What do you actually want?

The question we were never taught to answer

In my mid-twenties, I started working with a life coach.

She was a friend of a friend, just starting out, and that’s how it was framed to me - doing her a favour and helping her build her practice. But looking back, I know I said yes because something in me already sensed that things weren’t right. I just didn’t have the language for it yet.

One of the first things she asked me to do was write a bucket list. Twenty things. The only rule: they had to be things I genuinely wanted - not goals, not achievements, not things I thought I should do. Just things that would bring me joy. Pure, uncomplicated joy.

I couldn’t even get to five.

I sat with that blank page longer than I’d like to admit. And the feeling that showed up wasn’t excitement or possibility. It was something closer to confusion. Because when I removed achievement from the equation - when I took away what it would mean for other people or what the next logical step was supposed to be - I didn’t know what was left. I had been so wired to perform, to hit the next milestone, to be useful and capable and on track, that I’d never once stopped to ask myself what I actually wanted from my life. Just for me. With no other justification required.

That was the first time I understood that I had been living a life that wasn’t entirely mine. That somewhere along the way, I had started outsourcing my sense of direction - and my joy - to things outside of my own control.

What I didn’t know then was that the blank page was just the beginning. Because once I started looking, I saw the same pattern everywhere in my life.

I held on tight to control because trusting myself - or anyone else - felt too risky. I mistook emotional suppression for strength, because letting anything real show through felt like a liability. I shaped myself around what others needed, told people what they wanted to hear, stayed agreeable and low maintenance, because somewhere along the way I’d decided that being easy to be around was safer than being fully known. I gave everything I had to the people around me and kept myself out of the equation entirely.

None of it felt like a choice at the time. It felt like professionalism. Like resilience. Like just being good at my job and easy to love.

But underneath all of it was the same thing. I had never learned to start from myself. To ask what I needed, what I valued, what I actually wanted my life to look like - and then make decisions from that place, rather than building my life around everything and everyone else.

The change didn’t come from a single moment of clarity. It came slowly, through years of doing the inner work that’s uncomfortable precisely because it asks you to look at the things you’ve been carefully avoiding.

But at some point, something shifted. And the shift wasn’t about becoming a different person. It was about finally becoming more fully myself.

I started noticing the moments I was performing - in meetings, in relationships, in the small daily choices that seem inconsequential but add up to a whole life. I started asking different questions. Not what should I do here? but what do I actually want here? Not how will this be received? but is this true for me?

And here’s what I’ve learned: choosing yourself isn’t a destination. It’s not a personality overhaul or a dramatic reinvention. It’s a practice that’s daily and often uncomfortable - of starting from yourself, your values, your needs, your own sense of what matters - rather than from everyone else’s expectations.

And yet, for most of us, it’s one of the hardest things we’ll ever learn to do.

If you’ve spent years wired to achieve, to perform, to keep others comfortable, to stay safe - the question, what do I want? can feel almost impossible to answer. Not because you don’t have wants, but because you’ve never been given permission to treat them as valid starting points.

So, that’s what I want to offer you here.

Notice. Name. Navigate.

Three simple reflections. Not a checklist or a process to follow perfectly - just three places to start, to sit with honestly, and without rushing.

Notice

Start by getting curious about where your decisions are actually coming from. The question is a simple one: is this coming from the inside, or the outside?

A decision made from the inside starts with you — your values, your instincts, what genuinely matters to you. It feels like yours.

A decision made from the outside starts somewhere else. And once you know what to look for, you’ll start to see it everywhere.

It sounds like:

• What will people think?

• I should be further along by now.

• I can’t say no to this - they’re counting on me.

• If I speak up, they’ll see me as difficult.

• This is just what you do at this stage of your career.

It feels like performing. Like bracing. Like saying yes when your whole body wants to say no. Like shrinking yourself to fit a space that was never quite shaped for you.

You’re not looking for a verdict. Just information.

Name

Once you start to see the pattern, get honest about what’s underneath it.

Because underneath the control is usually fear. Underneath the performed strength is usually a belief that the real you isn’t quite enough. Underneath the people pleasing is usually a deep, unexamined need to be safe.

Naming it isn’t about judgement. It’s about seeing clearly what you’ve been working around, so you can start asking a different question. Not how do I manage this? but what do I actually need here?

And if that question draws a blank, that’s okay. That blank is information too. It means you’re at the beginning, which is exactly the right place to start.

Navigate

This is where most people expect a plan. I’m not going to give you one.

Pick one small moment this week where you make a decision from what you actually want, rather than from habit, fear, or what you think is expected of you. It doesn’t need to be significant. It just needs to be true.

Because choosing yourself isn’t built in grand gestures. It’s built in small, honest choices that compound quietly, over time, into a life that’s actually yours.

I never did go back to finish that bucket list.

Not because I forgot about it, but because somewhere along the way I stopped thinking about joy as something to save up for. The experiences I’d struggled to name back then - the ones that felt indulgent or unjustifiable, or simply too far outside the plan - I started weaving them into the ordinary. Not as rewards. Not as items to tick off. But as the texture of a life that was finally, deliberately mine.

What I mean when I talk about choosing yourself isn’t a bucket list you return to occasionally. It’s a life where the things that bring you joy aren’t the exception - they’re the design.

And it starts much smaller than that sounds. It starts with noticing whose voice is driving your decisions. It starts with being able to answer, even imperfectly, the question my coach asked me all those years ago.

So, I’ll ask you the same thing.

If you set aside what you should want, what others are expecting, what the next logical step is supposed to be - what would be on your list?

You don’t have to get to twenty. You don’t even have to finish it.

You just have to start asking.

If this resonated and you’re ready to start doing this work with support, I work with a small number of clients through 1:1 coaching. Get in touch at hello@shalini.com.au