How to Figure Out What You Really Want: Use This Life-Changing Hack

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  If you don't know what you want, other people's priorities win

  Mel runs this episode as a free workshop and argues that much of feeling stuck or lost comes from not knowing what you want. Without a direction, you can't know what you value or prioritize, so people who do know what they want 'are always going to come before you.' People can advise you on how to get something, but no one can tell you what to want.

• 02

  Clarity is a skill, and your answer will change

  Changing your mind is 'not only normal, it's unavoidable.' A college student may outgrow a major, and a couple may find their priorities have shifted since they fell in love. Mel says what she wanted with three kids in middle and high school is very different from what she wants as she and Chris become empty nesters. Without that clarity, you're 'a sailboat without a rudder,' moving fast but going nowhere.

• 03

  Clarity gave her the podcast

  The High Five Habit, published in 2021, has a chapter about Mel dreaming of a podcast. Using this framework, she got clear that she truly wanted to launch one. She spent about two years studying others and building a game plan, then started the show about 18 months before this episode. By then it was nearing 150 million downloads, and what she wanted from it had grown 'on a totally different level.'

• 04

  Use the 5 Whys

  Ask yourself 'What do I really want?' and then ask why four more times. Each 'why' forces you deeper, toward the root emotion. It also tests whether you want the thing itself or something underneath it. Mel says Sakichi Toyota, founder of Toyota Industries, developed the technique in the 1930s, that Toyota still uses it and that business schools teach it for root-cause problem solving.

• 05

  Include 'why now?'

  In Mel's version, one of the whys is about timing. When she asked Sawyer why it mattered to move this year, Sawyer said she had always pictured herself living in New York in her 20s and was at the stage where it felt right. Asking about timing helps separate a someday wish from the most important thing right now. Sawyer could have said 'start a business' but chose New York.

• 06

  The surface goal can cost you the real one

  If Christine had chased the lake house, she'd have spent years saving for it and then renovating and painting it, missing the time with her sons that she actually wanted. Often, Mel says, what you really want is 'right in front of your face.'

• 07

  The deeper answer is something you can act on now

  You can still buy the lake house, move or write the novel. But knowing the root reason (time slipping away, a promise to your younger self, needing time for you) lets you bring that into your life immediately instead of waiting for the big goal.

• 08

  Your turn: what do you really want, and why?

  Mel closes by asking you to answer the question honestly, ask why repeatedly and 'let yourself go there.' Then decide how to bring the deeper need into your days. The free companion workbook at melrobbins.com/what walks through the exercise in more depth.