is a lot of work to do on your own and it's expensive and mentally taxing. This morning I caught myself thinking things like "I'd better clean and sanitize and seal and spray my bedroom closet today or sibling will be unhappy with me" and feeling really stressed and pressured. Then I thought, "wait... what do *I* want to do? What can *I* handle right now?" and my brain short-circuited a bit. I have no idea how I want to handle this. I have no idea what would make me feel ok or less anxious. And then I realized that this is how I live my life! That is always my thought pattern. "How do I please this person/avoid making this person angry with me" or "what's the right thing to do?" And then I spend ages thinking about all the pros and cons and possible backlash to my decision. (E.g., if I don't spend hours sanitizing my closet my sibling won't want to visit me or have me over and I won't see them for a long time.) I never think, "what would make me feel good? What would work best for me, and only me, right now?" When I ask myself those questions I can't answer them. I actually feel weirdly selfish and guilty when I try.
I have strong boundaries around what I don't want, and I think I got that confused with knowing myself and what I do want. I also don't have specific desires or dreams for my future. My therapist once asked me where I'd go on vacation if I could go anywhere in the world. I couldn't answer and then felt upset with myself because that should be an easy question! Going on vacation has never been a possibility for me so I just... don't want to go anywhere I guess? I also can't imagine a future for myself, or what I'd want to do or where I'd want to live if I could choose anything. I just wish for basic stuff like"feel safe." I used to have dreams. Silly ones like, "I want to live by the sea in a house with a widow's walk" or "I want to work in fashion making ridiculous gowns" but that's all gone and it makes me sad.
If any of you have faced blocks like this and overcome them - what did you do? How did you figure out what you want and what makes you happy?
I haven't fully overcome this yet but I've made great strides. What's helped most for me:
1) Looking back at WHY I developed this habit. For me it was maladaptive behavior driven by always needing to keep unstable, abusive parents happy. Then use those reasons to get angry. I'm angry they treated me that way. I'm angry they didn't help nurture me as an individual, etc. My therapist says she typically works with helping people be less angry but she felt like I needed to be angry about the way I was treated as a first step to believing I was worth better treatment.
2) EMDR. Focusing in the phrase "what I want is important," through the sessions helped me connect a lot of scenarios in life where my wants and needs were, at best, ignored and dismissed and at worst were grounds for physical and emotional punishment.
3) practicing with safe people. My wonderful partner is 100% happy with me saying what I want. I practice in little ways (what I want for dinner, what color to paint my office, etc) and as they are received well, I feel more and more comfortable expressing bigger needs and wants (what I need in a house... we almost made an offer on a house that made me want to cry to think about living in because he really liked some features, but I was able to blurt out a panicked "I won't be happy living there! I hate the kitchen and I do all the cooking and I can't spend the next foreseeable future where several hours a day are in a room I hate!" And I almost cried. He of course happy/relieved I told him and didn't just go along with what he wanted.
(Also in case anyone is concerned, I do all the cooking because I enjoy it (mostly) and he hates it. He does more than his fair share of all the other chores)
posted by CleverClover at 12:33 PM on February 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
1) Looking back at WHY I developed this habit. For me it was maladaptive behavior driven by always needing to keep unstable, abusive parents happy. Then use those reasons to get angry. I'm angry they treated me that way. I'm angry they didn't help nurture me as an individual, etc. My therapist says she typically works with helping people be less angry but she felt like I needed to be angry about the way I was treated as a first step to believing I was worth better treatment.
2) EMDR. Focusing in the phrase "what I want is important," through the sessions helped me connect a lot of scenarios in life where my wants and needs were, at best, ignored and dismissed and at worst were grounds for physical and emotional punishment.
3) practicing with safe people. My wonderful partner is 100% happy with me saying what I want. I practice in little ways (what I want for dinner, what color to paint my office, etc) and as they are received well, I feel more and more comfortable expressing bigger needs and wants (what I need in a house... we almost made an offer on a house that made me want to cry to think about living in because he really liked some features, but I was able to blurt out a panicked "I won't be happy living there! I hate the kitchen and I do all the cooking and I can't spend the next foreseeable future where several hours a day are in a room I hate!" And I almost cried. He of course happy/relieved I told him and didn't just go along with what he wanted.
(Also in case anyone is concerned, I do all the cooking because I enjoy it (mostly) and he hates it. He does more than his fair share of all the other chores)
posted by CleverClover at 12:33 PM on February 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
Pay attention to who you are envious of and why.
Pay attention to small things that has your attention. Books you want to read, movies you want to see and restaurants you want to try.
The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People by Rachel Wilkerson Milller has a ton of questions like the ones your therapist asked. While you may not be able to answer them all, it's a good starting point.
posted by saturdaymornings at 12:46 PM on February 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Pay attention to small things that has your attention. Books you want to read, movies you want to see and restaurants you want to try.
The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People by Rachel Wilkerson Milller has a ton of questions like the ones your therapist asked. While you may not be able to answer them all, it's a good starting point.
posted by saturdaymornings at 12:46 PM on February 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I actually got a lot out of Marie Kondo's first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and the philosophy presented there. The whole point of it is identifying things around you that bring you joy - not things you should have, or things you aspire to, but sparking joy. It helped me so much in identifying my own priorities and things that I wanted to spend more time with.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:53 PM on February 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:53 PM on February 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
You start small!
If you've never practiced choosing what you want, your brain won't suddenly be able to do it in an emotionally high stakes situation (like the pest control thing). Poor brain says "whuh...".
So, like, decide what you want to do right now. Give yourself a choice: drink tea or water? Go for a walk or stay in? Picture each choice. Think about how each would make you feel. Do the one that makes you feel happier.
The important thing is to take other people out of the process. Pretend nobody knows or has an opinion about your choice, so you don't have to figure that into the equation.
Continue doing this every day.
Should I stay at this party or go home? If nobody else cared, what would going home feel like? What would staying feel like? Which one would I prefer feeling at the end of the night?
Practice will get you into the habit of listening to your emotions. If you honor your emotions and preferences they will start showing up for you.
posted by Omnomnom at 1:00 PM on February 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
If you've never practiced choosing what you want, your brain won't suddenly be able to do it in an emotionally high stakes situation (like the pest control thing). Poor brain says "whuh...".
So, like, decide what you want to do right now. Give yourself a choice: drink tea or water? Go for a walk or stay in? Picture each choice. Think about how each would make you feel. Do the one that makes you feel happier.
The important thing is to take other people out of the process. Pretend nobody knows or has an opinion about your choice, so you don't have to figure that into the equation.
Continue doing this every day.
Should I stay at this party or go home? If nobody else cared, what would going home feel like? What would staying feel like? Which one would I prefer feeling at the end of the night?
Practice will get you into the habit of listening to your emotions. If you honor your emotions and preferences they will start showing up for you.
posted by Omnomnom at 1:00 PM on February 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
I've been doing ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) for a couple years and it's a huge gamechanger. And really useful for those inclined to overthinking.
ACT has a lot of focus on honing in your values and living in step with them. Also, ACT teaches that we will always have static in our minds and how to live with it. Both those things have been huge at helping me get through those blocks of dissonance.
If you're interested, you could ask your therapist about ACT and/ or read The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris.
posted by mermaidcafe at 2:07 PM on February 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
ACT has a lot of focus on honing in your values and living in step with them. Also, ACT teaches that we will always have static in our minds and how to live with it. Both those things have been huge at helping me get through those blocks of dissonance.
If you're interested, you could ask your therapist about ACT and/ or read The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris.
posted by mermaidcafe at 2:07 PM on February 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
I’m currently in process of figuring this stuff out as well! And I have started small - like really small. I will have a plate of food and I will look at it and ask myself which food on the plate am I most excited to eat? I will identify it and then eat it last (treating it as a fun treat to end the meal on). Even if I have a plate of not very exciting foods, I can always identify one that is my favorite out of the selection. This has expanded into various other situations as well, where I am able to look at situations or things and find a thing that I like, or at the very least one thing that is the least miserable. If presented with “where would you like to go on a vacation?” I’d simply list maybe five places and pick one that I’m most drawn to. Best part is - there are no wrong answers! Maybe you pick the next town over for your vacation because you like being close to home. Well, ta-da! You just learned about yourself that you’re a bit of a homebody and like the familiar. (A vacation isn’t fun or invigorating or refreshing if you’re constantly stressed and out of sorts). And then own that aspect about yourself. If someone asks where you’d like to travel, you can confidently say “I’m more of a homebody, so I’m not really interested in traveling!” Which is an absolutely perfectly acceptable answer and stance.
Start small - just determine what you’re drawn to (and it helps to have a limited selection to choose from - like a plate of food or 5 options for a vacation).
Be brutally honest with yourself - this includes being present with yourself and asking yourself how you feel in the moment.
Be brave in that you may go against the grain or norm, and that’s perfectly acceptable.
It’s ok to not have grand dreams or some vision of your future. I get anxious thinking too far in the future. My big dreams are just small simple things that I find daily value in (routines, getting outside, learning something).
Struggling with guilt and selfishness - I know that’s hard to overcome, but unless you’re actively harming someone, it’s ok to have your boundaries, preferences and limitations.
posted by Sassyfras at 5:20 PM on February 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Start small - just determine what you’re drawn to (and it helps to have a limited selection to choose from - like a plate of food or 5 options for a vacation).
Be brutally honest with yourself - this includes being present with yourself and asking yourself how you feel in the moment.
Be brave in that you may go against the grain or norm, and that’s perfectly acceptable.
It’s ok to not have grand dreams or some vision of your future. I get anxious thinking too far in the future. My big dreams are just small simple things that I find daily value in (routines, getting outside, learning something).
Struggling with guilt and selfishness - I know that’s hard to overcome, but unless you’re actively harming someone, it’s ok to have your boundaries, preferences and limitations.
posted by Sassyfras at 5:20 PM on February 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I used to have dreams. Silly ones like, "I want to live by the sea in a house with a widow's walk" or "I want to work in fashion making ridiculous gowns" but that's all gone and it makes me sad.
There's a lot of other advice here I agree with - ACT, The Art of Showing Up, Marie Kondo, and I'll add The Kindness Method which is ostensibly about creating habits (and content warning for far too much fucking diet talk) but is also an introduction to having kind and compassionate dialogue with yourself. But first, something you can start today, is to take some of those silly dreams out and try them on again.
Imagining yourself in alternate realities is a form of play, which is an important means of exercise for the brain and nervous system. It sounds like you are describing a life that has had all the play boiled out of it. Please try doing something a bit mindless - washing dishes, taking a shower, laying down to wind down before bed - and spend some time in the house by the sea with the widow's walk. Take the widow's walk off if you're not feeling it anymore, maybe replace it with a wrap-around veranda. Put in a garden. Ride a bike around the neighborhood. Focus a little bit more on feelings you might enjoy if the details make you too tense - wind in your face? Sound and smell of the sea? Is it a pleasant isolation where your time is your own, or more of an introvert's nest but there's a whole guest suite for people you invite to visit? Maybe there's a secret studio in one wing of the house where you go to design gowns? You don't have to actually want any of this for yourself, just start with going places and doing things that are not your current everyday, just in your head for now.
I call this condition "letting my world get too small". There's a reason people talk in terms of "life-changing" when they get out of their comfort zone, and that departure can be on an incredibly small scale like not going to your favorite Thai place in several years because they're on the other side of town and that has become "such a hassle" to do. I find that stretching my wings in meditation and visualization helps me push out the boundaries of my world a little bit, makes it a little bit easier to make that trip to the other side of town or actually go to that local art fair this year instead of just always saying you wish you'd gone. When you start stretching, and your brain gets better used to the ide of stretching, I find that stimulation starts leading your thinking toward ideas that actually DO light you up, that you actually do feel that gut feeling of "THAT, yes, I want that".
And look, nobody has to know what's in your head. It's totally safe to start there, nobody can judge you because you don't have to tell them. You don't have to push yourself until it hurts, just do a little stretch. One day I hope you do build a path for yourself where you will choose to do so because it's more of that good-hurt when you've been sitting still too long and get up to take a little walk. I hope it's because you've suddenly been inspired with a Plan, and once you could see the Plan the pieces begin to fall into logical place for you. But that's all stuff for Later You, I hope This Week You can just try playing around with a little bit of an unfamiliar life in your head for a few minutes.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:22 PM on February 12, 2023 [21 favorites]
There's a lot of other advice here I agree with - ACT, The Art of Showing Up, Marie Kondo, and I'll add The Kindness Method which is ostensibly about creating habits (and content warning for far too much fucking diet talk) but is also an introduction to having kind and compassionate dialogue with yourself. But first, something you can start today, is to take some of those silly dreams out and try them on again.
Imagining yourself in alternate realities is a form of play, which is an important means of exercise for the brain and nervous system. It sounds like you are describing a life that has had all the play boiled out of it. Please try doing something a bit mindless - washing dishes, taking a shower, laying down to wind down before bed - and spend some time in the house by the sea with the widow's walk. Take the widow's walk off if you're not feeling it anymore, maybe replace it with a wrap-around veranda. Put in a garden. Ride a bike around the neighborhood. Focus a little bit more on feelings you might enjoy if the details make you too tense - wind in your face? Sound and smell of the sea? Is it a pleasant isolation where your time is your own, or more of an introvert's nest but there's a whole guest suite for people you invite to visit? Maybe there's a secret studio in one wing of the house where you go to design gowns? You don't have to actually want any of this for yourself, just start with going places and doing things that are not your current everyday, just in your head for now.
I call this condition "letting my world get too small". There's a reason people talk in terms of "life-changing" when they get out of their comfort zone, and that departure can be on an incredibly small scale like not going to your favorite Thai place in several years because they're on the other side of town and that has become "such a hassle" to do. I find that stretching my wings in meditation and visualization helps me push out the boundaries of my world a little bit, makes it a little bit easier to make that trip to the other side of town or actually go to that local art fair this year instead of just always saying you wish you'd gone. When you start stretching, and your brain gets better used to the ide of stretching, I find that stimulation starts leading your thinking toward ideas that actually DO light you up, that you actually do feel that gut feeling of "THAT, yes, I want that".
And look, nobody has to know what's in your head. It's totally safe to start there, nobody can judge you because you don't have to tell them. You don't have to push yourself until it hurts, just do a little stretch. One day I hope you do build a path for yourself where you will choose to do so because it's more of that good-hurt when you've been sitting still too long and get up to take a little walk. I hope it's because you've suddenly been inspired with a Plan, and once you could see the Plan the pieces begin to fall into logical place for you. But that's all stuff for Later You, I hope This Week You can just try playing around with a little bit of an unfamiliar life in your head for a few minutes.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:22 PM on February 12, 2023 [21 favorites]
Lots of practice. Don’t get discouraged, start small, all good things people said above. Therapy is good, work with your therapist to learn how to listen to emotions in your body and do less “managing” them with your mind. Mindfulness meditation can be good for some people. Somatic therapy and trauma therapy are worth looking into. Good luck.
posted by matildaben at 6:15 PM on February 12, 2023
posted by matildaben at 6:15 PM on February 12, 2023
Building on someone's very smart suggestion to pay attention to what you envy: look at shadow work prompts -- shadow work is about exploring disowned aspects of oneself -- could be things one feels ashamed of, or just not entitled to. Do you have any people in your life who play a "Jungian shadow" kind of role? They might be people you feel visceral strong negative emotions towards, including envy -- possibly because you attribute to them something you can't acknowledge about yourself, maybe disowned wants, desires, feelings of entitlement. That could be a path towards starting to identify what you want.
posted by virve at 6:45 PM on February 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by virve at 6:45 PM on February 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
This can be a characteristic of schizoid personality, if you might fit that description. It can also happen if you're depressed.
posted by Violet Hour at 9:40 PM on February 12, 2023
posted by Violet Hour at 9:40 PM on February 12, 2023
Hi, Stoof. Your question resonated with me. I have not always felt as you describe, but there have been times, multiple times in my life, when I have felt this way. Most recently I felt this way just after spending a significant and intense amount of time taking care of someone else in a stressful environment where I had to keep my guard up emotionally, the stakes were high if I messed up, and the family member overseeing my work was sometimes hypercritical, and often disgusted with me in a barely concealed way.
In that time and place, it felt easiest just to try not to want things, because if I wanted things and then acted on that desire, I might get criticized and shamed, I might have to explain what I wanted in the face of people who did not understand me, and getting the thing might not even be that great. And the people around me needed or wanted so much, and some of them were fighty, so if I could just hang back and not put my own wants into the mix of things, then maybe everything could go smoother.
I came home and I felt like I had to remember how to want and plan things for myself, instead of just thinking that it's easier not to want things.
I think I started with three things:
1. simple sensory pleasures and indulgences -- and if I felt "bad" for partaking, telling myself that this was ok because it was part of healing from a really hard time.
2. remembering what I had liked and enjoyed in the past.... I write a blog so I could go back and read those posts. You have some past MeFi posts and comments that mention things you have enjoyed, like being alone on a quiet beach, so that is probably a good place to start.
3. being with groups and friends who are more curious than judgmental and who are pro-pleasure.... I caught up with friends via phone and videocalls, and along the way, asked them about what they were enjoying (books, movies, hobbies, work, etc.). Sometimes I thought "that sounds cool"! But also, the vicarious pleasure I could take from their experiences sometimes just gave me a little spark, reminding me that pleasure and satisfaction are neat things to have. And that helped unblock me from tentatively making plans and taking steps towards achieving them. And I read a lot of fanfiction on Archive Of Our Own. The comments on AO3 are (in my experience) friendly and encouraging; people are glad to have art that connects to a fandom they enjoy. In a previous situation a bit like this, taking part in a mindfulness meditation group was helpful, partly for the meditation, but also because it put me in a setting where everyone around me was aiming to nurture values of being calm, kind, etc.
Once I could get myself to do it, a little physical exercise also helped. I once learned that psychologist Albert Bandura's theory of self-efficacy (fundamentally, the belief that I have the capability to influence the course of my own life) has a bunch of factors, but one of them is deliberate physical movement. When I choose to even just go for a short walk, that is a choice I am making with my own body and it reminds me that I am the one in charge of what I do.
Like you, I've struggled a lot with shame and perfectionism. And in my early adulthood I had tremendous difficulty imagining any future for myself at all, much less developing my own ambitions. A key step for me was reading Dr. Anna Fels's book Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives. Dr. Fels points out that the childhood or adolescent desire for fame, or a wish that feels "silly", is often a precursor to a more nuanced ambition, combining the urge to master some domain or skill with the desire for the recognition of one's peers or community. She also notes that women, especially, feel the need to hide that wish instead of developing it into a healthy passion to guide our careers. I remember reading this and realizing: Oh! I've felt kind of ashamed of the desire to be good enough at [specific work skill] that people come to me for advice, but now I understand that this is a way to understand my goals. I want my mastery to be so strong that it is validated by other people's desire to learn what I know.
I wish you well. It's ok for this to be a really slow process. You didn't get conditioned to avoid curiosity, interest, ambition, and spontaneous adventures overnight, and cultivation will take time. But you have been very very happy in the past, and you can make it more likely that moments like that will happen again.
posted by brainwane at 4:55 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
In that time and place, it felt easiest just to try not to want things, because if I wanted things and then acted on that desire, I might get criticized and shamed, I might have to explain what I wanted in the face of people who did not understand me, and getting the thing might not even be that great. And the people around me needed or wanted so much, and some of them were fighty, so if I could just hang back and not put my own wants into the mix of things, then maybe everything could go smoother.
I came home and I felt like I had to remember how to want and plan things for myself, instead of just thinking that it's easier not to want things.
I think I started with three things:
1. simple sensory pleasures and indulgences -- and if I felt "bad" for partaking, telling myself that this was ok because it was part of healing from a really hard time.
2. remembering what I had liked and enjoyed in the past.... I write a blog so I could go back and read those posts. You have some past MeFi posts and comments that mention things you have enjoyed, like being alone on a quiet beach, so that is probably a good place to start.
3. being with groups and friends who are more curious than judgmental and who are pro-pleasure.... I caught up with friends via phone and videocalls, and along the way, asked them about what they were enjoying (books, movies, hobbies, work, etc.). Sometimes I thought "that sounds cool"! But also, the vicarious pleasure I could take from their experiences sometimes just gave me a little spark, reminding me that pleasure and satisfaction are neat things to have. And that helped unblock me from tentatively making plans and taking steps towards achieving them. And I read a lot of fanfiction on Archive Of Our Own. The comments on AO3 are (in my experience) friendly and encouraging; people are glad to have art that connects to a fandom they enjoy. In a previous situation a bit like this, taking part in a mindfulness meditation group was helpful, partly for the meditation, but also because it put me in a setting where everyone around me was aiming to nurture values of being calm, kind, etc.
Once I could get myself to do it, a little physical exercise also helped. I once learned that psychologist Albert Bandura's theory of self-efficacy (fundamentally, the belief that I have the capability to influence the course of my own life) has a bunch of factors, but one of them is deliberate physical movement. When I choose to even just go for a short walk, that is a choice I am making with my own body and it reminds me that I am the one in charge of what I do.
Like you, I've struggled a lot with shame and perfectionism. And in my early adulthood I had tremendous difficulty imagining any future for myself at all, much less developing my own ambitions. A key step for me was reading Dr. Anna Fels's book Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives. Dr. Fels points out that the childhood or adolescent desire for fame, or a wish that feels "silly", is often a precursor to a more nuanced ambition, combining the urge to master some domain or skill with the desire for the recognition of one's peers or community. She also notes that women, especially, feel the need to hide that wish instead of developing it into a healthy passion to guide our careers. I remember reading this and realizing: Oh! I've felt kind of ashamed of the desire to be good enough at [specific work skill] that people come to me for advice, but now I understand that this is a way to understand my goals. I want my mastery to be so strong that it is validated by other people's desire to learn what I know.
I wish you well. It's ok for this to be a really slow process. You didn't get conditioned to avoid curiosity, interest, ambition, and spontaneous adventures overnight, and cultivation will take time. But you have been very very happy in the past, and you can make it more likely that moments like that will happen again.
posted by brainwane at 4:55 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
This is something I've struggled with. For me, a useful technique has been to "vision board" using a tool like Pinterest. When I see something I want or that I might want someday, I pin a picture of it on one of my boards. This doesn't have to be objects I want to own -- the pictures can represent activities or trips or things I want to learn how to do.
Another useful thing for me is to pay attention when something in a movie or TV show really appeals to me, like a specific location, or a character's job or the design of their house or things they do for fun. Even if your brain is like "but that could never happen in real life!", sometimes it's still a clue that can point you in the right direction. Like you can't live in a fancy palace, but maybe you'd be interested in visiting a museum inside of one? You can't suddenly get a job as a nature photographer, but maybe you'd like to spend the day taking photos at a local nature preserve? This kind of thinking revealed there are a lot of little things I would like to do.
posted by moleplayingrough at 4:59 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Another useful thing for me is to pay attention when something in a movie or TV show really appeals to me, like a specific location, or a character's job or the design of their house or things they do for fun. Even if your brain is like "but that could never happen in real life!", sometimes it's still a clue that can point you in the right direction. Like you can't live in a fancy palace, but maybe you'd be interested in visiting a museum inside of one? You can't suddenly get a job as a nature photographer, but maybe you'd like to spend the day taking photos at a local nature preserve? This kind of thinking revealed there are a lot of little things I would like to do.
posted by moleplayingrough at 4:59 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is what's working for me, simplified from years of therapy: I'd always been caught up in always doing what was "right" and avoiding what was "wrong." And for me, selfishness was wrong and whatever benefited others was right. So I was a good boy, accommodating my parents, spouse, bosses, friends.
So my therapist suggested I let go of Right-vs-Wrong and pay attention to "What do you like and want?" I began doing things as experiments in order to find out what I liked. (Of course, learning to pay attention to what you're enjoying helps.) And what you like can be where you start thinking about what you want. (Keeping in mind that you might want to do things you don't necessary like. For example, you might want to fulfill a work obligation even though you might not like it.)
This is what's working for me. Other issues have surfaced but you can work through those as well, I'm sure.
posted by booth at 7:26 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
So my therapist suggested I let go of Right-vs-Wrong and pay attention to "What do you like and want?" I began doing things as experiments in order to find out what I liked. (Of course, learning to pay attention to what you're enjoying helps.) And what you like can be where you start thinking about what you want. (Keeping in mind that you might want to do things you don't necessary like. For example, you might want to fulfill a work obligation even though you might not like it.)
This is what's working for me. Other issues have surfaced but you can work through those as well, I'm sure.
posted by booth at 7:26 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
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For me, it took a lot of practice. It sounds like you have awareness, which is an amazing first step. It's a hard process to access those opinions and trust yourself , but as you do it more and more, it'll come easier.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 12:25 PM on February 12, 2023 [1 favorite]