Reflection Prompt: Discovering What You Want

Recently I wrote about exploring joy, starting with figuring out what you want. But I know it’s not that simple for most people.

I want to invite you to do an exercise really quick:

Think back about the last handful of meaningful decisions you made. For each one, ask internally “why” you did it, and listen for what comes up. 

Write down a sentence naming the reason for each decision until you get 5 of them.

Hold onto that list and continue reading.

One of the big reasons it can be difficult to name things we do want is because "survival mode" has a way of occupying our minds with the things we don't want.

I’ll explain:

If you pay attention to the way people speak, you may notice that for some people—when they talk about why they did a thing—they almost always name a fear or risk they were avoiding by doing it. 

This person might even be you. Look back at the list you wrote at the beginning, and pay attention to the language that comes up for why you made those choices.

“If I [did alternative] then [bad thing would happen].” or “I didn’t want to [bad thing].” 

However the language turns up, notice if you were incentivized by avoiding bad things. Think about how much time and energy you spend doing that.

If this is frequent for you, this post is for you. And as always for reflection prompts, make sure you subscribe as a journey member to access the full article and exercises.