What Do You Want, Really?

 

When I was little and someone would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always had the same answer:

“A mom.”

I said it with absolute conviction, like a little girl announcing she’d be queen of the forest. But that answer was usually met with horror — especially from the women in my family.

My mom and grandmother were brilliant, ambitious, fiercely capable. They’d been told they couldn’t just stay home, that they had to go out and prove themselves in the world, that it was selfish or lazy to “just” be a mom. So when I said that was all I wanted, they looked at me like I’d just thrown their hard-earned liberation into the trash.

So I picked a more acceptable answer.

“I want to be a veterinarian,” I started telling people. It was a good mix — smart, nurturing, scientific. I was a good student and worked hard, especially in science, and by my junior year of high school, I was on track to make it happen.

And then… I found out I couldn’t.

I was referred to an allergist, and after testing, he told me bluntly, “You’ll be sick all the time if you work with animals. This won’t work.”

I still remember the hollow feeling in my stomach. I’d been doing everything right, and suddenly the path just… disappeared.

So I pivoted. I majored in communication art and writing instead. I was good at it. I enjoyed the actual work — the problem-solving, the flow of it — and I landed my “dream” job at a publishing company.

But it didn’t feel dreamy.

It felt like a windowless cubicle under fluorescent lights, where I’d get to work in the dark and leave in the dark, and realize I hadn’t seen the sun all day. It felt like forced smiles and office politics. It felt like sacrificing the one thing I’d always wanted most.

Because by then, I was a mom. And my baby spent the whole day at the babysitter’s while I sat in a cube wondering what milestones he was hitting without me.

One day, sitting at a stoplight on the way home, I just started crying. What had he learned that day? What had I missed? Why was I spending my life doing something I didn’t love — just to afford to be apart from someone I did?

I broke out of that life and started my own business. And it’s been amazing. It let me be home with my kids. It paid for the extras that made life joyful. It helped us travel, explore, live a little bigger than we could have otherwise.

And now… my life is shifting again.

My kids are mostly out in the world. The youngest just got his driver’s license and doesn’t need me to drive him to practice or school. He’s capable and independent — just like I raised him to be.

So here I am, again, asking…

What do I want now?

I’ve accomplished so many of the things that once felt like dreams. And I’m deeply proud of that. But I also know that life is made up of chapters — and it’s time to write the next one.

I don’t want to be packing and shipping orders anymore.

I don’t want to deal with postal delays or tariffs.

I want the freedom to travel with my husband. I want to help other women create a life of freedom, too. I want to coach. I want to speak. I want to build something that lasts — and that doesn’t depend on me being tied to one place.

This is why I’m revisiting one of the most powerful exercises I’ve ever done — something I call the MIQs, or Most Important Questions.

It’s a framework I learned from my coach, Vishen Lakhiani, and it changed the way I think about goal setting. Because here’s the truth:

We’re so often chasing what we think we’re supposed to want.

A title. A salary. A milestone that looks good on paper.

But the MIQs ask something much deeper.

Instead of asking “What do you want to achieve?” — they ask:

1. What experiences do you want to have?

2. How do you want to grow and evolve?

3. How do you want to contribute to the world?

And here’s the magic: your answers don’t have to be “realistic.” They don’t have to make sense to your parents or your boss or anyone else.

They only have to feel true to you.

Because your business, your income, your freedom — it all begins with clarity. And these questions can help you find it.

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I’ll be going live on Thursday to walk you through the MIQs, share my own answers, and help you explore what you really want next — in life, in business, and beyond.

✨ Join me in the Online Income Playbook Facebook group here: facebook.com/groups/onlineincomeplaybook

Bring your journal. Bring your dreams. Let’s find your real goals — the ones worth building everything else around.

Because your next chapter deserves to be written by you.