How to Figure Out What You Really Want (Ashley Stahl TED Talk) -

As a TED Talk nerd, my phone is littered with notes from hundreds of talks. Going through my phone, I came across these notes from a 2019 talk that I thought would be good to share.

It starts with a story of the speaker Ashley Stahl’s dad receiving a phone call from people posing as her kidnappers, demanding a ransom and threatening to harm and dismember her. A terrifying situation for any parent. However it just wasn’t true – the kidnappers were in fact scammers. Ashley Stahl was safe in her Beverly Hills office when her dad received that call. After a harrowing two hours they eventually figured out it was fake and he just barely avoided wiring away his life savings.

What follows is her realization that people like the scammers probably get trapped into horrible schemes like this because they don’t believe they have better options outside of what they are currently stuck in. And this goes way beyond the scammers. Many people (myself included) find themselves stuck in situations they don’t want to be in… out of fear.

“Often we kidnap ourselves from the lives that we actually want because we think a different path is going to help us survive, get by, pay our bills, or meet our needs in the world.”

Fear constrains our decision-making. Fear limits the options we think are available to us. Fear prevents us from pursuing what we truly want.

“When we go into fear, we give away our power and we disconnect from who we really are and what we really want.”

But we don’t have to accept fear-based outcomes as our fate. With three questions, we can turn things around and come back home to ourselves. These prompts help you figure out what you really want in life.

Self-audit
- Where am I holding myself captive?
- What’s working for you and what isn’t?
- What do you know that you wish you didn’t know? (What are the hard truths that you’ve been scared to admit to yourself?)
Follow your freedom
- Pay attention to what feels good to you.
- Career is an experiment that really meets you where you are; a vehicle for your own self expression.
- Start with writing down all of your ideas and check in with your body (do you feel joy or fear? Expansion or contraction? Excitement or dread? Liberation or suffocation?)
- If this is hard to identify, keep a joy journal and write daily: What was the highest moment of joy you felt each day? At the end of 30 days, take note of patterns to your inspiration.
- What skill set am I using when I’m the most inspired? When you’re in inspiration, you’re not being run or kidnapped by your fear.
Engage
- Clarity comes from engagement; it does not come from thought. Start living; start doing. What is something you can start doing today?
- To feel powerful, look at your list and choose something that feels good; show up; see what feedback the universe gives you. Make a commitment and know that you can course correct along the way.
- Thought paralysis is worse than doing things improperly – you don’t learn anything by over analyzing but you always benefit from engagement.

These are broad but powerful prompts to help you figure out what you really want. Use these prompts to take a good hard look at the life you’re living now, then start taking back your power so you can begin to live the life you truly want.