How to find out what you really want in life

Let’s start with fear. Because if you really want to find out what you want in life, you have to start with your fears, most of them are desires unexpressed. So let me ask you this, what scares you the most in life?

You might be thinking about the obvious ones like fear of death or poisonous animals, but lets get deeper.

What really scares you?

Starting a side-hustle?

Writing a book?

Moving to a new country?

Jumping into a new career?

Think about it. What changes or ideas give you that sense of discomfort and unease in your body?

Here are my fears

In my own experience of unpacking my fears, I have found that a lot of them have been hidden desires unexpressed in my heart.

And just to be clear these desires are not the stuff that we use in order to feel better or numb out, like chocolate, sex, sugar, tobacco, drugs, or anything else that makes us escape the moment. The desires we talk about here are desires that come from the deepest parts of our heart and soul, the stuff that we secretly wish we could do in life.

Let me give you a few examples from my life:

• Fear of speaking my truth — I use to have a big fear of speaking up and speaking my truth to the world, what if no one likes what I have to say? What if they criticise me? What if I get rejected and made fun of by my friends? — As a result I would remain silent or make up stuff that I thought people wanted to hear. Deep down was a deep desire to just be me and to share that with the world.

• Fear of success — This one shows up in all sorts of ways, every time I have an introduction call with a client I get that tingling feeling in my belly, what if they say no? Or when I get offered to run a workshop or do a talk, aghhhhh, what if I can’t deliver it to perfection? There’s usually excitement but there is also this fear that if this will put me out there, if I succeed, will I still have time for me, for my family, for my friends? Will they love me?

This sounds absurd and I always thought it was fear of failure, but failure is manageable, if we fail we return to the same place. Success means we are stepping into the unknown. Behind this fear I found a deep desire to succeed, as a world leading coach, as an author and storyteller.

Argh, that was really not easy to write, but here it is. Two of my biggest fears and two of my deepest desires.

Fears are deep desires in disguise

Here’s the thing, if we keep piling up our deepest desires and covering them in fears we will eventually hit a point of crisis. We experience anxiety, we don’t feel fulfilled, and we are constantly seeking new experiences, yet nothing seems to do it for us.

Steven Pressfield gives a great example of this when it comes to our career. He calls it ‘shadow careers’:

“Sometimes, when we’re terrified of embracing our true calling, we’ll pursue a shadow calling instead. The shadow career is a metaphor for our real career. Its shape is similar, its contours feel tantalizingly the same. But a shadow career entails no real risk. If we fail at a shadow career, the consequences are meaningless to us”

If you really want to find out what you want in life, what your true calling is, you have to start in the place that scares you the most — your deepest fears.

Use these questions to find your hidden desires

Start by making a list of all the things that scares you the most [not getting that job I want, going bankrupt as an entrepreneur, be alone]

Ask yourself, what is the hidden desire? [change career, starting my own company, move to a new country]

What am I doing in my life at the moment to avoid pursuing my real calling? [Getting really good at a job that I don’t like]

What excuses do I make? [It’s not a great time, I don’t know where to start]

Who do I blame for not being able to do it? [My family, society, my partner]

If you need some help getting to the bottom of these answers I am offering a few free exploration coaching sessions every week for people who are looking to get clarity on who they are and what they actually want in life. If we find synergy we can explore working together, if not, I’ll send you off with a roadmap how to get there :)

Klick on the link and book your free session now (spaces usually go pretty fast every week).