Why Do I Keep Talking Myself Out of the Things I Really Want?
I have talked myself out of some truly wonderful things in my life.
Not because I didn't want them badly enough. Quite the opposite. Sometimes I wanted them so much that the wanting itself frightened me.
I would have an idea and immediately feel that little rush of excitement in my body. You know the one. Before you've had time to think about logistics or money or whether it's sensible, something inside you simply lights up and says, YES.
And then, usually within minutes, my brain would arrive.
It was remarkable how quickly I could turn something that had felt completely possible five minutes earlier into something wildly irresponsible.
What about the money? What about work? What if it doesn't work? What will people think? Is this really the right time? Perhaps I should wait until things settle down. Perhaps I need to know more. Perhaps I need to be more prepared. Perhaps next year would make more sense.
I've always found it fascinating that fear rarely introduces itself as fear.
It sounds far more intelligent than that.
It sounds like responsibility.
It sounds like practicality.
It sounds like being a good mother, a sensible businesswoman, a responsible adult.
And sometimes, of course, it is.
There are decisions in life that require thought, planning and a healthy respect for reality. I don't believe every impulse is intuition or that every dream should be followed simply because it appeared in our minds.
But I have started noticing a difference in myself.
There is a particular feeling that comes with the things I genuinely don't want to do. They feel heavy from the beginning. There isn't much internal debate because somewhere inside me the answer is already no.
The things I really want are different.
They arrive with excitement first.
The fear comes afterwards.
I think that distinction has changed the way I understand myself.
Because perhaps some of the things I've called uncertainty over the years weren't uncertainty at all.
Perhaps I knew exactly what I wanted.
I was simply afraid to give myself permission to want it.
I wonder how often we do this as women.
We say we'd love to travel, but...
We'd love to start the business, but...
We'd love to take some time for ourselves, but...
We'd love to change careers, move somewhere new, learn something completely impractical, go on the adventure, write the book, end the relationship, begin the relationship, spend the money, take the risk...
but.
There always seems to be a very convincing sentence waiting after the but.
What I've become curious about is what happens just before it.
That tiny moment when you haven't started negotiating with yourself yet.
When nobody else's opinion has entered the room.
When you haven't checked your calendar or your bank account or asked Google whether women your age should be doing whatever ridiculous thing has just made you feel wildly alive.
There is just you and the desire.
I think we dismiss that moment far too quickly.
Maybe because wanting something creates vulnerability.
The moment we admit that we really want something, we also have to accept that we might not get it. We might fail. We might make the wrong choice. We might spend the money and regret it. We might discover that the dream wasn't what we thought it would be.
Or perhaps, even more frighteningly, we might get exactly what we wanted and have to become someone different because of it.
It's much safer to stay in the dreaming.
You can spend years saying, "One day I'd love to..." without ever having to find out what happens when one day becomes today.
I've done that too.
I've postponed things while waiting for a version of life where everything would somehow line up perfectly. There would be enough time, enough money, enough certainty, nobody would need me, work would be quiet, and I would wake one morning feeling completely fearless and ready.
I'm still waiting to meet the woman whose life works like that.
What I've discovered instead is that some of the most extraordinary experiences of my life happened while there were still perfectly valid reasons not to have them.
The timing wasn't perfect.
I wasn't completely ready.
I didn't know exactly how everything would work.
I just reached a point where the possibility of experiencing the thing became more exciting than the safety of continuing to talk myself out of it.
And almost every time I've crossed that invisible line, I've learnt something about myself that I couldn't have learnt by thinking about it.
That's the part of adventure I think we underestimate.
We tend to think the adventure is the place we're going or the thing we're doing, but perhaps the real adventure begins slightly earlier.
It begins in the moment we stop automatically answering our desire with a reason why we can't.
Maybe we don't even have to say yes immediately.
Maybe we can simply stop saying no quite so quickly.
We can allow the possibility to sit beside us for a while.
We can ask ourselves what we'd choose if fear didn't get the first vote.
We can become curious about why something made us light up before our mind started explaining it away.
That curiosity is part of what inspired The Shift Safari Retreat.
Because I know there will be women who see Africa and immediately feel something.
They'll imagine waking before sunrise and driving into the bush with a coffee in their hands. They'll imagine standing somewhere vast, watching elephants move across the landscape, laughing with women they've only just met, painting badly and loving it, sitting around a fire beneath a sky full of stars and feeling gloriously far away from the version of themselves who is always being sensible.
And then the reasons will arrive.
Maybe next year.
Maybe when work is quieter.
Maybe when I have someone to go with.
Maybe when I've saved a little more.
Maybe when...
I can't tell another woman which of those reasons she should listen to. That's not my job, and I would never want it to be.
But I do think there is a question worth asking whenever something makes us feel unexpectedly alive:
If my first response was yes, what happened between that moment and my no?
Sometimes the answer will tell you that no is absolutely the right decision.
But every now and then, you might discover something else.
You might discover that underneath all those incredibly sensible reasons is a woman who still really, really wants to go.
And perhaps she deserves to be heard too.
With love,
Alka xxx
P.S. What If Your First Answer Was Yes?
If Africa was one of those things that made something inside you light up before your mind started giving you all the reasons why you couldn’t, perhaps give that first feeling another minute.
The Shift Safari Retreat is eight beautiful days in South Africa this October, filled with safari adventures, yoga, creativity, meaningful conversations, laughter, rest and the kind of space that allows you to step outside your everyday life and reconnect with yourself.
You don’t have to book anything today. You don’t have to know whether this is “the right time.” You don’t even have to stop being sensible.
Just allow yourself to imagine it.