Have you ever wanted something deeply, and then immediately started questioning whether you were allowed to want it?
“Do I deserve this?”
“Am I asking for too much?”
“Am I expecting too much?”
“Who am I to want that?”
“Can I really justify having this?”
Or maybe you’ve found yourself on the other side:
“I deserve this.”
“I’ve worked hard.”
“I’ve given so much.”
“I’ve earned it.”
“I deserve to make myself a priority.”
Often stated with conviction, while still carrying a subtle undercurrent of guilt and self-doubt.
In my experience, we tend to talk about deservingness as though it determines what we’re allowed to want, have, receive or experience.
But what if deservingness has nothing to do with it?
Take a moment to think about the deepest desires and greatest vision you have for your life. You know, the version of yourself and the life you lie awake at night yearning for.
Maybe it includes:
➜ Deeply nourishing, reciprocal relationships.
➜ A certain level of financial freedom and abundance.
➜ A thriving career or business.
➜ More peace in your body, your home and your relationships.
➜ Optimal health and wellbeing.
➜ A beautiful and functional home.
➜ More time and lifestyle freedom.
➜ More purposeful impact.
➜ More joy in your everyday.
➜ More adventure and aliveness.
Whatever it is, ask yourself:
“What does deservingness actually have to do with whether or not I experience it?”
Consider that there are plenty of people we would describe as “deserving” — genuinely good, kind, responsible, generous, hardworking, grateful people — who never experience what they deeply desire.
And there are people who don’t appear to meet our definition of “deserving” who have enormous amounts of abundance, beautiful relationships, successful businesses, freedom, influence or whatever else we might want.
This isn’t an argument for becoming less kind, less generous, less responsible or less grateful. It’s simply recognizing that morality isn’t the mechanism that creates a desired outcome.
Ultimately, deservingness doesn’t determine whether your desires become a reality.
So perhaps it’s time to stop using it as the measure.
You Don’t Need External Permission to Want What You Want
I often hear people trying to convince themselves that they’re allowed to want something. They feel like they need to prove it, justify it, explain it or defend it.
They make a case for why they should be allowed to want more, have a higher standard or simply experience a different quality or way of life.
And underneath all of that can be a belief that sounds something like:
“I’m not sure I’m allowed to want this.”
“I’m not sure this is possible for someone like me.”
Or even:
“There is something wrong with wanting this.”
Here’s what I invite you to consider:
You’re allowed to want whatever you want.
You don’t need a permission slip from morality to have a desire or want a new experience for yourself. You don’t have to prove that your desire is worthy enough to exist. You can want it, it’s as simple as that.
This is a really important distinction because there is a subtle trap in constantly asking ourselves whether we deserve something. It keeps us focused on proving our worthiness rather than getting honest about what we actually want and taking the steps to create it for ourselves.
What if you stopped asking “Do I deserve this?” and simply allowed yourself to say:
“I want this.”
No justification, defence or convincing required. Just honesty.
Giving Yourself Permission Changes the Game
Once you give yourself permission to want what you want, something shifts. You can finally look at your vision without immediately filtering it through whether you think you’re worthy of having it, and the door to new possibilities opens.
You get to ask yourself:
What do I actually want?
What kind of life do I truly want to create?
What would feel deeply meaningful to me?
What would I choose if I stopped trying to determine whether I was allowed to want it?
Giving yourself permission doesn’t magically create the thing you want. And of course, we still have to consider how our choices impact other people. But permission creates the opening for something new to exist because you can’t consciously create a life you won’t even allow yourself to have.
Permission is the first step — and you have to give it to yourself. No one else can do that for you.
But once you’ve declared:
“Okay. I’m allowed to want this.”
There’s another question that matters even more:
“How do I actually create this in a way that is for my highest good and the highest good of all?”
I believe that last part matters a lot, in particular because so many of the women we work with are used to prioritizing everyone else’s comfort, needs and expectations ahead of their own. So learning to want more, ask for more and make themselves a priority can feel uncomfortable.
It can bring up feelings of guilt, fear and selfishness.
So for me, this isn’t about swinging the pendulum from “everyone else comes first” to “I only care about what I want.” It’s about finding a way forward that honours you and considers the bigger picture of who and what is most important to you too.
If Not Deservingness, Then What?
Two decades in the transformation industry have taught me that what separates the women who turn their visions into reality from those who never do comes down to one thing:
Inner Capacity.
Your inner capacity influences your ability to consistently make the choices required to create and sustain what you want, even when life gets busy, hard or complicated.
And this is our specialty here at The F.I.T. LIFE Method.
That’s what I invite you to explore next.
→ Read: The Key to Turning Your Vision Into Reality — Even When Life Gets Hard
