When you've spent years living up to expectations, rediscovering your own desires can feel like meeting yourself for the first time.
October 19th 2026 • By Rebecca McGarry
There comes a point in life when you might find yourself sitting quietly, perhaps with a cup of tea, looking out of the window, and asking a question that seems so simple it should be easy to answer.
What do I actually want?
Not what would make everyone else happy.
Not what would look impressive.
Not what makes sense on paper.
But what do I want?
And sometimes, to your surprise, there's no answer.
Just silence.
It's a strange feeling, isn't it? To have lived inside your own life for decades and suddenly realise you're not entirely sure whether the life you've built is the one you would have chosen.
You might have a good job, a comfortable home, and people who care about you. From the outside, everything looks perfectly fine.
And perhaps much of it genuinely is.
But somewhere beneath the routines, responsibilities and expectations, there's a quiet feeling that something is missing.
Not necessarily something dramatic.
Just a sense that there's more of you waiting to be lived.
The life you were supposed to want
Think back to when you were younger.
Before life became complicated. Before the bills, the responsibilities, and the practical decisions. Before you learnt which parts of yourself were celebrated and which parts were better kept quiet.
What did you dream about?
Maybe you wanted to travel the world, create something beautiful, write stories, help people, dance, explore, or simply live a life full of adventure.
Perhaps you didn't have a clear dream at all. You just had a feeling about how you wanted life to be.
Free. Exciting. Loving. Full of possibility.
And then, little by little, life began offering you a different set of instructions.
Be sensible.
Get a secure job.
Don't take unnecessary risks.
Think about what other people will say.
Be realistic.
Most of these messages came from people who loved us. People who wanted us to be safe, successful and happy.
And there was often wisdom in their advice.
But somewhere along the way, we may have stopped asking whether their version of happiness was also ours.
We made choices that seemed sensible. We followed paths that earned approval. We became very good at being responsible, capable, dependable adults.
And without quite noticing, we began confusing what was expected of us with what we genuinely wanted.
Until one day, the life we'd worked so hard to build started to feel a little unfamiliar.
Not because it was wrong.
But because we had changed, and perhaps our lives hadn't changed with us.
How we learn to stop listening to ourselves
As children, we learn about ourselves through the responses of the people around us.
We notice what earns affection, what brings praise, what causes disappointment, and what helps us feel accepted.
Over time, these experiences can shape the beliefs we develop about who we should be.
Psychologists sometimes describe part of this process as introjection: absorbing other people's values, expectations or beliefs until they begin to feel like our own.
And often, we don't even realise it's happening.
Perhaps you learnt that being successful meant earning a certain amount of money.
That being a good person meant always putting others first.
That security mattered more than adventure.
That changing your mind meant you had failed.
Or that wanting something different was somehow selfish.
None of these beliefs necessarily arrived as a conscious decision.
They simply became part of the story you told yourself about life.
And after years of repeating that story, it can be difficult to recognise which parts were written by you.
There's a beautiful distinction in psychology between living according to external expectations and living in alignment with our own values.
Self-determination theory, developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, suggests that autonomy — feeling that our actions reflect our own choices and values — is one of our fundamental psychological needs.
In other words, it matters that our lives feel like they belong to us.
Not because we need to reject everything we've built.
But because there's something deeply nourishing about feeling that we're participating in our own lives rather than simply following a script.
Sometimes what we want changes. And that's okay.
Imagine a woman in her twenties.
She's ambitious, determined and full of plans. She wants to build a career, earn money, prove herself, and create security.
And she does.
She works hard. She achieves things she's proud of. She becomes the person she once hoped to be.
Then, somewhere in her forties or fifties, she begins to feel differently.
The things that once motivated her no longer hold quite the same appeal.
She finds herself craving simplicity rather than achievement.
Connection rather than recognition.
Freedom rather than promotion.
Time rather than more things.
Perhaps she wants to spend her mornings walking by the sea, do work that feels meaningful, travel somewhere new, or simply have the space to breathe.
But instead of listening to these feelings, she questions them.
What's wrong with me?
Why am I no longer satisfied?
Shouldn't I be grateful for everything I have?
And perhaps the most painful question of all:
Have I wasted all these years building the wrong life?
But what if nothing has gone wrong?
What if the person you were at twenty-five needed different things from the person you are today?
What if your changing desires aren't evidence of failure but of growth?
You can be grateful for the life you've lived and still want something different for the life ahead.
Gratitude and longing can exist together.
You don't have to dismiss one to honour the other.
The difference between what looks good and what feels right
There's something interesting about the way we make decisions.
We often ask ourselves whether something is sensible, achievable, impressive or financially rewarding.
And of course, these things matter.
But we don't always ask a different question.
Does this feel like me?
Think about the moments when you feel most alive.
Not necessarily the moments when you've achieved something extraordinary.
Perhaps it's when you're laughing so hard with a friend that you forget about everything else.
When you're walking somewhere beautiful and feel completely at peace.
When you're lost in a conversation that makes you feel understood.
When you're creating something, learning something, dancing, helping someone, or discovering somewhere new.
In those moments, you're not usually thinking about whether you're successful enough, productive enough or impressive enough.
You're simply there.
Present.
Engaged.
Being yourself.
These moments may offer clues about what genuinely matters to you.
Not necessarily because they tell you what career to pursue or where to live.
But because they reveal something about the qualities you want more of in your life.
Freedom. Connection. Creativity. Adventure. Peace. Love. Contribution. Joy.
Sometimes we become so focused on deciding what we want to do that we forget to consider how we want to feel and what we want to experience.
And perhaps that's where the exploration begins.
You don't need to figure out your entire life.
One of the reasons the question What do I really want? can feel overwhelming is that we expect ourselves to produce a grand answer.
A new purpose.
A five-year plan.
A dramatic reinvention.
Something that makes sense of everything.
But perhaps the pressure to find the answer is part of what keeps us from hearing it.
Imagine being in a noisy room, trying to listen to someone speaking softly.
You wouldn't hear them by adding more noise.
You'd need to create a little quiet.
Rediscovering what you want can be similar.
Sometimes it begins not with a big decision but with noticing.
Noticing which conversations leave you feeling energised.
Which commitments leave you feeling drained?
Which activities make time disappear?
Which dreams keep returning, even after you've told yourself they're unrealistic.
And which parts of your life you're holding onto simply because they've always been there.
You don't need to judge what you discover.
You don't even need to act on it immediately.
You can simply become curious.
Because curiosity creates space for possibilities that pressure often closes down.
A small invitation to listen to yourself
Sometime this week, find a quiet moment.
Perhaps during your morning coffee, on a walk, or just before bed.
And instead of asking yourself what you should be doing with your life, try asking something gentler.
If nobody had any expectations of me, what would I want more of in my life?
Don't worry about whether it's practical.
Don't immediately start calculating the cost, the risks, or the reasons it might not work.
Just notice what comes up.
Maybe it's something enormous.
Maybe it's something wonderfully ordinary.
More laughter.
More time outdoors.
More meaningful work.
More love.
More opportunities to explore.
More space to simply be.
And if nothing comes up, that's okay too.
Sometimes, when we've spent years listening to everybody else's needs and expectations, our own voice takes a little time to become familiar again.
You can give it that time.
You can begin with the smallest of choices.
Choosing what you genuinely want to do on a Sunday afternoon.
Saying yes to something that excites you.
Saying no to something that no longer feels right.
Allowing yourself to explore an interest without needing to turn it into something productive.
Each small choice is an opportunity to reconnect with your own preferences, values and desires.
And over time, those choices can begin to create a life that feels more authentically yours.
Perhaps you already know more than you think.
Maybe the question isn't always What do I want?
Maybe sometimes it's:
What do I already know I want, but haven't quite given myself permission to choose?
Because somewhere beneath the noise, the obligations, the old stories and the fear of getting it wrong, there may be a part of you that has been quietly trying to get your attention.
The part that lights up when you imagine a different possibility.
The part that feels peaceful when you're living in alignment with yourself.
The part that still dreams, even when you've become very good at being realistic.
You don't have to turn your life upside down to listen to that part of yourself.
You don't have to abandon everything you've worked for.
And you certainly don't have to have all the answers today.
Perhaps you can begin by allowing yourself to want what you want.
Without immediately explaining it away.
Without deciding whether you deserve it.
Without needing anyone else to understand.
Because coming back to yourself isn't necessarily about becoming someone new.
Sometimes, it's about finally giving yourself permission to be the person you've been quietly longing to be.
And perhaps that is where a different kind of life begins.
Not with a dramatic leap.
But with a small, honest whisper:
I think I want something different.
And the courage to listen.
You don't have to find your way back to yourself alone.
If you'd like someone to walk alongside you as you reconnect with yourself and explore what you truly want from life, I'd love to support you.
You're warmly invited to book a free discovery call. It's simply an opportunity for us to connect, explore where you are now, and see whether working together feels like the right next step.
Or, if you'd prefer to begin at your own pace, you can explore my Reset & Rise programme — a gentle, self-guided journey designed to help you release overwhelm, find greater calm and clarity, and reconnect with yourself.
