Name: I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Rating: 4.4 (329 reviews)
Author: Barbara Sher with Barbara Smith

What’s in it for me? Unlock what you truly want in life

What do you want?

Perhaps you’ve explored self-help literature or courses that claim to show you how to get the life of your dreams. But what if you don’t even know what that dream life looks like?

The late Barbara Sher ran into this question repeatedly from readers of her first book, titled Wishcraft. While they loved her strategies for reaching goals, they wanted to know how to set them in the first place. That feedback inspired her to write I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was.

Sher emphasized with her approach that “there is always a good reason for everything.” It’s absolutely not that you lack talent, drive, or smarts. She felt that the key was figuring out your obstacles.

While the answer to what you want is as unique as every individual, the reasons for not knowing what you want are common. We’ll explore those first.

Then, we’ll cover just a few of the many chapters devoted to typical scenarios people face when struggling to find purpose, like staying stuck because it feels safe, looking successful on the outside when you’re not feeling it, or figuring out what to do when you’ve reached a goal but lost it.

If you see yourself in any of those examples, you’ll come away with quick exercises designed just for you to help find what you want in life. Let’s dive in.

You must overcome expectations, non-action, and hidden resistance

Three big themes usually keep people from knowing what they want: what they think others expect; not taking action; and “hidden resistance.” Let’s consider each.

First, there are other people’s expectations. You may have zero clue what you actually want, but you probably have a clear idea of what you think others expect of you. Expectations are conveyed through the stories about you passed on by parents, other family members, friends, or peers. Say you grew up in a family of doctors, and you were told that you also would become a doctor. Or it could be something more subtle – maybe your father complaining about politicians all your life has made you steer clear of a career in politics.

Even with good intentions, all of these inputs can make for too much noise. You have to cut through that clutter to find your own voice. Here’s how: Make a list of everyone who matters in your life and what you think they expect of you; next, consider any decisions you’ve made based on those opinions. Note which choices have made you happy, if any. Keep the list handy so that as you move on, you’ll know the dreams you are chasing are yours and no one else’s.

The next big block to goal setting is not acting at all. You have to start doing something, even if it’s small. While it’s tough to get moving when you don’t know what you want, you still need motivation to act when the goal is finding the goal.

There are four big pushes for taking action in this conundrum. First, you have to at least try something to know whether you like it or not. Even disliking something will steer you toward what you do like through the process of elimination. Second, the act of trying new things on its own raises your confidence, regardless of the outcome. Third, lucky things do happen, but can’t if you don’t open the door to them. And last, going with your gut trains you to follow your instincts, or at least fine-tune them in cases where things don’t work.

It also takes action to identify your personal hidden resistance, the third thing that can keep you from knowing what you want. This one is unique to you, and only you can find it. To do that, Sher offers a series of exercises to make you consider what would be your perfect job. For the sake of brevity, we’ll combine the concepts into one exercise.

Grab a pen or your notes app and let your imagination run wild as you list every aspect of your ideal job, right down to the hours you’d keep, what you’d do, and where you’d do it. If you struggle to think of what would be perfect, instead write down the same kind of list – but describing the absolute worst job you can imagine. Take that list of negatives and change each detail to a positive counterpart. Either way, you’ll arrive at a fantasy job description.

Now imagine actually doing the fantasy job. Do you feel uneasy? Why? Are there any thoughts popping up telling you that you can’t? What exactly are they saying? Those feelings and messages are coming directly from your hidden resistance. Jot them down – we are going to explore just a few of the scenarios where others’ expectations, non-action, and hidden resistance rear their heads, and how to knock them off your path to knowing what you want.

Small actions make a big impact

Have you ever stayed in a job that wasn’t a good fit, but paid the bills? That was the case of a man Sher called Jerry, who exemplified the patterns of “sure thing” people — those who say they want to follow their passion yet choose a sense of security over the unknown.

Jerry dreamed of writing screenplays, yet held a well-paying job as an editor at a company where the work tired him. In fact, he claimed he had no energy left to do any screenwriting on his own time. Yet when asked to consider dumping the job and pursuing writing full-time, he balked at the idea of not having colleagues around.

When success isn’t satisfying, change course

We just talked about people who feel their lives are ho-hum and have to break routines to find what they want. But what if you are the opposite — at least on the outside?

To most observers, your life looks like the definition of success, with a family, a nice home, and plenty of income to spend on vacations and other luxuries. Or perhaps the picture is a bit different and you’re a star athlete, high-profile entrepreneur, or have otherwise attained the highest levels in your field. Meanwhile, you aren’t happy at all. Now pile on a couple of valid fears about giving it all up: How will you sustain your lifestyle and responsibilities? What will people think?

Use major transitions and loss to find new purpose

So far, we’ve covered ways to get around blocks and fears to figure out what you want, which is useful mostly for people who have never identified what they truly wanted. Now let’s consider another group who are also searching despite having known what they wanted – and gotten it. What put them back in the boat, searching for purpose?

First, there are people faced with major life transitions, like losing a job or having children leave for college. These transitions require what the author termed regrouping. Second, there are those who’ve suffered a major, irreversible life event that changed their picture completely, leaving them back at square one. Perhaps a sure path to a professional sports career was cut short by injury – or, worse, they suddenly lost a spouse.

Key ideas in I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was

What is I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was about?

I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was (1994) offers practical guidance to help people figure out what they want in life and how to use that knowledge to go after it. It tackles the most common obstacles to goal-setting with exercises and tactics that help people customize an approach that works best for them.

About the Author

Barbara Sher was a therapist, career counselor, and business owner who has been called “the godmother of life coaching.” Prior to her death in 2020, her career spanned five decades that included many media appearances, a worldwide network of “Sher’s Success Teams,” and seven books, most notable among them the best-seller Wishcraft, and Live the Life You Love, which won the Books for a Better Life Commission’s top motivational book award.