Ask AltoREAD · BOOK
Four Thousand Weeks
Oliver Burkeman
Read this if your problem isn't knowing what matters. Your problem is trying to make everything matter at once.
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Tool 18 · Develop yourself
Whose permission am I waiting for?
A guided 20 to 25 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. Some wants are borrowed. Some are already half met. Some have been waiting years for somebody to take them seriously.
Would you still want it if nobody ever knew you had it?
The reason arrives too quickly to be a conclusion.
Some wants are inherited. Putting one down properly can return more to you than chasing it would.
What you'll look at
- 01Something you have looked at more than once and never pursued
- 02Something you notice yourself envying
- 03The reason you give when it comes up
- 04Who would have something to say about it
A note from Mark
People are quick with the reason. Ask about something they never pursued and the explanation arrives fully formed, which usually means it has been in use for years without being examined.
So I would rather look at the reason than the want. Where did it come from, who said it first and is it still true. Half the time it turns out to be a rule from a family or an industry that nobody has checked since.
The other thing worth doing is testing whether the want is yours at all. A lot of ambition is inherited. Realising that something you have felt guilty about not chasing was never yours is one of the more useful things that can happen to somebody.
Read my full view ↓
And plenty of wants are far smaller than the story. Somebody spends fifteen years not doing something that needs one Saturday a month.
I would not tell anybody they deserve anything. I would ask what it would take, and whether they would still want it once they knew.
What you'll get
This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.
01
The want, stated plainly
02
Whether it is yours
03
What it would really take
04
One small honest test
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.
See everything included ↓
- 01What you came here with
- 02The want
- 03How long it has been there
- 04How you talk about it
- 05What you believe it would cost
- 06Whose permission you appear to be waiting for
- 07Whether the want is yours
- 08Whether it is already being met
- 09What it would actually require
- 10What it would cost other people
- 11The rival explanation
- 12What deserves protecting
- 13The credible alternative
- 14What, if anything, should change
- 15What remains unresolved
- 16Where this goes next
When you finish
Bring it back to your tree.
Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.
This session works on the whole of you, not one part of your life. Nothing is scored. At the end, you are asked once which part of your life this touched most. You can answer none.
The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.
- Session
- Date
- The part of life this belongs to
- What we found
- The alternative we tested
- What deserves protecting
- What should change, if anything
- Next actions
- What to notice or find out
- What remains unresolved
What now?
01 · Save it
The want stated plainly, without the qualifications you usually attach.
02 · Test it
Do the smallest version this month. Go once, take one class, spend one afternoon near it.
See more ↓
What I would do
- 01
Start from the evidence of suppression rather than from a question about dreams.
- 02
Take the reason seriously as an object of study. Ask where it came from and whether it is still true.
- 03
Test whether the want is yours. Borrowed ambitions are common and putting them down is a relief.
- 04
Check whether some of it is already happening in a form you have refused to count.
- 05
Find the smallest real test. Wanting something is a hypothesis until you have been near it.
Test it
- 01
Ask whether you would still want it if nobody ever knew you had it.
- 02
Notice whether the reason you give changes depending on who you are talking to.
- 03
Imagine having it for a year and check whether the feeling is anticipation or obligation.
The alternative
The expected ending is that you give yourself permission and pursue the thing. Often the truer outcome is different. Sometimes the want turns out to belong to somebody else, absorbed from a family or an industry, and putting it down properly returns a great deal of attention to you. Sometimes it is already being met in a smaller form you refused to count because it did not look impressive enough. And sometimes it is real but a great deal smaller than the story around it, requiring one afternoon a month rather than the reorganisation of your life. Occasionally the honest answer is that you set it down for a good reason and the reason still holds, which is not defeat.
Think about this
- Something you have looked at more than once and never pursued.
- What you find yourself envying, and in whom.
- The reason you give when it comes up, exactly as you say it.
- Who taught you that this was not for people like you.
- Whether you would still want it if nobody ever knew you had it.
Take this to Ask Mark
You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.
This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.
Take this to Ask Mark →Want to go further?
READ · BOOK
Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Gilbert
Funny, and much harder on the reader than it first appears. The chapters on imagination filling in the gaps are the ones that matter here.
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READ · BOOK
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying
Bronnie Ware
Best for a blunt view of what people wish they had allowed themselves.
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Recommended by the TAIU community
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Next tool
What should I actually do?
If the want turned out to be live
Further thinking
Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Gilbert
A theory of social comparison processes
Leon Festinger
The Happiness Trap
Russ Harris
See the thinking ↓
Book
Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Gilbert
Gilbert's subject is how badly we predict our own future feelings. We imagine the highlights of a life we do not have and quietly leave out the Tuesday mornings. That is directly useful when a desire keeps returning: it lets you ask whether you want the life attached to the thing, or one missing ingredient inside it, without dismissing the desire as a fantasy.
Article
A theory of social comparison processes
Leon Festinger
The original paper, and still the clearest. Festinger's claim is that in the absence of an objective measure we evaluate ourselves against whoever is nearby, and we choose people close enough to us for the comparison to sting. It explains a great deal about why private ambition and public ambition often turn out to be different things, without reducing everything you want to envy.
Book
The Happiness Trap
Russ Harris
The plainest introduction to acceptance and commitment therapy, where values are treated as directions you keep moving in rather than rules you either obey or break. It also makes the case that rigid rule-following, even about admirable things, is one of the more reliable ways to make yourself miserable.
Book
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying
Bronnie Ware
A palliative nurse's account of what people said at the end, and the first regret on her list is having lived the life expected of them rather than the one they wanted. Treat it as testimony rather than evidence: it is a small, self-selected sample and it reads warmer than the research does. It earns its place because it is specific about the shape of a suppressed want, which the studies are not.