“I Don’t Know What I Want Anymore.”

Not “I’m miserable.”
Not “I hate my job.”
Not “Everything’s falling apart.”

Just:

“I don’t know what I want anymore.”

I hear this more often than you’d think.

And almost never from people who are failing.

It usually comes from capable, intelligent, mid-career professionals who have done everything “right.”

They built the career.
They hit the milestones.
They became the reliable one.

And somewhere along the way, the question changed.

It stopped being:
“What should I aim for?”

And became:
“Why doesn’t any of this feel quite right anymore?”

When ambition quietly expires

A client I’ll call Bob came to me after applying for 40+ roles in three months.

Interviews were patchy.
Confidence was dropping.
Energy was flat.

When I asked what he actually wanted next, he stared at me for a long time and said:

“I genuinely don’t know.”

He wasn’t confused about his skills.
He was confused about his direction.

The old ambition — climb, earn more, bigger title — no longer energised him.

But he hadn’t replaced it with anything else.

So he defaulted to what many people do:
Apply widely.
Stay busy.
Hope clarity appears later.

It doesn’t.

Clarity comes from friction, reflection, and structured thinking — not from scrolling job boards.

The myth of having a “clear passion”

We’ve been sold the idea that we should always know what we want.

That real leaders have vision.
That confident people have five-year plans.

But what if the version of you who set your original goals no longer exists?

People change.
Priorities shift.
Energy evolves.

The problem isn’t not knowing what you want.

The problem is trying to force yourself to want what you used to.

Relearning who you are (again)

This is where my work tends to begin.

Not with:
“What job do you want?”

But with:
“How do you actually operate at your best?”

Through strengths profiling and deep conversation, patterns emerge quickly:

• what energises them

• what drains them

• where they overperform

• where they self-sabotage

• how they make decisions

• what environments amplify them

Another client — let’s call her Amelia — thought she wanted a bigger leadership role.

On paper, it made sense.

But when we unpacked her strengths, something became clear: she didn’t want scale. She wanted depth.

She wanted fewer stakeholders.
More autonomy.
Work that felt meaningful rather than impressive.

Her confusion wasn’t weakness.

It was misalignment.

“I don’t know what I want” usually means one of three things

After years of coaching, I’ve noticed this sentence tends to hide something more precise:

1. You’ve outgrown your old definition of success.

2. You’re afraid to admit what you want has changed.

3. You’ve been performing competence instead of listening to energy.

None of these are solved by motivational quotes.

They’re solved by structured reflection and honest conversations.

What actually shifts when people do the work

When clients move through this phase intentionally, the change isn’t dramatic.

It’s steadier than that.

They don’t suddenly reinvent their lives.

They:

• narrow options instead of expanding them

• apply strategically instead of desperately

• speak more clearly in interviews

• stop apologising for their strengths

• regain momentum

Daniel didn’t discover a childhood dream.

He discovered what kind of problems he actually enjoyed solving — and what kind of environment he didn’t want anymore.

Amelia didn’t burn her career down.

She reshaped it.

Both stopped drifting.

Both moved forward.

Not knowing is not failure

There’s something oddly brave about admitting you don’t know what you want.

Because it means the autopilot has stopped working.

And that’s uncomfortable.

But it’s also the beginning of something better.

A life built consciously is almost always smaller at first — fewer options, clearer priorities — but it’s stronger.

If this sentence resonates…

If you’ve thought:

“I don’t know what I want anymore.”

You’re not lost.

You’re likely in transition.

And transitions need:

• clarity

• language

• structure

• and sometimes someone outside your own head

Because thinking harder rarely solves confusion.

Thinking differently does.

And that starts with understanding who you are now — not who you were five years ago.