To get what you want, know what you want

Ever wondered why you never seem to get what you want in life? Or why others seem to have all the things you dreamt of but you never received? Of course you have, we all have at some point.

The problem is that we spend our lives hoping that someone will read our minds and know exactly what we want. At the same time, we know that nothing in life is for free and we need to put in time and effort to attain anything we desire. There is, however, a step before making the effort and that I believe is the stage of gaining clarity.

The lack of clarity that casts a shadow over our lives is so pervasive that it covers who we are and what we need and extends to what we want. Made-up false assumptions, lack of self-awareness and, more often than not, other people’s opinions, the lack of clarity results in us striving, not for what is pivotally important to us, but for many things which are not significant.

Let’s pick a common trauma for most people — heartbreak. Each of us has suffered from heartbreak at some point and the reason it is so dreadful is that when we are in the throes of love, we believe that the object of our affection is ‘the one’ —our soul mate.

If we were to reflect on the individual’s compatibility with us rather than wanting him/her to be some ideal person, we would either limit our involvement or increase our willingness to compromise. But we tend to be hell-bent on ‘wanting’ the person to satisfy what I would call our false ego, but remain unclear on whether we need or even want that person with all his/her characteristics and idiosyncrasies.

Then, there is that nightmare that shapes our personalities and directs who we become through experiences — other people’s opinions and expectations. Within that morass, there are those who matter to us and who affect our decisions and also those who simply exist as commentators on our lives. With the former, we often hand over control of our lives by letting them make our decisions, like parents deciding on our careers. With the latter, the people who we barely know but who freely give opinions and pass judgments on us, we often let them gain too much access to our lives and their attitude starts to colour our lives grey.

In our careers as well, we wait; we wait for the choice of assignments, the praise and recognition and the promotions. We assume that there is a straight path to success. The truth is that there is no step-by-step path to success, and we need to discover our strengths in the workplace, be willing to change jobs and work hard. There is very little likelihood that the first job you took out of college was connected to your dream career.

We limit ourselves by what we think we are and who we imagine ourselves to be. Then we narrow those options even further by what other people think. And then, we wait; we wait for the manager at work to recognise our potential, we wait for the perfect opportunities, we wait for ‘the one’ to happen. The unforgiving reality of life is that waiting when you don’t even know what you’re waiting for, is endless.

Knowing yourself and understanding what you need and what you want is the first step to getting there. No matter how long you strive to get to where you want to go, if you’re facing the wrong direction, you will not get there.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th,  2015.

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