You can build a career, start a family, achieve financial stability—and still lose touch with your own desires. Mariana Lapchynska explains why the goals that once inspired us can lose their meaning, how to distinguish what you truly want from what you have been told you should want, and how to reconnect with yourself.
How can a woman recognize that, behind her professional, family, and social roles, she is beginning to lose touch with her own desires?
It rarely happens overnight. From the outside, everything may look perfectly fine: a woman works, raises children, manages the household, builds a business or career, and supports those close to her. She may be exceptionally capable, yet gradually, her life fills with more and more “shoulds” and leaves almost no room for “I want.”
One of the first signs is struggling to answer a simple question: “What do you want right now?” If you set aside your children’s wishes, the needs of your business, and your ideas about what would be best for your family, what do you want?
Another sign is when life begins to consist almost entirely of functions: I am a mother, a wife, a leader, a daughter, the person who organizes everything. But if all those roles were stripped away, who would I be? What interests me? What makes me feel alive?
The roles themselves matter. The danger begins when the role becomes bigger than the person herself.
Sometimes we do not lose ourselves. We simply spend so long performing our roles that we stop asking who we are beyond them.
Why can achieving the goals we once dreamed of eventually stop bringing us satisfaction—and how can we tell when a goal is no longer ours?
Because we change faster than some of our goals do.
Ten years ago, we may have genuinely wanted our own business, a particular position, a certain income, a marriage, a house, or a certain status. But over time, our lives, experiences, values, and priorities change.
The trap is assuming that because we once wanted something, we must continue wanting it. It is especially difficult to walk away from a goal in which we have already invested years, money, energy, or part of our identity.
Instead of asking, “Was this goal a mistake?” I would suggest another question: “If I did not have to justify my past choices today, would I choose this again?”
We often keep going because we have already come so far, even though we no longer want to reach the same destination.
Changing a goal does not mean declaring your former life a mistake. That decision may have been right for the person you were then. But you are allowed to change.
Why do strong, successful women sometimes remain highly effective for years in lives that no longer suit them?
Paradoxically, strength can sometimes allow us to remain far too long in situations that are no longer healthy or fulfilling. A strong person knows how to adapt: she can pull herself together, endure, find a solution, organize others, and take responsibility. Outward effectiveness does not always reflect inner well-being. You can be very good at something that stopped making you happy long ago.
The more a woman has built, the higher the cost of change can seem. At twenty, you can say, “I changed my mind.” When you have a business, a team, a family, children, financial obligations, and a reputation, the words “I don’t want this anymore” immediately raise dozens of questions: Will I let someone down? What will people say? What if the new choice turns out to be a mistake?
A person may understand perfectly well that her life no longer suits her while also recognizing the cost of changing it. That cost should not be romanticized. But there is another cost we discuss far less often: the cost of leaving everything as it is.
How can we distinguish our own desires from other people’s expectations and our internal sense of what we “should” do—and give ourselves permission to reconsider a choice we once made?
There is no simple test that can instantly reveal which desires are truly yours and which have been imposed on you. We are influenced by our parents, our culture, our partners, social media, and our ideas about what a successful woman should be.
So I would pay attention to what happens inside me when I imagine that life. There is one simple question: “If no one ever knew about my choice, would I still want it?” If I could not share it on Instagram, if no one praised me or said, “We’re proud of you,” would I still choose it for myself?
We often think we do not know what we want. Sometimes we do. We are simply not sure we have the right to choose it.
It is important to allow yourself to want more or less, to change your mind, switch careers or alter the pace of your life, begin something at forty, or walk away from something you once fought for.
What practical tools can help us reconnect with ourselves and move from awareness to meaningful change?
I suggest four simple practices for readers.
Practice 1: “Would I Choose This Again?”
Consider the main areas of your life: work, relationships, social circle, where you live, and your usual pace. For each one, ask yourself honestly: “If I were making this choice today, knowing everything I know now, would I choose it again?”
You do not need to tear anything down or make immediate changes. At first, it is enough to see where your answer today no longer aligns with the choice you made yesterday.
Practice 2: “A Life Without an Audience”
Ask yourself: “How would I live if I did not have to explain my choices to anyone? What would my day look like? What would I do? Who would I spend more time with? What would I have less of in my life, and what would I have more of?”
This practice helps separate your own desires from other people’s expectations.
Practice 3: “If You Had One Year Left”
“If you knew for certain that you had only one year left, which of the things filling your life today would you stop doing? And what would you stop putting off?”
A finite amount of time quickly reveals what truly matters to us.
Practice 4: “One Small Promise to Yourself”
Realizing something about yourself is only half the journey. After completing the first three practices, ask: “What is one small action I can take within the next seven days to show myself that I have listened to my own needs?”
The key word is “small.” Choose one specific step you can take within a week. For example, if you have long wanted more time for yourself, that act could be spending a Saturday alone—without your phone and without having to explain yourself to anyone.
Awareness alone changes nothing. Change begins with an action that proves to you that you have listened to yourself.
In Closing
As I get older, I become increasingly convinced that the hardest thing is admitting that what we want has changed. A dream that once propelled us forward may no longer inspire us, and a choice that was right ten years ago does not have to remain right today today.
Perhaps adulthood is the ability to choose your life again—and to ask yourself from time to time: “Do I still choose it?”
