Fear has at least some shape. “I don’t know” has none.
He sits across from me and looks at one spot on the table. “I actually don’t know what I want,” he says after a long pause. Not provocatively, not resigned, more like he is stating something about someone else. A fact you can somehow live with.
For a moment I believe him. But I ask differently than he has been asking himself for months. “If you happened to know right now what would it be?”
Silence. Then the first word. Then the second. Suddenly there is something in the room that was not there before, an image, a situation, a feeling. Not a full plan but definitely not nothing.
This scene repeats itself in different variations over and over. The more clients sit across from me like this the more convinced I am that “I don’t know what I want” is in practice a much more common and much trickier problem than “I know what I want but I am afraid.”
Why we confuse “I don’t know” with real not knowing
Fear is a comfortable enemy. It has a name, it has a shape, you can talk about it. When you know you want to change jobs and you are afraid to do it you at least have two solid points, a goal and an obstacle. You can build a bridge between them.
“I don’t know what I want” does not offer any solid points. It often hides something other than a true absence of desire:
Fear of disappointment. It feels safer not to claim anything than to want something and not get it.
Too many options. When too many doors are open the brain prefers not to choose at all than to choose wrong.
Not allowing yourself to want. For many people I work with “I don’t know” is learned, in childhood or past relationships having clear desires did not pay off.
All these things exist and need attention. But there is another layer, much more ordinary and much easier to work with and we often overlook it.
Why the brain cannot answer “what do you want”
Try answering this question right now: what do you want from life? You will probably get fog or a vague word like peace, freedom, for things to work. That is not failure. It is simply the consequence of how the question was asked.
Our mind does not work well with abstractions. It cannot grab them, there is nothing to hold on to. But it works well with concrete sensory material, images, sounds, bodily feelings, scenes we can imagine. In NLP this is called working with VAK, visual, auditory and kinesthetic representation.
When you ask “what do you want” the brain has nowhere to reach. When you ask “where would you be in that situation, who would be there with you, what would you feel” suddenly it has material it knows how to use. The question becomes a solvable task instead of endless emptiness.
That is why so many people genuinely believe they “don’t know” because no one has yet asked them the question in a form their mind can answer.
Three versions of “I don’t know” I see most often
Over the years “I don’t know what I want” has broken down into several repeating types. Here are the three I meet most often.
They know but do not trust themselves enough to say it. A client insisted she had no idea what she wanted next. After a few concrete questions it turned out she knew exactly, she just never dared to say it out loud because it sounded too big to admit to someone else or to herself.
They have too many options. A client had three possible career directions and that was exactly why he claimed he knew nothing. He did not lack options, he lacked one good question to compare them. Once we asked “how will you know you chose well” the fog lifted.
They have been asking themselves the wrong question for years. The most common type. Someone keeps asking “what do I want” in the same vague form and keeps getting the same vague answer. It is not that they cannot figure it out. It is that the question simply does not work.
Two tools that dissolve the fog
I work mainly with two approaches, one from NLP and one from systemic work. They are not magic formulas but they do exactly what I described above, they turn an abstract question into something the mind can answer.
Well formed outcome, shaping the goal in detail. Instead of “what do you want” I ask a series of concrete questions: what exactly, where, with whom, in what situation and especially how will you know you have it. That last question forces a person to describe the goal so concretely that it becomes a scene they can imagine. And once they can imagine it “I don’t know” stops being true.
The question “if you happened to know.” This systemic question works differently. It does not ask for detail, it bypasses the inner block. “If you happened to know right now what would it be?” feels like a small game of pretending and that is why it works. It removes the option to answer “I don’t know” because it places the person in a situation where the answer already exists, they just need to retrieve it. The answers are intuitive, quick and often more precise than anything reached through long reasoning.
I used both questions in the stories above. For the client who did not trust herself the detailed well formed outcome helped. For the client who had been asking himself wrong for years the “if you happened to know” question was the breakthrough.
What you can take from this even without a coach
You do not need a consultation to try this on yourself. Next time you catch yourself saying “I don’t really know what I want” try one of these two questions instead of more thinking:
If I happened to know right now what would it be? Write down the first thing that comes up even if it feels small or imperfect. Do not judge it.
How would I know I have it? Describe the scene as clearly as if you were seeing it. Where you are, who is with you, what you feel.
Do not expect a full life plan. Expect the first crack in the fog and that is something you can work with.
Conclusion
“I don’t know what I want” is not laziness, lack of interest or lack of ambition. Most often it is just a question asked in a form the mind cannot answer.
Next time you hear this sentence from a client, a colleague, someone close to you or from yourself do not ask the same thing louder. Ask differently.
If you would like to explore this more deeply and go through a similar process with me feel free to reach out. I would be happy to look with you at what is behind your “I don’t know.”
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