Tool 18 · Develop yourself
Some wants are borrowed. Some are already half met. Some have been waiting years for somebody to take them seriously.
A guided 20 to 25 minute conversation using ChatGPT. Free, no account, nothing to sign up to.
01
Copy
Take the TAIU prompt.
02
Paste
Open ChatGPT.
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Talk
One question at a time.
Copies the TAIU prompt. Paste it into ChatGPT.
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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 explore
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.
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
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The want, stated plainly
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Whether it is yours
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What it would really take
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One small honest test
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Your TAIU handover — a portable summary of everything the conversation established.
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.
What I would do
Start from the evidence of suppression rather than from a question about dreams.
Take the reason seriously as an object of study. Ask where it came from and whether it is still true.
Test whether the want is yours. Borrowed ambitions are common and putting them down is a relief.
Check whether some of it is already happening in a form you have refused to count.
Find the smallest real test. Wanting something is a hypothesis until you have been near it.
Test it
Ask whether you would still want it if nobody ever knew you had it.
Notice whether the reason you give changes depending on who you are talking to.
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.
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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
Book
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
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
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
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.