Nervous About What’s Next?

How to find out what you really want without the BS

“What’s next,” they say.

“I don’t know,” we say.

We always don’t know.

But deep down inside, we always somehow know. Our whole lives have shaped our preferences, values, and opinions, ideas and memories. They are that little voice living within our subconscious.

However, it’s easy to lose our way on that path to actualizing what we want want next.

There are influences from other people or circumstances that arise beyond our control. And this means 100% of the time, we make decisions in one of two ways: either what others want, or what we really want.

In fact, most people live their lives having no clue what they want. They follow what their parents did or stay in the town they grew up in without a second thought. That’s what’s expected of them and that is the way it will be. Or sometimes we stop cold, neither doing what others want or what we want, making no decision at all.

And that’s what frustrates me about advice people give like, “just do it”, or “list all the things that make you happy” to find your next thing. When you feel stuck, it’s not as simple as re-framing the question, internally shaming yourself to figure it out, or brainstorm your way out of it. If we knew how to recognize “wants,” we wouldn’t struggle with small things like where we’re going to eat for dinner.

We’re told at a young age to “play well with others” and get along, and that’s totally fine — to a certain extent. I always played well with others, including buying $70 worth of ice cream as a seven-year-old for all my friends to play nice. And this can invaluably lead to our how we give and take while working in teams.

But at some point you need to do what is best for you. One big issue with finding our self-actualized lives is the inability to choose between meeting the wants of external influences versus ourselves. That, or more frequently: we realize we’re unhappy.

Blind to the Signs

When we’re ignoring our own needs, it’s noticeable.

It’s the times we feel anxious or insecure, have preoccupying thoughts, or find ourselves lonely, helpless, sad, bored, codependent, apathetic, sarcastic, or chasing down the “simple pleasures” in life. Which is part of the reason why the whole “treat yoself” marketing slogan drives me nuts, material goods and more ice cream are not going to make us ultimately fulfilled.

These feelings are all subconscious alerts that we are silencing ourselves and shutting down our own needs. No one else can make us feel this way or make us react to how our life is unfolding. We’re failing to meet our own needs — and we’re fighting back against ourselves.

It’s in these moments that we know the façade is up. There is no one to point the finger to blame, and no one to provide us guidance on what to do next. All those feelings of rejection or anxiety are ours and only ours to address.

What to do next: date yourself first.

Give yourself undivided love, attention, support, validation, protection and TIME. Remind yourself about what you love about you. It’s the small steps to self-acceptance and actualization.

When I first meditated years ago, I was heading back to the New York Penn Station on a subway from Queens to get a train back to New Jersey. I read a small book “Introduction to Zen Buddhism” and learned to just close my eyes and count my breaths and focusing on the breath going in and out of my nose.

The goal was to get to ten without getting distracted, while forgiving yourself if your mind did wander off. No apps or teacher, so I just sat there and tried to forgive myself for only making it to the count of three without getting distracted after five minutes.

I vividly recall feeling for the first time like someone poured a cool, calming concoction over my brain. Like as if I was hugged warmly by a cloud. My temples were less tense, the people running in front of me at the train station were somehow less bothersome, and my thoughts more measured.

For years, I would run or exercise to keep my brain from getting sluggish. When I was angry I would sprint for miles, when I was happy, jogging on nature trails. That kind of meditation was cathartic because I knew I would feel better in the end of it. There is a scientific certainty in exercise on reducing stress and depression that I could always rely on.

But I couldn’t run every day and was still intrinsically competing against myself to run faster or be stronger. Those moments often weren’t about sitting down out of self-care to ask myself privately what I wanted, and most importantly what I needed.

Because that’s the common denominator that often gets lost out: how DO we find what we need and want. It’s so hard to identify how to meet our own physiological needs when we’re running around and never give ourselves time.

Which is why I turned to yoga and eventually meditation. I had to find an anchor that I could rely on: my own breath.

So I closed my eyes thinking, “I am breathing in and out.”

And I really wanted to be there with myself and my breath.

And found myself blindly returning to the overarching beliefs of, “I want to be here,” “I am going to give you time to let me know what you want,” and “I want to know what you want.”

For the first time, I wasn’t telling myself what to do, or where to go, or the next goal to meet. I sat and listened to the ebb and flow of emotions and feelings. I told myself I would be a pillar. With blind faith, I believed that everything else in my life would be built from there.

Be Easy

We really need to be easier on ourselves and stop shutting ourselves down. When we feel like we “don’t” want to do something that we feel obligated or that we “should” do something, that’s a subconscious sign. The answer is not to force ourselves to do it, but to give ourselves more attention, love, and focus.

If we don’t know what it is we really want, we’ve often been disconnected from much simpler questions, like how we spend time with ourselves or think about ourselves. And the solution isn’t to try and find the answers in others, or even sit to brainstorm ideas — and it certainly isn’t avoiding the feelings of anxiety or apathy. But it’s really to address our most simple needs.

And if we don’t know what those needs are, we can sit quietly with ourselves and with presence and rebuild our course to match up with what life hands us. That’s the only way we can build and get what we really “want”.