Stop Doing What's “Right.” Start Being More YOU.
When people are trying to make major, trajectory-setting life decisions like…
What’s the next step in my career?
Should I date / marry / stay with this person?
Should I have kids, or have another kid?
The worst question they can ask themselves is: What am I SUPPOSED to do?
Other versions of this question include: What’s the right answer? What’s smart? What’s normal? What’s correct, on-track, and in line with what everyone else does?
Your automatic brain has already formed an answer on what you’re supposed to do in different situations.
For me, those automatic “supposed-to” answers look like:
Career: You’re supposed to work really hard at the beginning of your career and then transition to something with more work-life balance.
Dating: You should be married by your mid-30s to the ✨love of your life✨
Kids: You should have 2 kids.
It would be very, very easy to build my life around these so-called “right answers.”
And if I did, the life I built would feel subtly, pervasively wrong to me.
Because guess what? My thought-out “want-to” answers look very different!
Career: I love working. I work ALL the time, and my number one priority is leaving behind a massive legacy with my body of work.
Dating: I’d love to have a partner, but I’m also very happy being single, so I’m VERY picky. Married by mid-30s? We’ll see about that 😂
Kids: I don’t want to be a parent. (Which dramatically affects the dating question.)
Why is there such a gap between my automatic “supposed-to” answers and my thought-out “want-to” answers?
Because my automatic brain has spent my whole life looking at books, movies, TV shows, and the people around me, and it automatically created its own idea of what the “right” answer is, based on everything it saw.
My automatic brain is just trying to help! It wants to save me time and energy while also keeping me safe (aka not so weird that I stand out too much).
So it did all this quietly in the background and it gives me its answer instantly and strongly when I confront those big life questions.
But there are two big problems with that automatic “supposed-to” answer:
First, there is no universal right answer that works for everyone.
Some people love working. Some people want to lay on a beach all day. Some people love playing with kids. Others prefer hanging out with adults.
On every dimension, it’s simply impossible that there’s ONE “life setup” that works for every single person on earth.
So even if every single person around you LOVES their life setup, it’s totally irrelevant to you if you don’t have the same preferences as them.
And second, you have a slanted, biased, incomplete data set.
Your automatic brain did its absolute best with the data it had.
But chances are, you’ve mainly seen examples of people who fit the norms of your culture.
In books, movies, TV shows, and among the real people in my life…
I’ve heard LOTS of people complain about work and dream of working less. I’ve heard very few people say they love their work and want to do as much as possible every day.
I’ve seen LOTS of radiant, happy married couples. And very few radiant, happy single women who are 30+.
I’ve seen LOTS of people planning for and celebrating having children. And very few people building and celebrating a life that doesn’t involve parenting.
And that’s not because people who love work, are happy single, and don’t want kids don’t exist.
It’s because those people are much less likely to speak up, and so they don’t get included in my data set.
When you try to solve for what you’re supposed to do…
But there’s a gap between your “supposed-to” answer and your “want-to” answer…
Every option will feel wrong.
Doing what you're supposed to will feel wrong – because it doesn't align with what you want
Doing what you want to will feel wrong – because you're telling yourself it's not what you're supposed to do
So if you’re twisting in the wind, spinning in confusion, and overanalyzing everything but never finding the answer that feels right…
Here’s what I want you to do:
Extract your automatic “supposed-to” answer fully from your brain. You have to understand it before you can question it. What are you “supposed” to do? Why? How did you come to that conclusion? What evidence brought you here? And crucially: Do you agree with that conclusion?
Build up your thought-out “want-to” answer, step by step. What do you want? If you were allowed to do anything, what would you do? What sounds fun? What feels like YOU?
Build up the COURAGE and COMMUNITY to help you take action on what you want. Doing what you actually want is often scarier than going with the flow. Build up your conviction for WHY what you want is the right answer for you. Start taking little steps forward and showing your brain that it’s safe to do what you want. And find people like you, so you can reassure and comfort that part of your brain that just doesn’t like being different.
You can definitely do all of this on your own.
But it’s way, WAY easier if you hire a coach who can help you carve out dedicated time and give you a structured, step-by-step process to take you from beginning to end and troubleshoot every step of the way.
If you’re ready to free yourself from the shackles of doing what’s “right”…
And step into the fun, freedom, and relief of being MORE YOU…
Then come talk to me, and let’s get started :)
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