What do you want to do? 

If your life experiences have been anything like mine (e.g., growing up in collectivist culture, a formal education in business, working in professional services), they may have conditioned you to understand what other people wanted. Your own inclinations may appear less clearly to you because you haven’t paid attention to them in a while.

Maybe you compromise, twisting yourself into fitting the opportunities in front of you that you see; you want to start a new independent project—maybe a business—but you’re looking for new jobs instead. 

Or you chase whatever’s exciting to you in the present moment, because the feeling of validation is very rewarding. 

Or you decide to simply want whatever other people want; either in the mimetic sense of copying other people’s desires and adhering to convention, or simply supporting them to achieve their goals. If they’re happy, you’re happy. 

But, you tell yourself, not everybody gets to do what they want.

As a result, you’ve fallen out of tune with yourself; you’re not sure what you want. You trust other people more than you trust yourself.

If any of this sounds familiar, I want to suggest a moment of mindfulness. If you’re used to talking yourself out of what you want, or not even considering it, you may find yourself waking up one day to find yourself living a life you didn’t imagine for yourself. (The phenomenon of a mid-life crisis comes to mind.) One way to step off of this default path, and in pursuit of a meaningful life, is to build self trust.

The latest edition of my newsletter, Three Thought Starters, explores this topic and asks the following three questions:

What does freedom mean to you?

What did you leave too early?

Where can you show up as yourself? How can you sustain it?

You may read the edition here, and subscribe here.