You Know What You Want

It’s not magic that makes it happen. It’s tenacity. Sprinkled with courage.

photo by Scott Schell

I met a woman in Bali, who loved to surf.

When you saw her on the beach, she completely fit the picture. She was buff, tan and very blond. She had a rugged, cool, chic smile as she gazed at the surf.

Watching her dance around on her board, you would never guess that she is a self-prescribed “terrible athlete”.

She says her family can’t believe what she is doing now, because she was never into sports.

Seeing her with her partner is a lot like watching her dance around on her board. It’s easeful. Light. Joyful.

They look happy. They feel happy.

They are happy.

She also reports being surprised by this. She says, “Yeah, we fit together really well. I’ve never experienced it before either.”

So how did this happen? How did a forty-something fashion executive from Sydney end up barefoot on a beach in Bali?

In her thirties she was in a steady relationship, and climbing the ladder of the fashion industry. Like all Australians she was exposed to surfing, but this wasn’t her scene. Her family and friends thought she was crazy, and told her so.

She didn’t have a goal of moving to a new country and finding love. She didn’t have any good reason at all. She just wanted to surf.

She could have ignored this urge, but instead she bought the wrong surfboard at a garage sale, drove to the coast every weekend, and in her words, “Got her ass handed to her”. And she loved it. She became obsessed. She would wake up every morning and practice her pop-ups.

Bali is close to Australia, so she took trips there often. Eventually her relationship dissolved. In large part because she was spending all of her free time surfing, and he wasn’t. And it didn’t happen over night. In fact it took a decade, and thousands of hours.

When she did quit her job, and moved — it was time, and she was ready. Like a woman in labor, the baby was coming and she couldn’t not push.

What I’ve learned the hard way, is that thinking we need to know — now, in perfect detail, exactly where we will end up, before we take a step, is exactly what keeps us stuck.

We want to know how things will end, and avoid any discomfort along the way. We want the security of knowing exactly what our one thing is, and a linear path to it. We think we should have the whole thing planned out before we start.

It’s a trap. It’s fear masquerading as logic. And a brilliant strategy for not doing anything.

We tell ourselves, that if we really knew what we wanted, we would do it. We tell ourselves that the really creative and successful people must know something that we don’t.

When in reality, people like my friend in Bali — people like the Beastie Boys, Yvon Chouinard, and your really successful friend Neil just have a higher capacity to hold ambiguity, to try things, to let a few of them not work — and to keep going.

My friend had the grit to get back on her board after harrowing wipeouts and multiple, back-to-back, long pin-downs under water. And still to this day, the first thing she does every morning when she wakes up, is practice her pop-ups.

It’s not magic. It’s tenacity. Sprinkled with courage.

When my ten-month-old was learning to walk, she would fall and hit her head, a lot. She would cry her heart out, and then pull herself back up, and try again.

There is more background noise as we get older, but if we really listen for it — we have that same drive to take a step. It will be different than you think. Things won’t go how you expect them to. And that is not bad news.

Because the best things that will ever happen to you are far better than you can imagine from where you are now. Endlessly talking, and researching, and planning — doesn’t work. You might already know that.

You have to take a step.

And it doesn’t have to be a big step. Any little pull can be your breadcrumb. You don’t need to quit your job. In fact, don’t quit your job. Just take that pottery class you’ve been dying to try.

Just do something in the direction you are pulled — and let the world speak to you. It doesn’t matter what it is. And it doen’t have to make sense. It just has to be yours.

Like my friend in Bali, we all have that primal urge, magnetizing us to do what is ours to do. And when you listen here, and look only to the next few steps — you definitely do know what you want.

You do.

The only question is, will you trust yourself? Will you give yourself permission to try, to fail, to succeed wildly, AND to keep going. To keep living this one wild and precious life.

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