70. Why High-Achieving Women Fear Their Desire
What if the reason nothing is changing isn’t because you lack discipline, but because you’ve treated desire like it’s an optional nice-to-have?
So many high-achieving women want more space, more influence, more alignment, more ease. And yet they postpone what they want, waiting for a crisis, a breakdown, or external pressure to justify change. We were taught to change when something is wrong, not because something inside of us wants more. But desire isn’t indulgent. It’s information.
Tune in this week as I break down the difference between change driven by disgust or demand and change driven by desire. You’ll hear why desire is not a feeling but a decision, why high-achieving women often dampen their desire, and how to turn desire into a decision that reshapes your identity and your leadership.
Interested in working with me? Book a free 1:1 consultation here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why desire is a powerful change agent if you allow it to be.
The three ways most people activate change.
Why our survival wiring overrides desire.
How women are conditioned to disconnect from desire.
The difference between desire as fantasy and desire as authority.
Why desire is the foundation of self-leadership.
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Full Episode Transcript:
If desire were enough to change your life, most high-achieving women would already be living very differently. You want more space, more alignment, more influence, more ease. And yet, nothing changes. Not because you're lazy, not because you're unclear, not because you lack discipline, but because desire has been framed as optional. A nice to have instead of the powerful force it actually is. We were taught to change something when it's wrong, when we're failing, when we're in pain, when we've hit a wall, when we have no choice. We were not taught to change because we want more, because something inside of us is ready, because desire itself is information.
And that omission shaped everything. Today, I want to tell you the truth about desire. Why it can change lives, why it often doesn't, and why the women who trust it build lives they don't want to escape from.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to today's episode. I am so jazzed up to be here with all of you. I wanted to share about desire in this episode and how this is the second episode to the change formula that I talked about earlier. I'm going to break that down for you, but we'll also put the link here in case you want to go back to that episode. You are more than welcome to listen to this episode and go back to the other one. But part of the change formula is about desire.
And I want to talk about desire because there is so much that I have seen in women that come talk to me. They want help. They want to have more work-life balance. They want to stop people-pleasing. They want to be able to speak up for themselves. They want to be heard in rooms full of men. And they have this powerful desire, yet there is something that holds them back from that.
So today I'm going to dive into this because the women who trust themselves and trust their desire and use their desire to shift forward, I want to tell you that amazing, magical, not like fairy tale magical, but like powerful things happen when you trust your desire. And much of why people come to work with me is they see that I am a living product of somebody who has trust their desire. There wasn't like a crazy demand on me. I had an amazing corporate career that was just accelerating. I have so many amazing contacts in the corporate world. I, you know, built a reputation for myself. And oftentimes people are like, why did you go into coaching? Like they just don't understand it.
And when I tell them that I had a desire to, oftentimes it is met with extreme curiosity and sometimes envy. Like, wow, you desired something so much that you were willing to put your 20 years of corporate career on the line to go do it. And of course, I think about it differently. I think about all of my experiences in my whole life in corporate, in being a mom, in being a second-generation immigrant. I see it all as being part of who I am now and how I coach people. I don't see it as separate. So I don't see this all-or-nothing world. But I do see how women are so drawn to me because I have actually used my desire to create what I want in my life.
And how oftentimes, we don't do that as women, right? How oftentimes and how much of my early twenties and even, you know, early thirties was spent dampening my desire, focusing on what I could get versus what I actually desire. So, I want to define and talk about this because this is oftentimes what is happening in your own leadership.
What's likely happening is maybe you've outgrown some version of leadership that relied on you being a certain way. And you want more, and you desire more, and you're highly ambitious. And I want to share this with you because oftentimes when women do come and talk to me, they're like, I want these things. And they're willing to share with me deeply and vulnerably why they want it and why it matters. And I literally will ask them questions like, Hey, if you want this thing so badly, what have you done, you know, to get it? And they'll talk about some of the things that they've done. But they'll also talk about things that they haven't been willing to do. And that's really where the consultation with me gets really juicy because this is where we can get you to get really honest with yourself.
And I'm using this episode so that you can understand yourself too, because oftentimes you've expanded beyond the version of leadership that kept you safe through approval and desire is what's waking up to what's next for you and where you want more of your life to go. And you're starting to hear the whispers about what it is that you really care about. But you also still have a survival brain. And this survival brain is so powerful. And oftentimes it is why we dampen our desire and why we are more focused on must-haves, need to have, right? Survival-type things versus desire.
So, here's the part most personal development skips and why it's so important because I think sometimes people are like, I just desire this stuff. I'm going to do all these affirmations, but they're actually not willing to do the work. They're not willing to say it out loud. They're not willing to ask for things. They're not willing to go after their desire with conviction, with activation, with power. And here's why. Your brain is not wired for fulfillment. It's wired for survival. Our ancestors have survived the ages. We've heard all of the stories in our family about what it took to survive. Listen, my family got on boats to leave Vietnam to go into rough waters, unknown territory in order to find a better life.
There was a demand and those needed. They were like, let's go and do this. Of course, they could have stayed, but there was also terrible circumstances if they stayed, right? But here's the thing, we're wired for survival. So pain activates change. Disgust activates change. When we're so disgusted by something, we're like, let's go change it. I'm sick of being where I am. I can feel this pain day in and day out, and I need to get out of this, right? External demand also activates change. You're not welcomed here. You have to, you've lost your job, or maybe you have a medical diagnosis, right? This is really about that change formula.
And when I talk about change, I talk about how there are three ways most people change. One, they're disgusted by what's happening in their life around them, inside of them. Two, there's a demand. It activates you. This is where I'm like, is there a cancer diagnosis? Is somebody in your family really unwell? And there's a demand and there's a need that you want to fill. And oftentimes our brains have an easier time, right, changing because there is a demand or there's disgust or there's some sort of pain that you're dealing with day in and day out. Like I've got to go deal with this, right? Because they feel threatening and they are in the here and now.
Desire doesn't work that way, right? Desire is quiet. It lives in the future. It doesn't scream. It doesn't say the house is on fire. It says there's a house somewhere in the future that's beautiful, that's nice to have. And so this is why it's easy for women to postpone it, to say, actually, let's put somebody else's feelings first. Let's put somebody else's priority first, right? Let's make sure that everybody else is okay before me, because my desire is not enough.
And I relate to this. I actually have to deal with this on a day-to-day basis. Having little children, having a husband with a demanding job. I have to really do a powerful job of owning my desire while being in relationship with the needs and demands around me and in my life, right?
So let me talk to you more about this because this gets to the crux of why lots of women want things in their lives, but don't get them. From a young age, women are taught subtly and explicitly to orient towards others first. Be good, be helpful, be accommodating, be grateful, be low maintenance. Don't ask for too much, don't want too much. So over time, we learn to look away from our own desire. We learn to disconnect from them. We call it impractical. We call it selfish. We call it unrealistic or indulgent. And we quietly abandon ourselves, not in a dramatic way, but in a socially rewarded one.
I have to share this story because I just coached a woman in my one-on-one container and she said, I get sick and tired of being the responsible one. And I was like, tell me more about this. And she's like, I feel like I have to smooth things over. I have to be the nice one. I have to be the bigger person. And instead of really sharing how she feels in the moment and what she actually desires, she's stuck in a role of helping other people and actually figuring out what is demanded of the situation and being responsible.
But what actually happens when you make yourself responsible for other people's emotions and other people's thoughts and feelings is oftentimes, especially for women, you become irresponsible about your own needs and wants because you're dampening your own emotions and saying, hey, this person's more important. I'm going to go do this thing, or I'm going to smooth this over. I'm going to be the bigger person because this person's more important. And so you teach yourself that your desire doesn't matter, that your feelings, your wants and needs don't matter, are not as important as what's at hand right now, what's socially needed right now.
And we stay longer than we should in relationships. I did this. I had two relationships that were five years long each, and I didn't like it, right? I wasn't actually moving towards my desire. I didn't know how to share my desires. I was really just trying to keep with what was there, and I felt like my purpose was to just hold on to what I could, right? So we end up carrying more than ours. We shrink to keep the peace, right? In a lot of these relationships with men, I was trying to become somebody they wanted me to become versus become myself, versus desiring so much to understand and get to know myself so that I could have a relationship with someone that was actually really powerful and mutual and where I understood myself, right? I actually felt like I didn't really know myself, and I was really just trying to figure out what I needed to be in these relationships. And that was really the wrong game, right? That wasn't the game at all.
And what ends up happening is we delay what matters to us in the name of being responsible. I'm being responsible, so I'm going to put this coaching aside and actually, you know, ensure that my kids need get what they need in school. And listen, we all have financial things, but this is what I often tell people. I actually was coaching somebody who was like, I really want this. I want to be somebody who's standing tall, who can say no to things to stop people pleasing. But when it came to committing to coaching and actually moving forward, and when I say committing, it's like not just hell yes, I want this. It's like, yes, let me send you a check for this and let me make sure I have a slot on your calendar so we can really work on this. I am excited to work on this. I'm ready to.
Often what happens is we push the brakes on ourselves. Our survival brain will kick in gear and say, but what about, you know, college tuition? What about all these expenses? What about all these things that are like here and now survival type things, right? And I'm not saying they're not real, but there's a way your brain says, oh, you really want to move towards this desire? And then it like flashes red and says, actually, don't trust this desire. We need to be responsible.
This is how self-abandonment becomes competence. This is really how women put others before themselves and what it teaches their kids to do, right? Oftentimes when I talk to women, they're like, yeah, my mom basically took care of everyone and didn't take care of herself. And we end up passing these things on to each other without consciously knowing it. So when I actually follow my desire, when I commit to my desire, sometimes I do feel guilt and I do feel selfish, but I also remember that I am teaching my daughters to respect and to follow their desire. That doesn't mean you're being irresponsible. It means you are listening to yourself and you are going after what you care about and what you want. And it is highly threatening for people.
But oftentimes we quiet that voice. We say a desire is a nice to have. It's optional. And we make an unconscious decision to delay it. And this is why so many women are burnt out. This is why so many women are leaving the corporate world. Not because they don't care, but because they've cared without including themselves.
The long-term cost of saying no to desire is really showing up less alive, showing up less creative, showing up less joyful, showing up less believing in possibilities, right? You kind of notice this if you are around people and they are just doing the status quo. This is why honestly, people come and talk to me because they're like, wow, you are activated. You're living a life you desire, and I'm not like my life is perfect, but I'm like, my life is pretty freaking good. And I know what I'm doing is bold and daring, and I have so much conviction about it. And that's where I am inviting more women into this empowered way of living.
Women don't burn out because they want too much. They burn out because they've wanted too little for themselves for too long. This is what happens when you dampen your desire. I'm also coaching another client who is wrestling with whether or not to have a divorce. And part of her mind keeps going to, well, it doesn't matter. Let's just delay it. It's not that big of a deal, right? Because her survival brain is like, I don't know, do you really want to introduce all this like chaos in your life, right?
But then there's that prefrontal cortex that's like, what would be possible if I actually decided, if I actually said my time and energy, emotionally, mentally, and physically matter so much that I'm going to decide if this person is draining my energy and I am not enjoying this marriage the way that I want it to, what am I going to do? Am I going to go all in to try to figure it out? And if I've already tried to figure it out with them and it's not figure-out-able, what do I do next?
Oftentimes your brain will just say, eh, let's leave it for later. Let's focus on the here and now. Let's actually focus on things that are going well in your life. I did this too. My personal life wasn't amazing, right? I had a lot of failed romantic relationships, but I was killing it at work. And so then I decided to start marrying work, right? Everything was about work because I felt like I was succeeding there. So desire was growing in the career part of my life, but really dampening and suppressed in my relationships. And there was just not aliveness in all the place. I could have been much more alive. And that's really what helped me coaching really helped me to see that the parts of my life where I was dampening my desire, where I was living like half alive, trying to just get through it versus really activated and engaged. And this is why desire is such a powerful change agent if we allow it to be.
So here's what I want you to think about, right? Desire as self-leadership. And really think about desire in a totally different way. Desire is not indulgent. Desire is not weak. Desire is not naive. Desire is the voice of the self that trust itself. Desire says, I want this because I'm allowed to want it. I deserve a life that fits me. Desire is the most honest data your system gives you. To turn towards desire is to turn towards self-respect. To protect desire is to protect your life force. This is self-leadership.
I'm going to give you another example. I know I gave you lots of examples here, but here's another one, right? I actually had a lot of significant change in my life, especially with my body. I used to be quite overweight in high school, and I didn't really know how to be with it. And I actually changed from a place of disgust and demand. Number one, I was disgusted. I didn't like the way my body looked, and I didn't feel very connected to it. And then I was super stressed. I was doing an internship in college, and I was super stressed, and so I started running a lot. And there was a demand, right? So it didn't come from desire to have a healthy body. It was really disgust and demand.
I lost the weight, but I carried this like low drumming shame about it, right? So then, I'm like better in back in shape. I'm very disciplined, very on top of my diet. But after having my babies, I knew that I didn't want to do it again that way. I didn't want to get super disciplined, super mean to myself. I didn't want the change to come from disgust or demand, right? I didn't want the change to come from a doctor telling me, hey, you really need to take care of yourself because your blood work is terrible. I didn't want to change, right, from punishment or an indictment of me. I wanted to change because I love myself. I wanted to feel strong. I wanted to feel healthy and alive. And I wanted so much to be grateful for my body in these different stages because they created these beautiful human beings that I call my daughters, right?
And I didn't want to do it in a way from this loathing, this hate of my body. Not because I hated my body, right? I wanted to really work on because I respect myself enough to care for myself. And I want my daughters to have this relationship with their bodies too. I don't want to pass down this disgust that oftentimes women carry about their bodies, right?
And so everything shifted when I actually saw that I had this deep desire. And I shifted the way I made this change, right? And I'm still on the journey. Listen, you know, my daughter's two years old right now and I've put on a lot of muscle, so I've done a lot more weight training, but I'm probably still 10 pounds from what my ideal I want to be, but I've got to figure out that muscle piece too. And so everything shifted when I started thinking about it that way, right? That change lasted. My relationship with myself has healed. My nervous system felt safe, right? I'm not doing this out of disgust or demand. I'm doing it out of deep desire.
And so when I go work out, when I say no to that cake, right, it's not because I am punishing myself, it's because I deeply love myself. And that's the difference. That's why I tell people that desire is the most powerful way to change because it actually strengthens your relationship with yourself. Now, I always say change is good no matter what. If you're in incredible pain, go, use that disgust. Use the demand to help yourself. But if you have the luxury to choose and you can see that there's a desire in front of you and there's demand and disgust, choose the desire if you are ready for that relationship with yourself, right? Because this desire will have you having this sustainable relationship with yourself forever.
So let's talk about two kinds of desire because I think this is will really help people see, right, the differences between the desires. There are two kinds of desire. Desire as fantasy waits, right? Desire as escape waits. It's asked for permission. It negotiates with fear. That's where most people think about desire. This is why most people don't go after their dreams, because desire is a fantasy. That's what they actually believe if they're not actually going through and figuring out this piece of their dream.
Desire as authority decides. Desire as trust itself. It leads survival instead of competing with it. Fantasy hopes, but authority commits. The moment desire becomes authority, identity shifts. When you start taking your desire seriously and seeing it as a decision point, your identity will shift. And this is why it matters so much. When women abandon their desire, systems benefit. Workplace benefits, a lot of families benefit. Everyone benefits except the woman herself. And you've probably heard me share this on some of the other podcasts, but when people do studies on the well-being of a family, the mother's health is the most important factor in the family's well-being, both emotionally, mentally, and physically, right? If the woman is able to take care of herself, she's better able to create the environment for everyone around her, her husband, her kids, her partner, whoever it is, right?
When women turn back towards desire, something radical happens. They stop overgiving. They stop overadapting. They stop disappearing. They become more present, more discerning, more powerful. That doesn't just change individual lives. It changes leadership. It changes cultures. It changes what becomes possible.
Desire is a decision. Desire is not a feeling. Desire is a decision. It becomes powerful the moment you decide it matters, because in that moment you trust yourself. When I decided that I'm not going to have this, I'm no longer available for this relationship with myself where I loathe my body. Now, I'm not going to say I don't have these thoughts once in a while. I have friends that have a lot of different medical procedures to get the body they desire. I don't judge that. And for me, I'm like, okay, I have this thought, but for me, it's not this powerful thing because I know what I desire. I know I desire to be healthy in my body. I know I desire to have a relationship with my body where I'm kind to myself.
You know, this is why it's so important to understand that desire truly is a decision. I desire to have a healthy, powerful relationship with my husband, right? And that desire is something that I take seriously. It's not a nice to have, right? Oftentimes we're like, oh, let's just put the kids in front of everything else. I'm like, no, we're going to go on that vacation because I desire for us to have this type of relationship. And I desire for my daughters to see what it's like to be, you know, with parents who actually care about their relationships, right? Who actually care about the quality of connection that their parents have with themselves.
So if you're feeling desire right now, I just want you to just take a moment and notice yourself. Like what do you truly desire? So often we ignore that voice, but I want you to connect with it. So if you're feeling desire right now, not desperation, not pressure, not disgust, just a quiet pull towards something more honest. That's not a problem. That's your inner authority. You're not waiting for desire to get louder. It's waiting for you to decide.
When desire becomes authority, it becomes a life you build that you don't ever want to escape. And I can truly say that for me in my life, I have built and created a life that I am wildly in love with. No, it's not perfect all the time, right? You can always have everything you want, but there are things that are messy, but I still desire this and I still want it. And every day I show up is a commitment to what I desire and it helps to activate and engage me in the here and now. And it is a choice. And it is a beautiful choice. And for a lot of people, you think it's a luxurious choice, but it is something you can decide today. You can decide to take your desire seriously today and you can do something about it. You can even think about it differently. That is powerful.
All right, I want to invite you into this space and if there are other people in your life that could use more desire, that could use more activation and engagement, that could use themselves to shift towards something greater and bigger that they've always wanted, please share this episode with them. And go after your desire. Make that decision. Do it boldly and share with me. I'd love to hear from you. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can always leave a comment. I'm here for you. Have a beautiful rest of your day. I will see you soon.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
And that omission shaped everything. Today, I want to tell you the truth about desire. Why it can change lives, why it often doesn't, and why the women who trust it build lives they don't want to escape from.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to today's episode. I am so jazzed up to be here with all of you. I wanted to share about desire in this episode and how this is the second episode to the change formula that I talked about earlier. I'm going to break that down for you, but we'll also put the link here in case you want to go back to that episode. You are more than welcome to listen to this episode and go back to the other one. But part of the change formula is about desire.
And I want to talk about desire because there is so much that I have seen in women that come talk to me. They want help. They want to have more work-life balance. They want to stop people-pleasing. They want to be able to speak up for themselves. They want to be heard in rooms full of men. And they have this powerful desire, yet there is something that holds them back from that.
So today I'm going to dive into this because the women who trust themselves and trust their desire and use their desire to shift forward, I want to tell you that amazing, magical, not like fairy tale magical, but like powerful things happen when you trust your desire. And much of why people come to work with me is they see that I am a living product of somebody who has trust their desire. There wasn't like a crazy demand on me. I had an amazing corporate career that was just accelerating. I have so many amazing contacts in the corporate world. I, you know, built a reputation for myself. And oftentimes people are like, why did you go into coaching? Like they just don't understand it.
And when I tell them that I had a desire to, oftentimes it is met with extreme curiosity and sometimes envy. Like, wow, you desired something so much that you were willing to put your 20 years of corporate career on the line to go do it. And of course, I think about it differently. I think about all of my experiences in my whole life in corporate, in being a mom, in being a second-generation immigrant. I see it all as being part of who I am now and how I coach people. I don't see it as separate. So I don't see this all-or-nothing world. But I do see how women are so drawn to me because I have actually used my desire to create what I want in my life.
And how oftentimes, we don't do that as women, right? How oftentimes and how much of my early twenties and even, you know, early thirties was spent dampening my desire, focusing on what I could get versus what I actually desire. So, I want to define and talk about this because this is oftentimes what is happening in your own leadership.
What's likely happening is maybe you've outgrown some version of leadership that relied on you being a certain way. And you want more, and you desire more, and you're highly ambitious. And I want to share this with you because oftentimes when women do come and talk to me, they're like, I want these things. And they're willing to share with me deeply and vulnerably why they want it and why it matters. And I literally will ask them questions like, Hey, if you want this thing so badly, what have you done, you know, to get it? And they'll talk about some of the things that they've done. But they'll also talk about things that they haven't been willing to do. And that's really where the consultation with me gets really juicy because this is where we can get you to get really honest with yourself.
And I'm using this episode so that you can understand yourself too, because oftentimes you've expanded beyond the version of leadership that kept you safe through approval and desire is what's waking up to what's next for you and where you want more of your life to go. And you're starting to hear the whispers about what it is that you really care about. But you also still have a survival brain. And this survival brain is so powerful. And oftentimes it is why we dampen our desire and why we are more focused on must-haves, need to have, right? Survival-type things versus desire.
So, here's the part most personal development skips and why it's so important because I think sometimes people are like, I just desire this stuff. I'm going to do all these affirmations, but they're actually not willing to do the work. They're not willing to say it out loud. They're not willing to ask for things. They're not willing to go after their desire with conviction, with activation, with power. And here's why. Your brain is not wired for fulfillment. It's wired for survival. Our ancestors have survived the ages. We've heard all of the stories in our family about what it took to survive. Listen, my family got on boats to leave Vietnam to go into rough waters, unknown territory in order to find a better life.
There was a demand and those needed. They were like, let's go and do this. Of course, they could have stayed, but there was also terrible circumstances if they stayed, right? But here's the thing, we're wired for survival. So pain activates change. Disgust activates change. When we're so disgusted by something, we're like, let's go change it. I'm sick of being where I am. I can feel this pain day in and day out, and I need to get out of this, right? External demand also activates change. You're not welcomed here. You have to, you've lost your job, or maybe you have a medical diagnosis, right? This is really about that change formula.
And when I talk about change, I talk about how there are three ways most people change. One, they're disgusted by what's happening in their life around them, inside of them. Two, there's a demand. It activates you. This is where I'm like, is there a cancer diagnosis? Is somebody in your family really unwell? And there's a demand and there's a need that you want to fill. And oftentimes our brains have an easier time, right, changing because there is a demand or there's disgust or there's some sort of pain that you're dealing with day in and day out. Like I've got to go deal with this, right? Because they feel threatening and they are in the here and now.
Desire doesn't work that way, right? Desire is quiet. It lives in the future. It doesn't scream. It doesn't say the house is on fire. It says there's a house somewhere in the future that's beautiful, that's nice to have. And so this is why it's easy for women to postpone it, to say, actually, let's put somebody else's feelings first. Let's put somebody else's priority first, right? Let's make sure that everybody else is okay before me, because my desire is not enough.
And I relate to this. I actually have to deal with this on a day-to-day basis. Having little children, having a husband with a demanding job. I have to really do a powerful job of owning my desire while being in relationship with the needs and demands around me and in my life, right?
So let me talk to you more about this because this gets to the crux of why lots of women want things in their lives, but don't get them. From a young age, women are taught subtly and explicitly to orient towards others first. Be good, be helpful, be accommodating, be grateful, be low maintenance. Don't ask for too much, don't want too much. So over time, we learn to look away from our own desire. We learn to disconnect from them. We call it impractical. We call it selfish. We call it unrealistic or indulgent. And we quietly abandon ourselves, not in a dramatic way, but in a socially rewarded one.
I have to share this story because I just coached a woman in my one-on-one container and she said, I get sick and tired of being the responsible one. And I was like, tell me more about this. And she's like, I feel like I have to smooth things over. I have to be the nice one. I have to be the bigger person. And instead of really sharing how she feels in the moment and what she actually desires, she's stuck in a role of helping other people and actually figuring out what is demanded of the situation and being responsible.
But what actually happens when you make yourself responsible for other people's emotions and other people's thoughts and feelings is oftentimes, especially for women, you become irresponsible about your own needs and wants because you're dampening your own emotions and saying, hey, this person's more important. I'm going to go do this thing, or I'm going to smooth this over. I'm going to be the bigger person because this person's more important. And so you teach yourself that your desire doesn't matter, that your feelings, your wants and needs don't matter, are not as important as what's at hand right now, what's socially needed right now.
And we stay longer than we should in relationships. I did this. I had two relationships that were five years long each, and I didn't like it, right? I wasn't actually moving towards my desire. I didn't know how to share my desires. I was really just trying to keep with what was there, and I felt like my purpose was to just hold on to what I could, right? So we end up carrying more than ours. We shrink to keep the peace, right? In a lot of these relationships with men, I was trying to become somebody they wanted me to become versus become myself, versus desiring so much to understand and get to know myself so that I could have a relationship with someone that was actually really powerful and mutual and where I understood myself, right? I actually felt like I didn't really know myself, and I was really just trying to figure out what I needed to be in these relationships. And that was really the wrong game, right? That wasn't the game at all.
And what ends up happening is we delay what matters to us in the name of being responsible. I'm being responsible, so I'm going to put this coaching aside and actually, you know, ensure that my kids need get what they need in school. And listen, we all have financial things, but this is what I often tell people. I actually was coaching somebody who was like, I really want this. I want to be somebody who's standing tall, who can say no to things to stop people pleasing. But when it came to committing to coaching and actually moving forward, and when I say committing, it's like not just hell yes, I want this. It's like, yes, let me send you a check for this and let me make sure I have a slot on your calendar so we can really work on this. I am excited to work on this. I'm ready to.
Often what happens is we push the brakes on ourselves. Our survival brain will kick in gear and say, but what about, you know, college tuition? What about all these expenses? What about all these things that are like here and now survival type things, right? And I'm not saying they're not real, but there's a way your brain says, oh, you really want to move towards this desire? And then it like flashes red and says, actually, don't trust this desire. We need to be responsible.
This is how self-abandonment becomes competence. This is really how women put others before themselves and what it teaches their kids to do, right? Oftentimes when I talk to women, they're like, yeah, my mom basically took care of everyone and didn't take care of herself. And we end up passing these things on to each other without consciously knowing it. So when I actually follow my desire, when I commit to my desire, sometimes I do feel guilt and I do feel selfish, but I also remember that I am teaching my daughters to respect and to follow their desire. That doesn't mean you're being irresponsible. It means you are listening to yourself and you are going after what you care about and what you want. And it is highly threatening for people.
But oftentimes we quiet that voice. We say a desire is a nice to have. It's optional. And we make an unconscious decision to delay it. And this is why so many women are burnt out. This is why so many women are leaving the corporate world. Not because they don't care, but because they've cared without including themselves.
The long-term cost of saying no to desire is really showing up less alive, showing up less creative, showing up less joyful, showing up less believing in possibilities, right? You kind of notice this if you are around people and they are just doing the status quo. This is why honestly, people come and talk to me because they're like, wow, you are activated. You're living a life you desire, and I'm not like my life is perfect, but I'm like, my life is pretty freaking good. And I know what I'm doing is bold and daring, and I have so much conviction about it. And that's where I am inviting more women into this empowered way of living.
Women don't burn out because they want too much. They burn out because they've wanted too little for themselves for too long. This is what happens when you dampen your desire. I'm also coaching another client who is wrestling with whether or not to have a divorce. And part of her mind keeps going to, well, it doesn't matter. Let's just delay it. It's not that big of a deal, right? Because her survival brain is like, I don't know, do you really want to introduce all this like chaos in your life, right?
But then there's that prefrontal cortex that's like, what would be possible if I actually decided, if I actually said my time and energy, emotionally, mentally, and physically matter so much that I'm going to decide if this person is draining my energy and I am not enjoying this marriage the way that I want it to, what am I going to do? Am I going to go all in to try to figure it out? And if I've already tried to figure it out with them and it's not figure-out-able, what do I do next?
Oftentimes your brain will just say, eh, let's leave it for later. Let's focus on the here and now. Let's actually focus on things that are going well in your life. I did this too. My personal life wasn't amazing, right? I had a lot of failed romantic relationships, but I was killing it at work. And so then I decided to start marrying work, right? Everything was about work because I felt like I was succeeding there. So desire was growing in the career part of my life, but really dampening and suppressed in my relationships. And there was just not aliveness in all the place. I could have been much more alive. And that's really what helped me coaching really helped me to see that the parts of my life where I was dampening my desire, where I was living like half alive, trying to just get through it versus really activated and engaged. And this is why desire is such a powerful change agent if we allow it to be.
So here's what I want you to think about, right? Desire as self-leadership. And really think about desire in a totally different way. Desire is not indulgent. Desire is not weak. Desire is not naive. Desire is the voice of the self that trust itself. Desire says, I want this because I'm allowed to want it. I deserve a life that fits me. Desire is the most honest data your system gives you. To turn towards desire is to turn towards self-respect. To protect desire is to protect your life force. This is self-leadership.
I'm going to give you another example. I know I gave you lots of examples here, but here's another one, right? I actually had a lot of significant change in my life, especially with my body. I used to be quite overweight in high school, and I didn't really know how to be with it. And I actually changed from a place of disgust and demand. Number one, I was disgusted. I didn't like the way my body looked, and I didn't feel very connected to it. And then I was super stressed. I was doing an internship in college, and I was super stressed, and so I started running a lot. And there was a demand, right? So it didn't come from desire to have a healthy body. It was really disgust and demand.
I lost the weight, but I carried this like low drumming shame about it, right? So then, I'm like better in back in shape. I'm very disciplined, very on top of my diet. But after having my babies, I knew that I didn't want to do it again that way. I didn't want to get super disciplined, super mean to myself. I didn't want the change to come from disgust or demand, right? I didn't want the change to come from a doctor telling me, hey, you really need to take care of yourself because your blood work is terrible. I didn't want to change, right, from punishment or an indictment of me. I wanted to change because I love myself. I wanted to feel strong. I wanted to feel healthy and alive. And I wanted so much to be grateful for my body in these different stages because they created these beautiful human beings that I call my daughters, right?
And I didn't want to do it in a way from this loathing, this hate of my body. Not because I hated my body, right? I wanted to really work on because I respect myself enough to care for myself. And I want my daughters to have this relationship with their bodies too. I don't want to pass down this disgust that oftentimes women carry about their bodies, right?
And so everything shifted when I actually saw that I had this deep desire. And I shifted the way I made this change, right? And I'm still on the journey. Listen, you know, my daughter's two years old right now and I've put on a lot of muscle, so I've done a lot more weight training, but I'm probably still 10 pounds from what my ideal I want to be, but I've got to figure out that muscle piece too. And so everything shifted when I started thinking about it that way, right? That change lasted. My relationship with myself has healed. My nervous system felt safe, right? I'm not doing this out of disgust or demand. I'm doing it out of deep desire.
And so when I go work out, when I say no to that cake, right, it's not because I am punishing myself, it's because I deeply love myself. And that's the difference. That's why I tell people that desire is the most powerful way to change because it actually strengthens your relationship with yourself. Now, I always say change is good no matter what. If you're in incredible pain, go, use that disgust. Use the demand to help yourself. But if you have the luxury to choose and you can see that there's a desire in front of you and there's demand and disgust, choose the desire if you are ready for that relationship with yourself, right? Because this desire will have you having this sustainable relationship with yourself forever.
So let's talk about two kinds of desire because I think this is will really help people see, right, the differences between the desires. There are two kinds of desire. Desire as fantasy waits, right? Desire as escape waits. It's asked for permission. It negotiates with fear. That's where most people think about desire. This is why most people don't go after their dreams, because desire is a fantasy. That's what they actually believe if they're not actually going through and figuring out this piece of their dream.
Desire as authority decides. Desire as trust itself. It leads survival instead of competing with it. Fantasy hopes, but authority commits. The moment desire becomes authority, identity shifts. When you start taking your desire seriously and seeing it as a decision point, your identity will shift. And this is why it matters so much. When women abandon their desire, systems benefit. Workplace benefits, a lot of families benefit. Everyone benefits except the woman herself. And you've probably heard me share this on some of the other podcasts, but when people do studies on the well-being of a family, the mother's health is the most important factor in the family's well-being, both emotionally, mentally, and physically, right? If the woman is able to take care of herself, she's better able to create the environment for everyone around her, her husband, her kids, her partner, whoever it is, right?
When women turn back towards desire, something radical happens. They stop overgiving. They stop overadapting. They stop disappearing. They become more present, more discerning, more powerful. That doesn't just change individual lives. It changes leadership. It changes cultures. It changes what becomes possible.
Desire is a decision. Desire is not a feeling. Desire is a decision. It becomes powerful the moment you decide it matters, because in that moment you trust yourself. When I decided that I'm not going to have this, I'm no longer available for this relationship with myself where I loathe my body. Now, I'm not going to say I don't have these thoughts once in a while. I have friends that have a lot of different medical procedures to get the body they desire. I don't judge that. And for me, I'm like, okay, I have this thought, but for me, it's not this powerful thing because I know what I desire. I know I desire to be healthy in my body. I know I desire to have a relationship with my body where I'm kind to myself.
You know, this is why it's so important to understand that desire truly is a decision. I desire to have a healthy, powerful relationship with my husband, right? And that desire is something that I take seriously. It's not a nice to have, right? Oftentimes we're like, oh, let's just put the kids in front of everything else. I'm like, no, we're going to go on that vacation because I desire for us to have this type of relationship. And I desire for my daughters to see what it's like to be, you know, with parents who actually care about their relationships, right? Who actually care about the quality of connection that their parents have with themselves.
So if you're feeling desire right now, I just want you to just take a moment and notice yourself. Like what do you truly desire? So often we ignore that voice, but I want you to connect with it. So if you're feeling desire right now, not desperation, not pressure, not disgust, just a quiet pull towards something more honest. That's not a problem. That's your inner authority. You're not waiting for desire to get louder. It's waiting for you to decide.
When desire becomes authority, it becomes a life you build that you don't ever want to escape. And I can truly say that for me in my life, I have built and created a life that I am wildly in love with. No, it's not perfect all the time, right? You can always have everything you want, but there are things that are messy, but I still desire this and I still want it. And every day I show up is a commitment to what I desire and it helps to activate and engage me in the here and now. And it is a choice. And it is a beautiful choice. And for a lot of people, you think it's a luxurious choice, but it is something you can decide today. You can decide to take your desire seriously today and you can do something about it. You can even think about it differently. That is powerful.
All right, I want to invite you into this space and if there are other people in your life that could use more desire, that could use more activation and engagement, that could use themselves to shift towards something greater and bigger that they've always wanted, please share this episode with them. And go after your desire. Make that decision. Do it boldly and share with me. I'd love to hear from you. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can always leave a comment. I'm here for you. Have a beautiful rest of your day. I will see you soon.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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