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Note 78: Okay, But What Do You Want? · Notes to Her

• 0:14
  Yaya: Hey, girl. Hey. Welcome to Notes to Her, the daily pep talk. I'm Yaya, your confidence and mindset coach. And today, I'm talking to the woman who knows exactly what everyone around her needs, but goes blank when somebody asks her what she wants.
• 0:29
  So last week, I asked a friend what she wanted to do to celebrate her big accomplishment. She's smart, she runs a lot of things well, and she's the person people call when they need something fixed. She laughed and said, whatever works for everybody. Then she got quiet and I could tell she had hurt herself. Somewhere along the way, she stopped knowing what she wanted because she was so busy knowing what everyone else did.
• 0:55
  I laughed with her. And then I thought about it the whole drive home, because I said the exact sentence more than once. And I'm a confidence coach. So you can imagine how it felt to admit that. So I want to ask you something.
• 1:09
  I want you to actually answer it in your head too. When was the last time somebody asked you what you wanted and you answered right away without first checking what would be the easiest for everyone else? If you had to think about that for a while, stay with me. This note is for you and it's for the version of me who needed to hear it too. Now sometimes women can lose track of what they want.
• 1:43
  You get so good at meeting everyone else's needs that your own preferences went quiet. And now when somebody asks you what you like, you don't have an answer ready. It rarely shows up in one big dramatic moment. It usually spills up in small sentences. Like, I'm fine with whatever.
• 2:01
  You pick, I don't mind. Whatever works for everyone else. And you say them so smoothly that they stop sounding like decisions. And one day somebody asks, okay, but what do you want? And your mind goes blank.
• 2:17
  Now I've had that blank moment myself and it's a strange feeling. You know you have an answer in there somewhere, but it's hard to bring yourself to say it out loud. This happens because you spent years answering other people's questions first without checking in with yourself and your own questions slide to the bottom of the pile. You may even have a voice in your head that sounds a lot like this. It doesn't matter to me, so why make it a thing?
• 2:43
  Or, they'll be happier if I just go along. Those thoughts feel considerate in the moment and every time you follow one, you hand a little more of your own say to someone else. I could write you a whole list of times I have done this in the past and sometimes it's still a work in progress. But I want you to remember this, before everyone needed something from you, you had opinions. You had a song you played too loud, you had a favorite way to spend a free Saturday, you had a dream you talked about with your whole chest, and you said it out loud without checking whether it was convenient for anyone.
• 3:20
  Then life added people one at a time. A boss who counts on you, a team that comes to you first, a family that expects you to handle things, friends who text you when they're struggling, a partner, and maybe kids who need you in ways that are reasonable. Each one arrived with a request that made sense, and you said yes because you're a caring person who shows up. You've made 100 good decisions and somewhere underneath the 100, you ran out of room for yourself. Every single yes made sense when you said it, and that's the reason why it's so hard to see the pattern from the inside.
• 3:56
  Think about your own week for a second. Who did you take care of before you took care of yourself? Who got the first answer to a question, the first free hour, the first bit of your energy? For a lot of women, it starts long before we've had a job or a calendar full of obligations. When I was younger, my friends used to call me the goody goody, and secretly I hated it, but I kept being her.
• 4:21
  Being easy, being good got me approval, and approval felt like safety. I got really good at reading a room and figuring out what everyone else needed before they had to ask. And actually, think I'm still good at it if you ever need somebody to tell you how the room feels. But reading a room is a real skill and it comes from a good place. The trouble starts when you read everyone else's needs so well that you stop reading your own.
• 4:45
  And you may have learned that from somewhere else. Maybe you watched the woman in your family take care of everyone else and rarely sit down for themselves. Maybe you got praised for being the easy one, the helpful one, the one who never caused trouble, and you took that praise as a message about who you need to be to be loved. I'll say something that I don't hear very many women's and men out loud. Being needed feels good.
• 5:12
  Even I like it, but not too much. No, truly, I do like when somebody calls me because they trust me with something hard, I feel valued. And for a long time, that feeling was how I knew that I mattered. However, the risk shows up when being needed becomes the only proof you have. If you're worthless in how useful you are, then taking an afternoon for yourself feels like stealing from someone, and saying what you want feels like asking for too much.
• 5:40
  So you keep your preferences small and quiet and you call it being flexible. Now losing track of what you want costs you more than you will notice while it's happening. First, you'll stop knowing what you like and it sounds small until you notice it. You can't say which restaurant you pick, what you do with a free weekend, or what you'd want your work to look like if you designed it from scratch. And when someone asks, you give them a list of what others enjoy.
• 6:10
  The second cause is a tiredness that sleep does not fix. A busy day you choose gives you energy back by the evening, and a busy day built from other people's requests takes more than it gives. Now the third cause is the one that shows up feeling stuck. A woman will tell me that she feels stuck in her career, her business, her relationship, and when I ask her when it started, she can't point to a moment. That makes sense because there's no single decision that put her there.
• 6:41
  She got there by saying, I'm fine with whatever for years and so her life was built from other people's preferences and her own good manners. Maybe you're in a job that used to fit and now it feels like a cult from five years ago. Maybe you're running a business and you can't remember what excited you about it. Maybe you're surrounded by people you love and you feel like you have disappeared from your own life. These can all be true at the same time, and you can love people in your life while still missing yourself.
• 7:13
  The last time that I lost my corporate job, I remember the morning after with no schedule and nobody to check-in with. I expected to feel relaxed, but I felt uneasy. I I kept waiting for somebody to need something, and when nobody did, I just sat there and realized I had no idea what I wanted to do with my own time. It took me most of that day to figure out what I wanted to do with all this free time that I now had. I remember thinking, when did I stop knowing this?
• 7:39
  I didn't have an answer then, and I have a much better answer now, and it's the reason why I am talking to you today about this. The woman that you were before everyone needed something from you is still in there. Her taste in music may have changed and so may her idea of a good Saturday, and her dreams might look a little different now that you've lived a little. Your answers are allowed to change. You get to meet the woman you are today, and the girl you were is a good place to start the introduction.
• 8:09
  It's okay for you to want something before you check-in whether it's convenient for everyone else. It's okay for you to take an afternoon that has no purpose except that you enjoy it. No one should make you feel like having a preference is selfish. You can keep showing up for the people you love, you get to add yourself to that list, and you get to treat what you want as real information about what your life needs. Now I want to be real with you about something that I've seen.
• 8:39
  The woman who starts saying what they want will usually feel guilty about it for a while. The guilt comes from habit and it fades as you practice and watch the people who you love handle your answers just fine. When someone reacts with surprise, you're seeing how long the old pattern has been running and you probably didn't ask for much. Give them a little time to adjust the same way you're giving yourself time. I also want to say something to the woman who feels a little sad listening to this.
• 9:10
  You may be thinking about how many years have went by or how many things you've sat down and never picked back up. The sadness is allowed and it can sit right next to your excitement about starting again. You don't have to skip over it to get to the next step. And if you're sitting there thinking, don't even know what I want anymore. That's the perfect place to start, because you don't need a big answer today, you need a small one and the small ones come back first.
• 9:39
  So how do you start meeting her again? Now I would start small because small is how you rebuild trust with yourself. I have three questions that you can ask yourself later. You can save the answers in your notes app or say them out loud in the car, which is one of the best places that I do my best thinking. First, before you became a person everybody leans on, what did you do with a free afternoon?
• 10:05
  Second, what did you say yes to just because you wanted to with nobody else's schedule involved? Three, what did you stop doing because it started to feel selfish, unproductive, or like too much? Take your time with those, your answers will probably surprise you, and some of them might even bring up tears. If they do, let them. That's grief for a part of you that's been missing.
• 10:35
  Then pick one answer and give it twenty minutes this week, just twenty minutes, not a whole weekend. Put your phones out across the room, play a song, make the recipe, open the sketchbook, take the walk that you used to take, skip the announcement, skip turning into a whole project and skip posting about it. The point is to find out whether she still likes it. After that, add a second practice, give one real answer a day. When someone asks you what you want to eat, what you want to watch, or what time works best for you, say what you actually want to say before you check the room.
• 11:11
  Start with low state questions like dinner. Your voice will get steadier with practice, and by the time a bigger question comes up, like what you want for your career or your relationship, you've already started practicing hearing yourself. Now I care about this so much that I've built something for this and I wanna tell you why. Because doing this alone is hard. For some people you're around, they're so used to the old version of you and the old patterns are comfortable for everybody, including you.
• 11:41
  That's why the get unstuck challenge exists in slay slay society. Oh my gosh, that's a tongue twister. It is a seven day challenge for the woman who feels stuck, and your first week is free. You'll be doing it alongside other women who are asking themselves the same questions, and it's a lot easier to say what you want out loud when the woman next to you is doing so too. So if any of that sounded like you, the link to join will be in the show notes.
• 12:06
  Come say hi when you get in and tell us what you used to love. Okay, so I have a few more questions for you, and I want you to take your time with them. You can pause the note if you need to. I want you to picture a Z with nothing on it. No one to text back, no one who needs a ride, no one waiting for you.
• 12:25
  What's the first thing you do when you wake up? Think about the girl you were when you were 15. What did she love? And when did you last do it? And if she could see your life right now, what would she be proud of?
• 12:40
  And what would she wanna ask you about? Whatever came up, hold on to the first answer. It usually comes up before the part of you that edits before everyone else has had a chance to speak. So if you want to, say it out loud once. Your own voice saying what you want even to an empty chair or an empty kitchen is a muscle that gets stronger every time you use it.
• 13:05
  You can love people who need you and still be a person with your own wants. Both can fit in the same life, and making room for the second one takes nothing away from the first. Your question for the week is which one of the one things from your list are you gonna give twenty minutes to? Pick it tonight if you can and put it on your calendar the way that you will put meeting up with somebody. The next time somebody asks you what you want, I hope you answer before you check the room.
• 13:32
  It might start like a small answer like Thai food or a long walk or an afternoon with the door closed. Give it anyway because each small answer is remembering her. Who were you before everyone needed something from you is still in there and she has had an answer ready for a long time. So go ask her. And in the meantime, I'll see you in the next note.