[RedCircle player — add once Ken provides episode UUID]

Most advice about how to stop feeling stuck focuses on action: take a first step, break things into smaller pieces, build momentum. That advice assumes the desire is already there, waiting to be activated. But what if the desire has been buried so completely you don't even know it exists anymore? That is the real reason most people stay stuck: they won't let themselves want the thing they want.

In this episode, I walk through the mechanism. Wanting something you cannot have is painful. So the brain does something elegant and quiet: stop wanting it. If you don't want it, you can't fail at getting it. Martin Seligman's research on learned helplessness found that when people believe they cannot achieve an outcome, they stop trying even when they actually could succeed. The desire doesn't die. It gets buried to protect against the pain of wanting something that feels unachievable.

There are two versions of this. Full burial: the desire is so suppressed you are no longer even conscious of it. Soft denial: you know what you want but won't commit to saying it. I call this the wet-washcloth answer. It's vague, noncommittal, and it protects you from the risk of really wanting something. I share a coaching example from my work with emerging leaders who won't admit they want to become people managers, and what happens in the room when you ask them directly: "Do you actually want this?"

The WANT framework gives you a four-step path out. What do you truly desire (be specific, not vague)? Allow yourself to want it (give yourself explicit permission, even knowing you might not get it). Name it out loud (to someone who has your back). Take one step toward it (just one, not a full plan). I also share something I have been giving myself a wet-washcloth answer about, my own desire for this podcast to reach more people, and I demonstrate the WANT framework by naming it out loud to you right here.

Listen and catch the full episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch it on my YouTube channel, JanelAndersonPhD.

LINKS RELATED TO THIS EPISODE:

Episode 294 — Plan for Everything That Could Go Wrong — the natural follow-up to this episode: once you have named what you want, plan for the obstacles that will try to stop you.

Episode 292 — How to Be Disappointed Without Spiraling — the OWN framework, and the episode where this topic was first teased.

Episode 290 — How to Be More Confident at Work — you can't build confidence through reps toward something you won't let yourself want.

If you feel stuck in your career in a goal that you've been circling for years, being in the same place you were six months ago. Well, you've probably heard the usual explanations. You lack discipline, motivation. You don't have a clear enough plan.

Well, today I'm offering a different explanation. The real reason most people stay stuck is that they won't let themselves want the thing they want, and there's a very good reason why they don't, which I'll get to. But let me repeat: the real reason you're stuck isn't discipline or motivation; it's that you won't let yourself want the thing you most want. Now, there's a reason that that this happens, and the reason is that wanting something that you can't have is painful.

It's agony. So the brain does something really elegant and quiet. It buries the desire. If you don't want it, you can't fail at getting it.

You can't be disappointed. So you don't have to try. It looks like contentment from the outside, but it's really self-protection from the inside of your brain. Now, Martin Siegelman's research on learned helplessness is very much related to this.

He found that when people believe that they cannot achieve an outcome, they stop trying, even when they actually could succeed, isn't that crazy? The desire doesn't die; it just gets buried to protect us from the pain of wanting something that feels unachievable. So we do these mental gymnastics, and we pretend that we don't want it. We we bury this desire from ourselves.

So there's two versions of this. The first one is like a full-on burial. The desire has been so suppressed, so thoroughly that it is no longer accessible. Like you don't even know that you want it anymore because you have buried it so deeply.

I don't even know what I that I want this. That is numbness, and it is protection. I will sometimes say to somebody, and my family hate when I say this to them because they'll I'll ask them like what their preference is on something, and they'll be like, Oh, I don't know, I don't know which one I want, and I will say, But if you did know which one you wanted, which one would it be? And I'm trying to get underneath that.

I'm trying to get that burial of the desire up to the surface. Okay, but so that's the full burial is you don't even know that you want it anymore, and you have just completely suppressed it. Now the other one is a sneakier version of this. It's I call this soft denial.

So the desire is present and known, but the person won't commit to saying it out loud. I think of this as like a very wet washcloth answer, but I'll I'll give you a very specific example of the wet washcloth answer in in a little bit. Okay. So well, in fact, why don't I just jump into that right now?

So emerging. So I train a lot of emerging leaders. I work with leaders at all levels of organizations, but one of my groups that I often work with is emerging leaders. And some of these folks are managing the work of others, and some of them are exploring whether or not they want to manage the work of others.

And I often run into emerging leaders who won't admit that they want to become people managers, and when asked directly whether they want to manage the work of others, they give this vague, non-committal answer. Well, maybe someday, if the opportunity is came, the right opportunity came along. Well, I might consider it, sort of. Maybe, perhaps.

And there are all these qualify. There are all these qualifiers, and that qualifying language maybe perhaps the right opportunity. Da da da da da. All of that is just smacks of wanting it, but not admitting that they want it.

And so I think of that as a very typical example of that soft denial. The desire is there, and they know they want it, but saying it out loud would make it just a little too real. Because if they said it out loud and it became real, then it's something that they could fail at. Again, that wet washcloth answer is a way of wanting something without risking wanting it without risking perhaps not achieving it.

So, if you are feeling that wet washcloth thing yourself, I just want you to know that that is a soft, limp, non-committal form of desire, and you not letting yourself actually have that desire. So it is that soft denial of your desire. So I want you to name that for yourself. If there's something that you've been like hedging around using that non-committal language, I want you to name it for yourself, and I want you to own it because when you really desire it, you have a much better shot at achieving it.

Could you still fail? Of course, but if you don't even let yourself try. Are you going to fail? Absolutely, absolutely.

There is zero chance of getting it. I mean, we take we score zero of the goals. We don't the shots we don't take. Okay.

So I want you to surface the desire because the reason you're stuck is because you're not admitting that you have this desire. Okay, so do you actually want this or not? Because the answer, that wet washcloth answer, that's soft denial, and that's not allowing yourself to admit what you want. So I have a framework now.

Let me just say too that we have to surface those wants. We have to get them to surface, name them, say them out loud, admit them to ourselves, and share them with people who have our backs. Because when we do that, that is when we have a chance at actually achieving them. Anything that is suppressed, we're not going to have a chance at making it happen.

And again, that's why we feel stuck. We maybe don't even realize on a surface level that we're stuck. We just have this sort of overwhelming, foreboding sense about something because that we just can't break through. And again, maybe it's like you want a promotion, maybe you want to leave your job and go somewhere else, maybe you want to start your own business or maybe a side hustle on Etsy selling your own art or something like that.

And if you don't admit to yourself that you want this, you're never gonna try, and then it's gonna just be this longing or this yearning that maybe you don't even again you haven't even put language to it if it is so far suppressed, or maybe you're putting that wet washcloth language to it. Well, you know, maybe if I had the time, like I if I only had like if I only had a free Saturday morning. Well, then I could actually work on my art, and then of course you pack all of your Saturday mornings with things so that you never have the free Saturday morning. Okay, you see how this see how this all plays out.

Your brain plays all these tricks on you. Okay, so I want you to let yourself want the thing that you want. Now, if you have to get deep down underneath it. Find some language for that thing you've been yearning, but not allowing yourself to even think about.

That's going to take a little bit more time, and you might need somebody a little bit more qualified in the mental health profession to help you dig down to that yearning. But I bet if you just did something like stream of consciousness journaling, or even stream of consciousness talking out loud about your wants. The next time you're in the car all by yourself, just while you're driving, just talk about all the things that you want, and it could be little things like I want a piece of gum right now. I want a really good cup of coffee tomorrow.

I want a bowl of steaming soup for dinner. Okay, just let yourself want little things, and then as you start talking through or writing down the smaller things that you want, your you will start to unlock your subconscious so that you can get to those deeper desires that you really have. Because again, you are going to feel stuck until you surface those desires, say them out loud and start taking some action on them. Now you might not be surprised to find out that I have built a framework for this.

I call this the want framework because it is what you want. It is letting those desires be free and alive in the world so that you can chase after them. And it's W A N T. So it's an acronym that spells want.

How clever is that? Okay, so let's walk through each of the pieces, the four pieces of the want framework, and then I'm going to show you how I'm using this in my world right now with something that I want. And so it's a little bit vulnerable. We're going to get on this podcast here today because I'm going to again share you share with you something that I truly truly want and haven't always been admitting that I wanted.

Okay, so the W in want stands for what? What is it that you truly desire? Now I want you to get really specific about this. Not like I want to grow in my career or I want more responsibility.

No, I want you to identify a specific thing. It may be an actual promotion to a different job title, and you know what that job title is. And if it's more responsibility, say specifically what that responsibility is. I want to manage accounts that are in the millions of dollars instead of the hundreds of 1000s of dollars.

For example, if you're in account management or inside sales or something like that in an organization. Okay, so I want you to get really specific about what concretely is it that you want, and if you're about to give yourself a wet washcloth answer, I want you to notice that because that vagueness, that obtuse language, that is protection. You are cocooning yourself into a nice little bubble there, and that is not going to get you what you want. Okay, so the W in want is what do you truly desire?

The A in want is to allow yourself to want it. Okay, so it's not something that maybe if the you know Sun and Jupiter line up just right, you know, not no no no. You get to want it, and this is where you allow yourself to want it. You get to give yourself permission to explicitly want this thing, and even knowing that you might not get it, that's okay.

That's part of it. In fact, that is what makes it real, and that's of course what makes it a little bit risky. But we have to allow ourselves to want it and to play in that space of risk where we might not get it. Again, the wet washcloth answer is permission being withheld from yourself, allowing the desire to come through.

Of course, does not guarantee the outcome, but it means you're willing to be in the game. You're out on the court taking a shot, or at least allowing yourself to be out on the court taking a shot. So the A in the want framework is to allow yourself to want it, and then N is to name it out loud, say it, write it down, say it to a coach, say it to a trusted colleague, tell your boss, tell your best friend, tell yourself, again by putting it in writing. So naming it makes it real, and real things, of course, can fail.

So we're not saying that this is a blank check to get exactly what you want. But again, if you don't put yourself out on the court, you're not going to take the shot, and then there's, of course, no way you're going to get it. So you can't move towards something until you have admitted it to yourself and to others. Now, I don't want you telling everybody your big, hairy, audacious goal if they are not fully in support of you.

So, you want to make sure that who you say it to is somebody who absolutely has your back and who believes in you. Okay. So, the N in the want framework is name it out loud, and then T. This is where we actually get into action.

Take one step, not a plan, not a timeline, but one next right move toward the thing that you just named, and it can absolutely be a baby step. In fact, it probably should be a baby step because when you take that step, again, nice small step, and you get in action around it, that is going to give you the confidence to take the next step. So if you take one giant leap forward, you might not be as successful, or it may take longer than you expect it to, or something like that. Take one tiny step.

So let's say you do want to sell your art on Etsy or something like that, then just go to Etsy and sign up for an account. That would be your one tiny little step. That's all you have to do. And then maybe on Saturday you get your art supplies arranged, and then maybe the following Saturday you actually, you know, put dip the paint, dip the brush in the paint, whatever.

Okay, but one next step. Okay, so that is the want framework. It is what do you truly desire? Allow yourself to want it, name it out loud, and then take one step.

Okay, I promised at the start of this episode that I was going to share with you something that I want something that it was it is a desire for me that I have not been fully surfacing and I have probably been doing a little bit of wet washclothing around it when asked okay and it is about my podcast so let me walk you through the steps of what I want for my podcast, and I. If you want, I can tell you a little bit of the wet washcloth piece as well because there's some of that. Okay, so again, I'm going to walk you through for me right now the the want framework for me. So one thing that I want specifically that I am going to tell you about right now is that I want this podcast to reach more people.

Now that is not a wet washcloth answer. The wet washcloth answer goes something like this: Well, the right people will find the podcast and share it with their coworkers and their committees they're on and the associations they're in, and then if I'm a right fit, maybe they'll bring me in to speak. Okay, that's a totally wet washcloth answer. The real deep desire is that I want this podcast to reach more people, and I want those people to learn from this podcast, put the things into action in their own life, and for their companies and the associations that they belong to, to hire me as a keynote speaker.

Okay, I want all of that. I want people to put this into action in their lives because this content is so rich and so juicy and so able to help you make meaningful change in your life, in your career, all the things, and the reason this podcast exists is not purely altruistic. It is because it is a content marketing vehicle for a business that is a profit-driven business. That is the company that I run called Working Conversations, and I make a lot of my money in the business doing keynoting and training, and so when people find me on the podcast and recommend recommend me inside of their organizations and their associations for keynoting and training, that is how my business makes money.

And so this podcast is part of that. Now it is also a passion project because I love doing the podcast, and what I truly desire is that I want this podcast to reach more people for all the reasons I just shared. So I also shared the the wet wash, the wet washcloth version of that is so soft and all around the thing. But the thing I really want is for this podcast to get more reach.

Okay, so that is my W. That is my my what specifically that I want, okay. Allowing myself to want it, this is really key for me right now. I am told left, right, and center in keynoting, in keynoting, in corporate training, and in this podcast that I am the best kept secret.

Okay, the best kept secret is a terrible business strategy. It is a terrible business strategy. So I am running at some visibility goals, which you'll hear about in the next episode because I'm going to be talking a little bit more about this in the next episode. So this is episode 293, and next week in 294, I'll be talking a little bit more about visibility and some goals, and actually give you some really important key things to do when setting goals, so that you make sure to accomplish them.

So that episode pairs really, really nicely with this one. So hang in there for next week's episode because you'll get more on this. But so allow yourself to want it. I'm going back to the A here for a second.

Just being the best kept secret again is a terrible business strategy, and I keep hearing it from podcast listeners. I hear it from my corporate clients. I hear it from my government clients, association clients. All the things that I'm the best kept secret.

I do not want to be the best kept secret anymore. So I am truly allowing myself to want the desire to feel the desire of wanting my podcast to have greater reach. Okay, name it. Name it to one person this week.

That is the N. Okay, I'm naming it to all of my podcast listeners. So I'm being very vulnerable by naming it out loud to like literally everyone, like anyone pretty much in the whole world could listen to this podcast. Now, I would love them to.

I am naming it in a very public way. I want more listeners. I want this podcast to have greater reach. Okay, so then my T that is what is one step that I can take toward it.

What is you know take one step is the T. So take one step. Well, I am telling you about it right now. I'm making, I'm using it as an example in this podcast.

So my, but my, I do have a very specific call to action for you, the listener, and my very specific action step. That the step I'm asking, the step I'm taking, is of course saying this. But I have a very specific call to action or ask of you, and that is for you to take one step with me. For you to take one step with me, share this episode with one person who feels stuck, or maybe feels stuck, or told you once about a time when they were stuck.

One person. That is my ask. Take this step with me and just shared this episode with one person. All right, so now it's time for me to do a quick recap of the framework and then to give you your marching instructions to put it to work.

Okay, so the real reason people stay stuck is that they won't let themselves want the things that they want, and that is not laziness; it is self-protection, and it makes complete sense. But it's time to blow that desire out of the water, so that you can actually go after it. Again, there's two versions of this: the full-on burial, where you don't even know that you want it anymore because it is so far suppressed, and then the soft denial, the wet washcloth answer. The oh, people will find the right people will find the podcast.

Heck, I want everybody to find the podcast. Okay, and then the want framework is going to move you toward that buried desire and elevate that to the surface so that you can actually go after it. And so, W. What is it exactly?

A. Allow yourself to give yourself permission to want it, it's okay. N name it to one person at least this week out loud, not a hint, not talking around it, but an actual declarative statement. And then T take one step, identify one step that you can take toward it.

So that is how you put it to work. Again, my friends. Put it to work. I will say it one more time.

Think of that one thing you want, a specific thing, that thing that you have been suppressing. What is it? Say it out loud. Allow yourself to want it.

Name it to one person and take one tiny step forward towards it. Okay, that is your homework. Okay, and again, your call to action, your taking this step with me piece is to share this podcast with one other person, and you can find the show notes and links to the recording. You can play it right there on the show notes page.

That is janelanderson.com forward slash 293 for episode 293. There are also links to Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and this podcast is syndicated out to all the podcast players, so you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can find it on my YouTube channel as well. There are a couple of other related episodes that I have linked up in the show notes, so you'll want to go over to janelleanderson.com forward slash 293 to grab those extra episodes that pair so nicely with this one, and then again, hang in there for next week, episode 294, because that is going to be the perfect follow on to this. Now that you've admitted something that you want, you will be given some really key ideas about how to accomplish your goals in next week's episode.

All right, my friends, thank you so much for listening, and I will catch you here again next week on the Working Conversations podcast.