What would you say if I asked what you want? Not what makes sense. Not what you’d settle for. Not the edited-down version everyone would approve of.
What do you really want?
If no one would judge you. If you knew it would all work out. If you were certain you could have it.
That version.
Does something inside you flinch?
Pay attention to that. We flinch when something hits a nerve.
Why Admitting What You Want Hurts
We don’t flinch because we don’t know the answer. We flinch because we do — and admitting it makes it real.
The moment you admit you want to leave the job, start the business, end the relationship, write the book, the wanting starts asking something of you. It forces a decision.
And it does something else: it brings you face-to-face with every time you settled, sold yourself short, or doubted what you were capable of. All of it, front and center. Once you admit what you want, it gets a lot harder to look away from.
The Fork in the Road
Admitting it leaves you with two choices: do nothing, or do something. It’s your life — you’re free to choose as you please. But neither is risk-free. It’s about which risk you’re willing to take.
Doing nothing is seductive. It convinces you it’s the safer choice. It’s comfortable. It’s familiar. You keep doing what you’ve always done. You may never get what you actually want, but at least life stays predictable.
You’ve probably heard some version of the saying: the mind will choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven. Left on its own, the brain treats predictable as safe and the unknown as dangerous — but that doesn’t make it true. In fact, many times it’s the opposite. We cling to people and situations we’ve long outgrown, that we know aren’t good for us, simply because they’re familiar. We rob ourselves of the opportunity to experience something far better because we can’t predict the outcome.
Doing nothing means never finding out how far you could have gone. It means carrying the quiet knowledge that you never gave yourself the chance. It means risking a life looked back on with regret.
Doing something means facing the unknown. It means there’s no guarantee. It means you can’t be certain.
I was about three-quarters of the way through nursing school – and I wanted to quit. I hated every clinical rotation I had completed, until my first case in the operating room. I knew immediately it’s what I wanted to do. It was the only thing I would do.
When I shared this with my professors, I was met with ridicule. Clearly I didn’t understand how the system worked. I would have to “pay my dues” like everyone else. That meant spending my first two years working overnights on the Med-Surg floor. They didn’t miss an opportunity to remind me of the hierarchy. The world of medicine isn’t kind to the newcomer.
I had a decision to make – quit or go for what I wanted. Nine months and a stack of rejection letters later, I finally got the call. It was from the Director of Nursing at a local surgery center. She read my cover letter and recognized herself in me. She would bring me on and train me herself. I went on to spend over a decade working in surgery, without a single shift on Med-Surg.
Could I be certain my plan would work? No. But something funny happens when you decide.
Writer and philosopher W. H. Murray explains this phenomenon is his now-famous quote:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy…the moment one definitively commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.”
The Difference Between Recklessness and Aligned Action
Somewhere along the way, “following your passion” got a bad reputation. It came to mean throwing caution to the wind and burning your life down for the sake of some lofty ideal — as if recklessness were the only way to go after what you actually want.
I’d argue for something different: aligned action.
Once you admit what you want and align yourself with that decision, you can trust the path to reveal itself — not all at once, but step by step. You’ll suddenly remember an old friend who happens to be an expert in exactly what you need to learn. You’ll spot ways to save money that hadn’t occurred to you before. You’ll notice resources that were available all along, sitting in plain sight, waiting for you to look.
Tell your brain where you want to go, and it has a remarkable capacity to start showing you the way.
Clarity won’t arrive before honesty. It arrives because of it.
If there’s a desire you’ve been scared to admit you want, start there.
You don’t need a five-year plan. You don’t need to draft your resignation letter.
You just need to start with the truth.
Comments are closed