How to find out what you really want

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It is difficult to understand what you want in this life if you dream about the results: they all look attractive. But if you think about what you are willing to sacrifice in order to get what you want, everything falls into place.

Everyone wants to feel good, live safe, be happy. Everyone wants reliable relationships and delicious sex, universal respect and prosperity. Because wanting it is easy.

If I ask you: "What do you want from this life?" - you answer: “I want to be happy, and for the family to be good, and for the job to be liked”. This is such a common answer that it does not characterize a person in any way.

There is a much more interesting question that you probably never asked yourself. What kind of pain do you want to experience in your life, what do you want to fight for? This largely determines how your life will go.

Everyone wants to get the result, but they are afraid of the process

Everyone wants to build a brilliant career and achieve financial independence, but few people dream of a 60-hour work week, long meetings, boring paperwork, the ability to navigate the corporate hierarchy and stay in a small cabinet hell.

People want a good job and a high salary without risks and sacrifices, they do not want to give up some of their needs and desires for the sake of wealth, even if it is necessary.

Everyone wants to have great sex and a strong union, but not everyone is ready for a showdown, psychodrama, offended silence and the need to find a compromise.

Because you have to fight for happiness. The positive is a side effect of recycling the negative. You can avoid difficulties for a very long time, but then they will burst into your life anyway.

Human behavior is based on more or less similar needs. Positive experiences are easy to go through, but negative experiences are dealt with. But in fact, what we get from life is determined not by the pleasant feelings that we want to experience, but by what obstacles we are willing to overcome in order to get pleasant feelings.

People want great physical shape. But you won't get in shape until you accept the pain and physical stress that comes with exercising at the gym, until you love these challenges, until you enjoy calculating your diet and keeping a close eye on what you eat.

People want to start a business or be financially independent. But you don't become a successful entrepreneur until you love risk, uncertainty about the future, anticipation of losses, work crazy hours and uncertainty about whether a project will be successful or not.

People want to meet a partner, get married, or get married. But you cannot build a truly good relationship without accepting emotional storms, sexual tension, the need to give up some of your personal freedom, and other restrictions. This is part of a game called love. You can't win it if you don't play.

Your success is determined not by what you would like to enjoy, but by what tests you agree to endure in order to get what you want.

Just wanting is not enough

Some people think that “just wanting” is enough to make the desire come true. Everyone wants something, but not everyone gets it. Because if you want to achieve something in life, you must also want to pay a certain price for it.

If you want a beautiful body, you must want to experience tension, muscle soreness, hunger, and avoiding unhealthy, delicious food. If you want a yacht, you have to be willing to take the risks associated with the business, spend sleepless nights due to stress, and perhaps see angry crowds of people who lost something because of you or got something wrong.

If you have a dream and you do not let it go - month after month, year after year, but it still has not come true, moreover, for all the years you have not come close to it at all, then perhaps you are not ready to pay for it … You have a fantasy in your head, an ideal image without flaws and difficulties, just a false hope. Maybe you are just enjoying the thought of it. Maybe you really don't want that at all.

Ask people, "What kind of suffering would you choose?" Most likely, before answering, they will look at you as if you were insane. But this question will tell much more about a person than a question about desires or dreams.

Because you have to choose. You cannot live without pain, among butterflies and unicorns. Therefore, the question of suffering is really important.

What kind of pain are you willing to endure?

This question will help you get to know yourself. He will change your life.

How to identify true desires

Most teenagers dream of becoming rock stars. Probably, everyone at the age of 16 presents to the guitar riffs of their favorite performers, as he and his friends perform on stage, and below the crowd of fans is raging.

This dream was just a pleasure, you could close your eyes and enjoy such pictures for half an hour. Some even get groups together and rehearse in the garage. But after a couple of concerts in the bar, as a rule, no one comes in. And this is the best case.

Then teenagers grow up, they need to graduate from universities, earn money, create families and have fun. And the music is simply forgotten. Despite all the fiery dreams, all the vivid visualizations. Why? Because teenagers don't really want to be rock stars. They are in love with the result, they see themselves on stage, the crowd below, their virtuoso performance of music. But no one is in love with the process of achieving this, no one even really tries. And so the dream just goes away with youth.

And this applies to almost any dream that did not come true. One self-help coach will tell you that you were not courageous enough to pursue your dream, that you did not believe in yourself. Another will say that you have not created the necessary conditions.

But the truth sounds much simpler and shorter.

You thought you wanted something. But in fact they did not want to. That's all.

It will not work if you want reward and not struggle, if you dream of a result, not a process.

People who love muscle soreness, tension and fatigue are in good physical shape. Anyone who likes to stay late at work, loves the politics and corporate culture of the company, moves up the career ladder. People who prefer the stress and uncertainty of a creative life are the only ones who live by creativity and receive recognition.

This is a natural part of life. Your struggle determines your success.