What Do I Really Want? An Inside-Out Approach to Clarity

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In this week’s episode of the podcast, I’m diving into one of the trickiest yet most important questions every ambitious working mom faces: “What do I really want?” If you’ve ever felt stuck, disconnected, or like your choices have been more about walking through doors that opened rather than creating your own path, this episode will help you shift. I share why this question feels so overwhelming, what keeps us from knowing our own desires, and the powerful process I use with clients to uncover clarity, direction, and regret-free decisions. This is a deep, real, and practical conversation you won’t want to miss.  

Topics in this episode:

  • Why it’s so hard for women (especially moms) to answer “What do I want?” 

  • The cultural, motherhood, and people-pleasing influences that keep us disconnected from desire 

  • The difference between want (head-driven) and desire (soul/body-driven) 

  • How to define your personal sense of “rightness” and build your internal compass 

  • Real client stories (and my own) of making bold, regret-free career and life decisions 

Show Notes & References:

Transcript

Intro

Have you ever asked yourself, what do I really want? And felt sort of nothing but confusion or second-guessing, or even guilt? You're not alone.

For so many ambitious working moms, that question feels overwhelming because life, motherhood, our culture—it has pulled us in so many directions that our own desires get buried beneath it all.

In today's episode, I'm breaking down why this question, what do I really want, is so hard to answer, what keeps us disconnected from our own wants, and the powerful process I use with my clients to uncover clarity and direction.

If you've ever felt stuck or unsure about your next move, this episode will give you a new way forward.

Are you ready? Let's get to it!

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Answering the Big Question: What Do I Want?

Hello, amazing working moms! Today, I am diving into how to answer this question. What do I want?

We're talking about this question through the lens of how I often hear this question phrased to me, which is more around like, what do I want next in my life? What do I want in my career? What's important to me in my life? What are my goals?

It usually comes from this place of feeling very dissatisfied or disconnected in life as it currently is, and then really, really desiring at a deep level to figure out what needs to change or what you want to be different in your life.

Desire vs. Want: The Deeper Difference

But I also think this question, what do I want, is really important for all of us to wrestle with from the perspective of desire.

Because not only are women feeling disconnected from what they want and are having a difficult time answering that question for their life or for their career path or their perspective for lots of reasons that we're going to get into here, but they're also feeling very disconnected from what they desire.

And desire and want are very similar words, but desire has passion to it. Right? There's an intimacy with the word desire that I think is really powerful for us as women to be in touch with. What do we desire?

I think about the idea of desire sort of reaching all the way down into our lady parts and kind of lighting us up on all sorts of levels, where what we want feels more like a head exercise. It's sort of a logical question to ask that leads to, you know, some decisions and some changes that need to be made.

But desire is in our body. It's an embodiment of our want.

Why “What Do I Want?” Feels So Tricky

And this question, what do I want or what I desire, is sort of a tricky one. It certainly has been for me in the past, which I'm going to share a lot more of that story in a bit here.

But part of the vision of what I want for this Ambitious and Balanced community—for you—is to help you figure out what lights you up. To help you get in touch with your desire, that embodiment of that desire.

Because as I imagine a world of women that are lit up from their lady parts up, with what they desire and what they want—this world absolutely changes. And I get so excited to see women really tap into their desires and their wants.

A Vision for Women Lit Up by Desire

This question around what I want and what I desire, that's a tricky one. It certainly has been for me in the past. I'm going to share a bit more about that.

But part of the vision of what I want for this Ambitious and Balanced community, and the work that I do as a coach for women, is to help you figure out what lights you up—to get in touch with the desire that you have for you in your life.

Because as I imagine a world with more women that are lit up from their lady parts up, I absolutely believe that would change the world. And I get excited about women being able to tap into their desire and what they want so that they could answer for themselves big questions like: Where do I want to take my career? What makes me happy? What are the big goals that I have for myself?

But also, to be able to answer that in everyday life—to name their wants and desires on a micro level and then live into those.

Knowing What You Want Makes You Unapologetically Opinionated

On some level, when I think about women really tapping into what they want and what they desire, I see women becoming more decisive and having more unapologetic opinions.

And lately, I've been sort of wrestling with this idea of opinions. When I turned 40, I had a series of really poignant conversations with some really close friends of mine that told me that I was an opinionated person.

I sort of took offense to that at the time, and I've been wrestling with it for the last three years, ever since I turned 40—digging into what does that really mean. But as I have really wrestled with it, what I figured out it means is that actually I'm opinionated because I know what I want.

And I know what I desire, and I know what I think, and I'm not afraid to say it. And really, at the end of the day, that's not a bad thing.

So let's really dig into this episode—answering this question, what do I want or what do I desire, and being able to understand a process of being able to answer that question ultimately for you.

Why Answering “What Do I Want?” Feels So Hard

All right, so to kick us off, I really want to dig into why answering this question, what do I want, feels so challenging to us. And I want to sort of start here because I think a lot of women judge themselves for not having really clear answers to these questions, right?

But the cards, as I see it, have been really stacked against us for generations as women. It's really not all that long ago that women were finally allowed to speak their opinion, to choose for themselves a spouse or a partner, or to choose for themselves who they want to vote for or what they want to do.

A Story From My Grandmother’s Life on Welfare

One of my favorite stories of my grandmother was when she was on welfare. She was on welfare ultimately because she divorced her husband. They had four boys all under the age of, I believe, eight at the time that they were divorced. She was a single mom. She took them all.

And the way she describes the story, she said, “The welfare man knocked on the door.” That's how she described it to me. “The welfare man knocked on the door and said if she wanted to continue to be on welfare, she was going to have to go back to school.”

And the welfare man handed her a list of career paths that was appropriate for her, right? It was like a handful of career paths that she could go back to school, get a degree, and get a job for. And he instructed her she had to choose one if she was going to continue to receive welfare.

Now, I have lots of thoughts about this particular story, and I'm not going to go into it here. I will tell you that the story does end well. She picks a path that she ends up loving, and it's great.

Why Generations of Women Struggled to Choose for Themselves

But I think the story really illustrates why we as women have such a hard time getting in touch with what we want and what we desire. Because not that many generations ago—likely your grandparents’ generation—it was dictated for them.

And maybe for your mom, it wasn't dictated as much, but that was a culture change that was still happening—women being able to vote and so forth. That was what was happening during your mom's generation.

Culture Hasn’t Caught Up With Women’s Choices

And so for you, of course, you have more choices and more opportunity to follow what you want and what you desire. But culture really hasn't caught up to us yet because it hasn't been that long ago.

And so the American Dream, as we know it—around more power and more money and more status—that's still a very white, male-dominated dream that we live in, that our culture really embodies. And within all of that, it's really challenging to find our own voice.

Cultural Indoctrination and the Motherhood Penalty

So that's the first thing I really—that feels like a tangent, but it's the first thing I really want to highlight, right? We have been indoctrinated in our culture that we don't have as many choices as women.

That actually is certainly true on a somewhat factual basis in terms of the motherhood penalty and things like that, but it makes it challenging for us to find our voice. So that was the first reason.

Why Moms Lose Touch With Their Own Desires

The second reason I hear a lot from women as we talk about the challenges of figuring out what you want and being able to answer that question is because women sort of get engrossed in their children after they become moms.

And that's not a bad thing, but so much of our time and our energy goes to our kids, and we spend way less time on ourselves and by ourselves, thinking for ourselves and so forth, that we sort of just lose touch.

We get out of practice with thinking about our own desires and our own wants. That naturally happens to us—unless we are really diligent about taking a lot of time for ourselves very early on in motherhood.

How People-Pleasing Clouds Your True Desires

Another reason I hear so often is that women are people-pleasers, right? You have traditionally, likely on some level, made a lot of decisions to appease the people around you, to make sure the people around you are happy.

It's sort of like, "If you're happy, I'm happy." That's the mantra of the people-pleaser. But what happens is your desires get tangled up in what other people want, what other people desire, and what makes other people happy.

And then it gets very confusing when you try to actually figure that out for yourself.

Walking Through Open Doors Without Choosing Them

And then the last reason why I think it's really difficult for women to answer this question, "What do I want?" is because a lot of women that I've worked with, at least, have this story or narrative about their life and their success.

The path that they have been on has been sort of like this: “Well, the door kind of opened for me, and I just walked through it. And then another door opened for me, and I just walked through that one. And then another door opened for me, and I just walked through that one.”

And so here I am today, and I'm not really sure if this is exactly where I want to be today, but this is where I am.

This is a disempowering story that a lot of women carry, where you have stripped from yourself the choices you’ve made and delegated out your success and your career path to someone or something other than yourself.

And so figuring out what you want today feels so much more challenging if you don't even know—or believe—that you were the one who chose the path you're on all the way up to this point.

My Own Story

So many women have this sort of disempowering story around how they have been successful up to this point. I know that was my own story 12 years ago when I had my daughter, Lillian.

I would very much narrate this in exactly the same way, where doors just opened for me and I walked through them. And that's what kind of made me—I just showed up and tried to do my best, and that's what made me successful.

But then when my daughter was born, the scarcity of time really hit me. And I realized how important it was for me to make sure that I was living life based on what I desire and what I want, leaving no room for regret.

The Turning Point: Living With No Regret

It was a moment where I had to step back and reflect on the path that I was on and make a decision about if I wanted to continue down that path. Ultimately, I did not.

And so I realized how important it was for me to make sure that I was living based on what I desire and what I want, leaving no room for regret. But it didn't feel like I'd ever really answered this question for myself: What do I want? And so it set me on a journey to really figure that out.

With all of this, what I think is important to highlight is there are so many reasons why you might be in a place where you're asking yourself the question: What do I want? What changes do I want to make? Am I on the path that I really want to be on?

There are so many reasons why you might be asking yourself that question—and finding it very, very challenging to answer it.

Why Breakthrough Calls Start With “What Do I Want?”

So oftentimes women will schedule a breakthrough call with me. That's an initial call where, if you're interested in coaching, you can schedule that call.

We'll talk about what it is you really want—or at least what you know about what you want—in terms of your goals and your vision. We'll talk about how we're going to achieve that together in coaching. We'll also talk about all the details of coaching and your options.

And so often, this is where I start the conversation with women: asking them the question, what do I want?

The natural next question that always comes up—or the natural next part of the conversation—is always, “And I don't know how to figure out what I want.” Which is why they’re right there on the call with me, trying to figure this out.

They're there talking about coaching to see if this is the place where they can finally figure out the answer to that question: What do I want?

The Empowering (and Paralyzing) Truth About Choice

Because figuring out what you want is not black and white. It's not right or wrong. You just get to decide what it is you want without anyone dictating it to you, without anyone filtering it for you in any way.

You just get to decide for yourself, which is a really empowering place to be—where you're making the decisions on your behalf for your life and your goals.

But I also know that for so many women who are searching for an answer to this question, what do I want, recognizing that it is completely subjective—that you just get to decide what you want—that can be a paralyzing place to be.

Because it means, potentially, that you could make a decision that doesn't pan out in the way you hoped, since there’s no right or wrong to it.

Why Women Search for Answers Outside Themselves

And so the problem I so often see for women is that they start searching for the answer to this question, what do I want? They start searching for it outside of themselves, right?

They start exploring next career moves or what the right next job is, or going after some sort of passion project of some kind, or whatever they're thinking about doing—or pulling back and being a stay-at-home mom for a while.

Whatever the changes they start thinking about, they start thinking about those options and then sort of hoping one of them resonates with their gut, right? Because we associate rightness and our gut together.

We think we're on the "right track"—that’s in air quotes if you're watching me on YouTube. I mean, if you're not watching me on YouTube—but what's the right track? We associate that with this sort of magical, peaceful, wonderful feeling that we want in our gut.

The Problem With Following Your Gut

But the problem is your gut feeling is based in comfort. Your gut feeling is based on things that you've done in the past.

And in order to move forward with big changes in your life, or to make a big move, or to go after a dream, or to go after big ambitious goals, that's probably not going to feel very comfortable in your body.

So you can't really lean into your gut in order to make that decision. But that's how a lot of women come to me—thinking that this is how it works.

Redefining Rightness From Within

What I tell the women that I coach is that before we can even talk about what the right next move is for you and your career, and where you want to take your career path, and what changes you want to make for yourself—before we can even have that conversation—we need to get in touch with what rightness means to you.

Like, we literally need to put words to rightness for you. That's the starting point. It's the anchor that you need.

And rightness is not found outside of you. It's not going to be found in a "right job" or a "right next move." It is going to be found within your body.

Putting Words to “Rightness”

And so together in coaching, one of the things that we do right from the very beginning is we put words to describe rightness.

And when you do that, decisions become a whole lot easier because you can make decisions that feel more decisive. You know they're in line with your values, your goals, and what it is you want at this deep, deep level. And that's when you know it's right.

My Personal Journey to Find What Was Right

So how do you put words to rightness? That becomes the next question, right?

For me, 12 years ago, I went on my own journey to figure out what was right for me and what that meant for me. And it required me to zoom way out.

It wasn’t about what was right for me in that moment. It was about putting words to what felt aligned with who I am. It was about what motivates me, what moves me forward, what I value, what I'm drawn to, what energizes me.

These were the types of questions that I wrestled with over the course of almost a year—coming to a place where I finally had some words to describe this inner motivation, this inner desire within me.

Building Your Compass: The 3 Core Exercises

And ultimately, these are the same types of questions that I walk all my clients through in three very structured exercises that I like to call building your compass. You've probably heard me talk about that here on the podcast.

It involves identifying your values—your core values. Your identity—which is how you want to impact this world. And then your purpose—which is about why you're here.

Your Compass Becomes Your North Star

I call it your internal compass because it describes what you're all about. It describes almost your North Star. We're literally putting words to that North Star—that thing that moves you forward and what you're drawn to.

And so those three exercises that I walk my clients through in building their compass, I want to say that over the last eight-plus years that I've been coaching women, I use exactly the same three exercises.

They’ve almost not changed at all, because time and time again, my clients tell me how valuable these exercises were for them—and how they were truly valuable to me when I went through them 12 years ago myself, and ultimately kind of led me into coaching.

A Client’s Story: Returning to Her Compass Years Later

Even just the other week, I was chatting with a past client of mine. She probably ended coaching three or four years ago, and during that time we did those three exercises together where we defined her compass—her values, her identity, and her purpose.

We were catching up, and she was celebrating some big news: a big career change she had made. And she said, “I went back to those three workbooks. I went back to my compass and the words that I used to describe my compass that we had built together.”

It helped her feel really grounded and certain about the decision she was making in her career. And so we celebrated that.

Why Your Compass Brings Clarity to Big Decisions

So let's bring this full circle. In order for you to really answer the question, what do I want? What do I desire next for myself? What's going to make me happy? What's going to ensure that I'm living regret-free?—in order to answer those types of questions with any level of certainty, you need to be in touch with what you want and what you desire at a much deeper, more human compass level.

You need to know what motivates you. You need to know what lights you up. You need to know what energizes you. You need to know what moves you forward.

Because when you know all of that at that deep compass level, your next career move or change is going to feel so much clearer to you.

My Personal Compass Journey

So let me give you an example of how this works. And I'm going to just talk about my own journey with this.

Twelve years ago, when I went through developing my own compass, I pieced together a bunch of things—a bunch of words. I did some of these exercises myself, but at the end of the day, I had these words that described me at the core compass level.

Finding Themes That Point to Truth

When I had those words, I started to notice a theme within them. And this is something I help my clients start to see as well. As we identify all these things, we start drawing on themes, putting them together, and understanding how they fit.

I saw this theme that said, “I care more about people than I do about what I do.” And that felt so true to me at that point.

Careers Anchored in People

So I had worked right out of college in theater. I have a theater arts degree—that was my first degree. I worked in theater for about six years. And it wasn’t really the love of arts or theater that kept me there. It was the people I worked with.

After that, I went into the event industry. I was hosting 20,000–30,000 person events, and I did that for another six years. It was a really cool job, but at the end of the day, what motivated me wasn’t putting on great events. It was the people that I worked with.

Mentorship and Developing Others

If I looked outside my career, there were countless examples of people, women, and youth who asked me to mentor them. I loved running internship and mentorship programs at various jobs.

It was all about developing people. I loved people.

And as I was building my compass and looking at all of these words that really described the inner version of me, it was so apparent that my next move in my regret-free life was going to be focused on people.

Why Coaching Became the Clear Next Step

I had that language to describe myself because I had done the hard work of defining my compass, my inner desires, and my motivations. I knew I was a people-first person.

So when coaching was presented to me as an opportunity, I started to seriously consider it. Had I not done any of that compass work, and somebody had just said, “Oh, Rebecca, you'd make a great coach,” I don’t think I would have gone for it.

I don’t think I would have made such a big leap of faith into this industry without the level of certainty I had in who I was at that deep core level.

That's the power of being able to have these words in your back pocket. It brings a level of certainty about what you want and what you desire.

And when opportunities start rising up, it makes sense which ones resonate with you on a deep level—because now you have the words to describe it. You have the words to describe what feels right, what feels certain, and what that inner gut feeling really is to you.

And that's why you can make so many more decisive, certain-feeling decisions about what's next.

The Inside-Out Approach to Career and Life Decisions

I call this an inside-out approach. It starts with answering fundamental questions about what it is you want and then letting the answers guide you in your next steps.

And when women are interested in working with me—when they’re exploring next career moves like, Should I pull back? Should I be a stay-at-home mom? Should I start my business?—I tell them:

"Look, I'm not a traditional career coach where I'm going to look at your past and try to match you to some job that makes sense to you. That's not what I do. I'm not an expert at that. I'm an expert at getting you to put words to your deep desires and wants and then helping you figure out what the next move is based on that."

Why Desire Creates Unstoppable Confidence

Again, I come back to the belief that when you know what you want and you are living in the fullness of that empowered state of desire, you're unstoppable.

It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about your decisions. It doesn't matter if you're afraid to go after big dreams or make a big shift in your life—because you know that you know that you know you're on the right path.

Why? Because it all aligns with your internal guidance system. That's what's so powerful about this.

Real-Life Transformations From Following Desire

And I have helped countless women at this point develop their compass, name what they want, what motivates them, and what fuels them at a deep level—and then translate that into a next career move.

I've had clients who started dream businesses, left toxic workplaces, launched their own firms or partnerships, acquired businesses, gone on for promotions, or even chosen to stay in a job they thought they didn’t want—only to realize it was actually aligned with where they were at that moment.

And when they decided to stay, they did so with much more certainty.

Because if you know what it is you want, that’s when you leave no room for regret.

Coaching to Help You Answer “What Do I Want?”

If you are on your own journey to answer this question—what do I want? What's next for me? What would leave me without any regrets?—and if that's something you've been thinking about for a while, I have some spots in my calendar for a few new one-on-one clients, and I would love to talk to you about it.

It’s about a three- to six-month commitment to work with me to get to the bottom of what it is you want, to name your compass, to get clear on the decisions around what your next career move is or what your next big decision is.

I have a lot of clients who make that investment in themselves because living regret-free is that important to them. I also have women who use professional development dollars to help pay for some of that—because at the end of the day, you don't want to wish you had made a move sooner. And you also don’t want to hit burnout before making those decisions and changes either.

Why Now Is the Time to Take Back Control

Now is always the time to take back control of your life, of your career path, of your goals, and of what feels right to you and how you narrate your story.

Now is always the time to live your best life. And I can help you do that.

So if you're interested in speaking with me about coaching and what it could look like, I encourage you to take the next step and book a breakthrough call with me.

That's where it all starts—where we begin uncovering the bits and pieces about what it is you want and the vision of what you want.

I'm going to actually walk you through a very powerful exercise to help you gain clarity right there on that breakthrough call. And then we'll talk about how we're going to help you reach those goals through coaching, and we’ll cover all the details.

Book Your Free Breakthrough Call Today

So, to book your free breakthrough call, you can go to rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book and that's going to take you right to my calendar. You can find an appointment right there, and then it will have you fill out a prep form to help me get to know you a little better—where you're at, what you're thinking about with coaching, and what your goals might be.

And then, of course, we’ll get really clear on all of that when we actually speak on the call.

All right, working moms, you can answer this question: What do I want? Don't stay confused. It takes getting in touch with that inner, deep part of you—that desire within you that is connected to a sense of rightness—and I can help you get there.

All right, working moms, until next week, let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson