Why Having a Direction Matters: Five Questions That Can Make Change Easier

Sometimes we know exactly what we don’t want.

• We don’t want to feel so anxious all of the time.

• We don’t want to keep reaching for a drink at the end of a stressful day.

• We don’t want to procrastinate.

• We don't want to snap at the kids.

• We don’t want to keep doubting ourselves.

• We don’t want to feel trapped in the same job, relationship pattern, habit or way of thinking.

Knowing what you want to leave behind can be an important starting point but it isn’t quite the same as knowing where you want to go and that distinction matters.

If you got into a taxi and said, “I don’t want to go to Newcastle," the driver would know one place not to take you but they still wouldn’t know your destination.

Change can be a little like that.

'I don’t want to feel like this anymore' tells us something important about the problem but there is another question waiting behind it:

How would you like to feel, think and live instead?

You don’t need to have your entire future mapped out and you don’t need a perfect five-year plan, but having a direction can make it much easier to recognise what needs to change and what might be keeping you stuck. After all, you can't move away from something without going somewhere else!

Here are five questions worth exploring.

1. What do you want instead?

Try noticing the language you use when you think about the change you want. Is your goal mostly about stopping something?

“I want to stop worrying.”

“I want to stop drinking so much.”

“I want to stop putting everything off.”

“I want to stop feeling nervous around people.”

“I want to stop thinking about food all the time.”

Now ask yourself:

What do I want instead?

If you weren’t worrying constantly, what would you be doing with that mental space?

If you didn’t need alcohol to switch off, how would you like to relax at the end of the day?

If you weren’t procrastinating, how would you like to approach the things that matter to you?

If you weren’t afraid of other people’s judgement, how would you behave differently?

This can sound like a small change in wording, but it shifts the focus from the problem to the direction of travel.

• “Less anxious” might become:

  I want to be able to go into a meeting, say what I think and leave without analysing every word afterwards.

  
  

• “I want to stop procrastinating” might become:

  I want to be able to start things without needing to feel completely ready first.

  
  

• “I want to stop drinking every evening” might become:

  I want to be able to finish a difficult day, bring my stress down and feel comfortable without needing alcohol to do it for me.

Those goals give us somewhere to go. You are no longer simply asking, “How do I get rid of this?” You are beginning to ask, “What am I building in its place?”

2. Is this change actually yours to make?

Sometimes our goals depend on other people changing.

“I want my partner to understand me.”

“I want my boss to appreciate me.”

“I want my children to listen.”

“I want people to stop judging me.”

These are all completely understandable, and very common, wishes but there is a problem: other people have their own minds, histories, habits and choices. However much we might influence them, we can't completely control how they behave.

So it can be useful to ask:

If everyone else stayed exactly as they are, what would I like to be different in me?

• “I want my boss to respect me” might become:

  I want to be able to speak confidently, advocate for myself and trust my own judgement regardless of how my boss responds.

  
  

• “I want my partner to stop making me feel guilty” might become:

  I want to be able to communicate what I need without immediately backing down because someone is disappointed.

  
  

• “I want people to stop judging me” might become:

  I want to feel secure enough in myself that somebody else’s opinion doesn’t decide how I feel about myself.

That doesn’t mean accepting poor treatment or pretending other people’s behaviour doesn’t matter. It means putting your energy into the part of the situation where you have the greatest capacity for change: you.

3. Imagine a typical Tuesday

This one is more powerful to the brain than you might first imagine.

When people imagine achieving a goal, they often picture the big moment.

Being offered the job.

Reaching the target weight.

Getting on the plane.

Finishing the presentation.

Turning down the cigarette.

Receiving the qualification.

And that's a good start, but the goal isn’t really that one moment. It is the life you get to live afterwards.

So try something different. Imagine it is one year from now. The change you want has happened and it is an entirely typical Tuesday. Nothing dramatic is happening. There is no celebration. Nobody is applauding. It is simply your life.

What is different?

What do you notice when you wake up?

What thoughts are no longer immediately crowding your mind?

How does your body feel?

What do you do differently before you leave the house?

How do you behave at work?

How do you respond when something goes wrong?

What are you doing at 11am? At 4pm? At 9pm?

What conversations are easier?

What decisions do you make differently?

What would somebody who knows you well notice?

And perhaps most importantly:

What becomes possible because the old problem is no longer taking up so much space?

• Maybe “I want more confidence” eventually means applying for work you previously assumed you weren’t good enough for.

• Maybe “I want less anxiety” means travelling, meeting people, sleeping properly or being more present with your family.

• Maybe “I want to feel healthier” means walking regularly, cooking more often, having more energy and trusting yourself to take care of your body.

• The clearer the picture becomes, the easier it is to understand what the goal actually means.

• “Be healthier” is difficult to act on. “I want to wake with more energy, walk most days, play on the floor with the grandkids, cook food that makes me feel good and be able to climb a flight of stairs without dreading it” is much more tangible.

You are turning an idea into a lived experience.

4. What is the current pattern doing for you?

This is a question people often overlook. If you know something isn’t helping you, why do you keep doing it? It is tempting to answer with:

“Because I have no willpower.”

“Because I’m lazy.”

“Because I’m terrible at sticking to things.”

"That's just the way i am."

But behaviour often makes considerably more sense when we understand what it is doing for us.

• Drinking might provide temporary relief from stress.

• Procrastination might delay the possibility of failure.

• Perfectionism might feel like protection from criticism.

• People-pleasing might reduce the risk of somebody being angry or disappointed.

• Overthinking might create a sense that you are preparing for every possible outcome.

• Avoiding something that frightens you may bring immediate relief, even when that avoidance makes the fear stronger over time.

This doesn’t mean the behaviour is helpful overall. It means there may be a reason your mind keeps returning to it.

So rather than only asking: How do I stop doing this? try asking:

What does this pattern give me, protect me from or help me avoid?

And then:

How could I get that benefit in a healthier way?

That is often where the real work begins.

Someone may initially think: I need to stop drinking, but underneath that might be:

I need to learn how to come down from stress without needing to escape from how I feel.

Someone may arrive to their session thinking: I need to stop procrastinating, but underneath it might be:

I need to be able to begin something without knowing that I will do it perfectly.

Someone may say to me: I need better boundaries. And underneath that may be:

I need to feel safe when somebody is disappointed with me.

Suddenly, the goal is becoming clearer.

5. Is the future you want workable when life gets difficult?

Now imagine you have achieved your goal. Then give the imagined future a bad day.

Let's imagine that you have stopped relying on alcohol to unwind. It is Friday evening. Work has been awful. You have had an argument with somebody you love. You are exhausted and overwhelmed. Previously, you would have poured a drink.

What happens now?

Imagine the situation for a moment.

How strong is the overwhelm, from 1 to 10?

What thoughts appear?

What does your body want to do?

And then ask:

What would I need to be able to do in that moment for this new way of living to work?

Perhaps the answer is not to have more willpower. Perhaps it is learning to regulate stress differently.

Or imagine your goal is to stop people-pleasing. Someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do. You say no. They look disappointed. They become quiet. Perhaps they even tell you that you have let them down.

Can you tolerate that feeling without immediately abandoning your boundary?

If not, that tells you something useful.

The real goal may not simply be learning to say 'no'. It may be learning that somebody else can be disappointed with you and you can still be safe, secure and okay.

This is why it can be useful to mentally test a goal against real life. Change doesn’t happen in a perfect world where nobody becomes stressed, tired, frightened, criticised or overwhelmed again. The question is whether you can develop ways of responding to those moments that no longer require the old pattern.

A direction, not another stick to beat yourself with

There is one final part of goal setting that matters. A goal should give you direction. It should not become another reason to criticise yourself. There will be days when you move quickly. There will be days when you take a small step. There may be days when you slip back into an old response.

That doesn’t automatically mean you have failed. Instead of asking: Am I there yet? it can sometimes be more useful to ask:

Is what I’m doing taking me towards the life I want, or away from it?

That is why I think of a useful goal more like a compass than a finish line. You may not know every turn you are going to take. You may discover things about yourself along the way that change the route. But you have a direction.

Before you try to change something, ask yourself these five questions

1. What do I want instead?

2. What part of this change belongs to me?

3. What would an ordinary day look like if I had already achieved it?

4. What is my current pattern doing for me, protecting me from or helping me avoid?

5. When life becomes difficult again, what will I need in order to respond differently?

You might be surprised by what you discover because sometimes the thing we initially think we need to change is only the surface of the problem and when I work with clients, that distinction can be enormously useful.

Coming into a session knowing “I don’t want this anymore” is a perfectly valid place to begin, but when we can start moving towards:

This is how I want to feel. This is how I want to respond. This is what I want my life to look like instead.

we have a much clearer direction for the work. You don’t need to know every step before you begin but it helps enormously to know which way you want to go.