Hey, welcome to Lessons From a Quitter where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you spent getting to where you are, if ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hello my friends. Welcome to another episode. I am so excited to have you here. I apologize for my extra nasally, raspy voice. It's usually always a little nasally and raspy but I'm on like day seven of congestion for no reason. Can't figure it out, think it's allergies, don’t know what's happening. But I waited to record this so that I could hopefully have my voice back and I don't so we're gonna roll with it. I'm so excited to talk to you about this episode. Before I do, happy Thanksgiving week. If you celebrate Thanksgiving in the States this week, I hope you take some extra time to think about the things that you are grateful for, to hopefully slow down a little bit and get some rest and do something that you love doing, not something that you feel obligated and dread doing because you think you have to. If you are gonna do that, you should maybe go back and listen to the episode on how to do less. But for all of my friends who have some time off, I hope you really, really take some time to just do what you want. And usually on like holiday weeks, I sometimes do either reruns or I do something that's more relevant to that holiday like, you know, a gratitude episode. But I've been wanting to talk about this and I was like you know what let's just do it this week. We're not gonna put it off anymore. We're gonna talk about the power of knowing what you want. But before I get into this, I promise I'll get in soon. I did wanna let you know because next week is when the doors are gonna open to the Quitter Club. So especially if you listen to this episode and you think oh my gosh, I need this. I don't know what I want. I need to get clear on this. That's exactly what we're covering in December in the Quitter Club. And so I want you to join me and I wanna clear up something as I've gotten a couple emails and I realized maybe I wasn't as clear. So I used to run a six-month program that was $4,000 for six months and it was a small group program. I no longer run that for now. I don't know, I might bring a small group program back in the sometime in the future. In the foreseeable future, there's no plan. So in the next year I will not be doing any type of small group program. So there won't be any Pave Your Path or Stuck To Strategy, maybe some of the things that you've heard before. The only way to do this kind of thought work with me and to change your life is to join the Quitter Club. And lucky for you, it's much cheaper than my small group programs. So when doors open will be the first time that you can join as a monthly member. So you can just join and cancel anytime or you can join for the whole year which is what I recommend because as much as I would love to tell you you can come in and hit the ground running and change your life in a month, we all know that that is not how it works. So I sort of want you to think about this as an investment, maybe a Christmas present to yourself for the year. For 2023, you're gonna spend every month building the life that you want brick by brick, step by step. You're gonna be there for every month's lessons. You're gonna work on how to dream bigger in December. Then how to learn how to follow through so we actually stick with the goals that we set and don't give up after a couple weeks. We're gonna have tons and tons of amazing topics like boundaries and finances and entrepreneurship and um self-confidence and all the things. So join me for the year, give yourself that gift and change your life in one year. I promise you that. So yeah, so doors will be open only until December 2nd so if you're listening to this afterwards, I apologize. We will open doors at some point in 2023 and I hope you join us then. You can get on the wait list or you can just join at lessonsfromaquitter.com/quitterclub if the doors are open. So go there, be ready to join next week. I can't wait to have you in there. Okay, now on to today's episode and the power of knowing what you want. Here's what I've noticed. A lot of people come to me with the unique problem, not unique at all, of feeling stuck, okay? And there's a lot of confusion about what I should do next. What is the right thing? Um how do I know it's right? And we've talked a lot about this in different episodes where there's this desire to have some kind of guarantee, some kind of certainty, which when intellectually you think about it, you know that is impossible. You're not gonna have it. So what what does that do? It keeps us stuck, right? If I can't know if this is gonna be the right next step, then I don't have to take any step. Lucky me. Then I can just stay stuck and stay safe right? Now, here's what I want you guys to understand about confusion. Your brain does this on purpose, obviously, to keep you safe. And it's almost like we indulge in this emotion. It becomes addicting. There are emotions like overwhelm, confusion, worry, where it feels like we're doing something like it feels almost productive or that you're you busy yourself with something but nothing actually happens, right? You don't go anywhere. You stay in the same place. When you're in overwhelm, when you're in worry, when you're in confusion, it's like, I dunno, it's like purgatory. With confusion specifically, it's just the land of never making a decision. I'm just gonna stay and circle around myself and never actually do anything. Okay? And so while it might feel like you're being productive because it is exhausting, it's just so much mental chatter over and over again in your mind, you don't actually go anywhere. I mean it literally, the analogy is imagine spinning around yourself in a circle. You're gonna be dizzy, you're gonna get tired after a while. It's gonna require energy but you don't go anywhere. You don't get anywhere. You're gonna end up at the same exact spot that you started. And so, so many of us are waiting for that quote unquote like right answer, for that guarantee, for the thing that someone's gonna tell me like this is the thing I should do. And we just live in limbo. And years go by. Decades go by. I can't tell you how many people I talk to or coach that will tell me I just started this job and I was only gonna supposed to stay for one year or I just started this job. You know, I knew it wasn't right. And it's five years later, it's 10 years later, it's 20 years later and I'm still here because I didn't know what else to do. I don't know what the right next move is. I didn't know if I should quit or if I should stay, right? If you feel like this, if 2022 has gone by and you're like how did that year pass? And not much has changed from 2021. And I'm not saying that you have to go out and do all these like huge things. I'm just saying if you feel as if you've spun around and you're in the same spot, then you might be indulging in this confusion, right? Because as long as I don't make a decision, then I don't have to do anything scary. And here is the thing, the way that our brain works is we just take the quote unquote easy path in the short term, right? In the short term, it feels easier for me to stay exactly where I'm at and not make the big decision of quitting this job or going after a dream job or learning a new skill or taking a class or networking with people or whatever the action is that I need to take in order to even figure out what I wanna do. It's just so much easier to scroll Instagram, it's so much easier to watch Netflix, right? It's so much easier to just come home and plop on the couch and not do the hard work, right? And so our brain fools us into believing like let's just it's too hard. Life is already too hard. Let's just take the easy way out. And listen, I'm all about taking the easy way out. I'm all about like how do we make our lives as easy as possible? How would how do we do as let the least amount as we possibly have? But I don't want you to lie to yourself, okay? So it may feel easier because it's less scary in the short term. There's less negative emotion. You don't have to do the frustrating thing, the thing that you're embarrassed about, the thing that you're scared of, right? You don't have to make that decision. But in the long run, it feels terrible. It's not the easier thing to do. It's so much harder, right? Stop telling yourself it's easier to stay confused and stay stuck. You're doing the hardest thing right now. The hardest thing is spinning around yourself and becoming sick and dizzy and not getting anywhere and looking back and thinking five years has passed, 10 years has passed and I didn't do anything. My whole life has passed and I never took one risk. I never tried anything. I never allowed myself to fail, right? And so I want us to get out of this land of never making a decision, of never moving in any direction, of just staying stuck because we don't know. I don't know. How can I do anything if I don't know? I get this answer all the time. Like ask a question, I don't know. And I've usually pushed back and I'm implementing a rule in the Quitter Club that you can't say I don't know. You can't do it. You have to force your brain to come up with something. Cuz the answer's there, it's just quote unquote easier to just say I don't know. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I wanna do. I don't know where I wanna go. And so I'll just stay here until, I don't know, some magical fairy comes down and tells me what to do. And we know how that turns out, right? And so yes, trying stuff is hard. Failing is hard, okay? I'm not here to tell you like you're gonna start an online business and make six figures in six months. It's so amazing. Everybody should do it. That's not the truth. And I think a lot of times we do a disservice by telling people like in marketing that kind of stuff because people start doing the thing and it's hard, right? But if you've been around here, I talk a lot about pick your hard, which hard do you want? Do you want the hard that you actually tried and you went after it and you failed and you let yourself explore and you did different things and you were scared as hell and you still showed up and you had courage and you built those muscles and you tested out your potential. You started figuring out what you're capable of. Or do you want the hard where you look back at your life and you realize you never took a chance and it could have been so much different if you were just a little braver and that you missed out on so many possibilities cuz we were just so confused all the time. Just have no idea what we want. And so I want you to understand how much power there is in knowing what you want, in just saying it to yourself. I do this a lot with the people I coach when they're trying to make a decision. And it's amazing because it truly doesn't take more than five minutes to get to the bottom of what they want. They know, they just wanna tell me that they don't. And I always like force them to get to this place of like no, you have to say it out loud. If there was no consequences, if you wouldn't be judged, if money wasn't an issue, what would you want right now? And like bam, they know. They'll tell me I want this. I wanna make more money. I wanna be at home with my kids. I wanna whatever it is. I don't wanna do this business I started. They instantly deep down have that intuitive gut feeling of what it is they should be doing. But they're scared. And I always tell them, you don't have to act on it. You can decide like this is what I want but it's not the right time right now. This is what I want but I can't do it right now. Fine. But let's start admitting what we want. Let it come up. Let yourself know because that's how you learn how to listen to that voice. That's how you learn how to hear that voice. That's how you start realizing oh no, I do know what I want. Okay, so how do I deal with that? How do I deal with the fear? Maybe I can't go after it right now. Maybe my short-term goal is I need to stay in this job. So even if I wanna quit, I can't. Okay, great. There's so much power in knowing that. Cause then we can work on the short-term goal. Then we can say okay, how long do you have to stay? What what is the amount of money you need to save? What are other things you could do? Could you do something on the side? Then we can actually get into a plan. But if we don't ever know if we're just like well I don't know what I should do. I don't know if I should quit or if I should stay. I don't know what the right decision is then we don't ever actually start doing anything, right? When you know, when you know what you want, you're not like floating in this in between space, you ground yourself. You find your footing, right? You think like oh, this is my north star to follow. I don't know how it gets there. I don't know where it actually leads but I am like staking my claim in the ground. This is what I want for my life. This is what I wanna experience even if I don't know how I'm gonna do it. Okay, now I can get to work to figuring out the how. Now I can stop living in limbo all the time. Now I can make a decision and maybe it won't turn out the way I want. Maybe it's I get there and I'm like hey, I actually didn't want this. Okay, great. At least I can now pivot. I can learn. I can be like what did I not like about this? What was I missing? What did I like about this? What lit me up? What didn't? And then I can take another step. But I can't ever do that if I'm always just spinning around myself and I still don't learn anything about myself in all these years. I don't learn what I like. I don't learn what I don't like. I don't learn what direction is better for me. I don't learn what I'm capable of. I don't learn anything and I just become bitter and resentful and angry at the world. And I think something should have been different in my life, right? And so we're gonna work on figuring out what you want right now, okay? I want you to understand this. There aren't that many options to the things that we want. Truly, I know there are tons of options of like what you can do to get there. The how is infinite, there's infinite ways of how to do something. What you want is not that many things. You want more time? Do you want more money? You want more flexibility? Do you want more connection? Do you want more contribution? Right? There's only like a handful. There's like five. There's probably a couple I'm obviously missing. I don't have 'em all. But you get my point. When we break it down, I think a lot of times we think I need to have this like nice, packaged answer. I need to know like this is what we've been programmed like I want to be a lawyer. Okay, this is a straight path to being a lawyer. So I have to come up with an answer like that. Something that I can is tangible that people can understand. That's like a formed profession that leads to all of the things I want. And the reason we don't say it out loud is because we don't know that that's possible, right? When I say all these things, a lot of you are likely thinking yeah, I want all of that. I want more time and I want more money and I want more flexibility and I want more contribution and I want more connection. But that's not possible. I'm here to tell you it is possible. It absolutely is. But you have to start looking for where that north star's taking you and you have to start prioritizing. You may not be able to get it all right now. Okay? So let's like start prioritizing what are the things that I truly want right now? What's really missing in my life? If it's more time, if that's my goal, okay, what am I gonna do about it right now? Can I do less in my life currently without changing anything else, without changing my job? Can I find a job where I work less hours? Is that my goal? It becomes so much more tangible to figure out if I say you know what what I really want is to work 20 hours a week so I can be with my kids. Okay, now we have something to work with. Now we can start thinking am I willing to take a pay cut? Maybe I'm not. Okay, can I get the same pay for that? What would I have to do? What are some roles? Do I have to leave this job? Can I talk to my employer? Like we're all so set and like nope, that's just not possible. And yet there's tons and tons of people doing it. If there's someone out there that is doing something, it means it's possible that you like if they're doing something you wanna do, they're working remotely or making tons of money or giving back in a way that feels really meaningful, then it's possible. Like I want you to look at people instead of doom scrolling Instagram and comparing constantly and feeling like hell, I want you to look at people as examples of what's possible. What would be possible if I was willing to try that, to go after it? And when I chunk down what I want, what do I want? Do I want more time? Okay, now I can figure out in the very next step in my short term, my goal is to create a job or a business or whatever. My job is to create a job or a business to be able to work less. Okay, then maybe that means that I leave this current job. That's what I'm doing for the next six months is I'm looking for a job where I work less. Maybe my goal is I wanna make more money. We wanna make more money in my household right now. Okay. Say it out loud to yourself. Know that that's what you want. Then you can figure out how much more money do I need right now? Can I look for another job so I can get a raise cuz I know I can negotiate more when I'm getting a new job. Can I think about a side hustle? Can I talk to my employer? What are ways in which I can increase my income? How can I provide value to either my employer, another employer or to people at large? I dunno, a business, and make more money? Like it's honestly not rocket science. And there are so there's a million possible ways which I think is also another problem which leads to a lot of us sitting in overwhelm. So I don't want you to get stuck in the how but the power of knowing that is what allows you to get started on the next step, right? Do I want more contribution? Okay, what does that mean? What kind of contribution? How can I get that now? Can I start volunteering? Can I start donating? Can I start doing something with my family on the weekends? Can I see if that's something I really want? What creates contribution for me? Where do I feel most fulfilled? Now I'm getting somewhere. Like there are so many possibilities out there but you have to get clear on what you want and I promise you that you know what you want. You're just afraid to admit it to yourself. That's it. Every one of us has tons of desires within us that we've just suppressed for so long, right? We've just told ourselves that that's not possible, that's not realistic. And now we believe it. We believe that lie. And so we limit ourselves. Like it's amazing to me cuz the limit isn't even real. It's not something out there. Like there's all these different ways to do something and we are just like you know what nope, that's not available to me. I'm just gonna decide that. I'm just gonna let everybody know and myself that like this is just the way it is. It doesn't get better than this and I'm just gonna go and like be bitter and resentful and not try anything. And I'm just asking you like to consider what if that's not true? What if all this other stuff was possible? You just have to decide that you're gonna go after it. And yes, it's gonna be hard. It's not gonna be easy. There's gonna be tons of negative emotions. There's gonna be tons of quote unquote failure, figuring it out. It's never a linear straight line. Like we've never you've never heard somebody be like you know what I wanted to write a book. I started writing. I never had any writer's block. I never struggled. I edited. Everything was perfect. I submitted it to publishers. I immediately got a publisher and an agent. I became a New York Times bestseller. I mean, like that's not how it works ever. And yet, when we're like staying stuck cuz we're like if I can't figure out every single step and if God forbid there's one dip, there's one setback, there's one thing that doesn't go the way that I want. If I apply to one job and I don't get that job, I'm just gonna make it mean it's not possible for me. And I'm not good at this and it was never meant to be. And I'm just gonna give up on all these dreams. I'm just gonna tell myself it's not easy to make money. It's like the biggest lie, the biggest disservice that we do to ourselves. I wanna, this is like a random reference but I saw this the other day and I wanted to like I think it fits perfectly into this. If you're familiar with an account on social media called Humans of New York, I'm sure most of you are, it's a very popular social media account on Facebook and Instagram. And it's this photographer in New York that basically goes around and takes photos of people and interviews them and writes these really compelling, heartwarming stories. It it really shows us how we're all the same, how interesting everybody is, how similar, how we're all fighting a fight that other people don't know about. It's just a very heartwarming social media account. So if you don't know them, you should definitely follow them. It's one of my favorite accounts. But a couple days ago or like last week, he had posted a picture of a gentleman and it starts out, the caption says coming out of COVID I decided to own it. Instead of saying nobody likes me, I flipped it around. I said there's gotta be a reason I haven't met someone and I'm gonna figure it out. So then he goes on to say like one of the first things he did was like talk to his friends about how he presents to them. And they told him he doesn't dress really well and it kind of looks frumpy or whatever. So he started changing kind of the way that he dresses. And then he says like I thought I'm a good person, that's what matters most. And if someone hangs around long enough they'll figure that out. But nobody hung around long enough and that sort of thinking made it easy to become a single guy in his late forties. So I owned it. I worked on making it easier for people to know me. And so then he talks about how it became a then a downstream experience. He practiced being chit chatty. He started saying hello to people more. He started making eye contact. He started asking people how was your weekend? He went on a bunch of first dates. You can go and read the whole post. It's beautiful. And then he talks about how he met his girlfriend and how he's with somebody that he is in love with. It's amazing. And it was just such a beautiful example of thought work and knowing what you want like the power of knowing what you want and going after it, right? So many of us are so like bought into this belief that like there's just nothing I can do. And the reason I love this, it was just such a clear example because I do think a lot of us stick to this idea of like well, if it's meant to be, I'll meet someone. Like if it's meant to be, there's nothing I can't force somebody to fall in love with me, right? Like I can't make this a situation that happens. I just have to kind of sort of wait and see. And I see this and I've talked a lot about the parallels between dating and like finding a job that you want. I see this a lot with my some single friends that I have. And it's like they complain about being single but then they never leave their house. And I'm always like baffled by this. I'm like well, I mean someone's not gonna just show up at your door. Like you have to make some kind of an effort if that's what you want. And you have to say that's what you want. And like reading this post was so powerful as an example of like this man understood what he wanted. He wanted to not be single anymore. He wanted connection. He wanted a relationship, okay? And instead of sitting in woe is me, it's so unfair, nobody likes me. Right? Creating all of these stories about how maybe it's there's something wrong with him, maybe he's defective, maybe, you know, starting the self-loathing or being angry and resentful at the world of like women are all crazy and dating is too hard and these apps are ridiculous. And whatever it is that we tell ourselves that makes ourselves feel better and prevents us from actually trying because it is hard to try and get rejected. It is hard to put yourself out there and not have it be met. It is hard to keep showing up but it's also harder to not have the thing you want. And so what did he do? He started figuring out what do I control here? What are some ways like if I know the power of what I want and if I state it out loud like this I want connection. Why am I not getting that? What am I doing? How am I showing up that is contributing to this? Cuz that's the only part that I control. So okay, I can control how I present myself. I can control how many people I talk to. I can control who I say hi to, how many people I reach out to. I can take action but I can only do that when I admit what I actually want and I don't get stuck in the dirty pain and the kind of shame and blame game of why it didn't happen and why it's not fair and why the world is terrible and why it'll never work out for me or whatever. It's like then I can get into like alright, this is the situation, this is my circumstance. How do I wanna think and feel and act here? How do I wanna show up to this moment? How do I wanna react? And that's all any of us can do. And the same exact thing applies to your job. And I don't care what you've done up until now. I don't care how you've acted at work. I don't care the resume that you have, I promise you there is so much possible out there. You just have to decide what you want so you can start working towards it. You have to start deciding okay, what have I done to create the situation I'm in now? I'm not saying it's all my fault. I don't have to blame anyone or feel shame. I can decide like you know what, I've been really passive about my job. I haven't really tried to figure out what I want. I haven't moved up the ladder. I haven't asked for a raise. I don't advocate for myself. I am a people-pleaser. I let people walk all over me. Okay, how do I wanna change that? If I want more money, if I want more flexibility, if I want more connection, whatever the thing is that I want more of, how do I put that stake in the ground and say like this is what I'm gonna work towards. Let's get to work. Let's go. I'm done being in the land of confusion. I'm done being in the land of I don't know. I'm done being in the land of how is this ever gonna change? It's gonna change cuz I'm gonna change it. I'm gonna start doing things differently. I want you to just start somewhere. Just pick one thing you want, say it out loud. Get used to hearing that voice of admitting to yourself, even if it's not possible right now, even if it'll take five years, let's start working towards something. Alright, my friends, let's go. We are done spinning around in circles and staying in the same place. We are going to start taking steps even if we have to walk the whole way and it's going to take years. We are going to figure out what we want and we are gonna give it to ourselves. And if you're ready to go, if you're like I do know what I want or even if I don't, I'm ready to figure out what I want. I'm ready to stop spinning. I want you to join me in the Quitter Club. I want you to specifically join me in December because this is exactly what we're gonna work on, how to dream bigger. And what I'm gonna teach you in that that's so valuable is not even coming up with the dream but what's stopping you. I'm gonna show you exactly the thoughts that are stopping you from even letting yourself access what you want. I'm gonna teach you how to find, and you're gonna find a plethora of thoughts, that are gonna show you, of course, I'm not admitting these things because I'm thinking all of this other stuff. And then I'm gonna teach you how to deal with those thoughts so that you can allow this wisdom that you have within you. This calling, this voice to come up so you can start hearing it so you can tell yourself what you want and then actually start working towards it. Then we're gonna work towards it together in 2023. We're gonna follow through, we're gonna take steps, we're gonna build the things, we're gonna get to the place, we're gonna stop staying stuck. That is the power of knowing what you want. So I hope you join me in the Quitter Club. You go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/quitterclub. Doors will be open from November 28th till December 2nd. Make sure you get in and if you don't, just know that you already know what you want. You just have to admit it to yourself and then we can get to work. Let's go my friends. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I will see you next week for another episode.

Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, share it with someone else. I promise you know somebody who also hates their job and wants to quit, so why not share the love? And if you want to come follow along for more, come join me on Instagram at LessonsFromAQuitter and make sure you say hi. I'll see you next week for another episode.