What to do when you do not know what you like anymore.
Someone asks where you want to eat, and your mind goes politely blank. "Whatever you want" is out of your mouth before you have even checked. If that has become your honest answer, you can figure out what you like again, and this note gives you the small, specific tests to start this week.
Preferences are not fixed traits you either have or lose. They go quiet when nobody asks for them, and they come back with use. So the work is not more reflection. It is practice, in small doses.
Retire one automatic answer this week.
Start with the phrases you use to hand a decision away: "I don't mind," "Anything is fine," "Whatever is easiest." Pick one and retire it for seven days.
When it rises, pause for one breath and ask which option you would choose if no one else had an opinion. Then say it, even if the answer is tiny: "I'd like the window seat." It will feel strange for the first few days. Strange is fine. It means the question is reaching you again.
You will not always get a clear answer. Pick anyway. A choice you are unsure about still tells you more than "whatever" ever will.
How to figure out what you like with one small test a week.
You cannot think your way to knowing whether you like a food you have never tasted. You have to taste it. So instead of asking big questions about passion and purpose, run one cheap, low stakes test each week and pay attention to the result.
Keep each test small enough to fit into a day you already have. Here is a sample six weeks you can copy as it is.
SIX WEEKS OF SMALL TESTS
| Week | Try this | Notice |
|---|---|---|
| One | A drink you have never ordered, at a place you already go. | Did you want a second sip? |
| Two | A different route for a walk or drive you take every week. | Did you look around more, or less? |
| Three | A library book from a shelf you always pass. | Did you read past the first chapter? |
| Four | A full album in a style you never choose, in the car. | Did any song make you turn it up? |
| Five | One hour alone somewhere new: a museum, a garden, a bookstore. | Did you stay longer than you planned? |
| Six | Rearrange one corner of a room so it suits only you. | Do you sit there more now? |
Ordering is a good place to practice too, and learning what you like to order walks through it one menu at a time.
Notice what your body says before your mind does.
When your opinions have gone quiet, your body is usually still talking. The small lift when a certain song comes on. The slight drop when someone suggests a plan you do not want. The way your shoulders loosen in some rooms and tighten in others.
After each test, take three seconds and check. Did you lean in or pull back? Did you feel lighter, heavier, or nothing at all? You do not need to explain the reaction. Noticing it is enough.
Your preferences did not disappear. They stopped being asked for.
Keep a liked and did not like list.
Something you loved on Saturday can be gone by Wednesday, buried under logistics. So write it down in two columns: liked, and did not like. Use the back page of a notebook, a card on the refrigerator, or the notes on your phone. Add to it whenever something registers, even faintly.
The second column matters as much as the first. Plenty of women discover they have spent years politely enjoying things they never chose. Knowing what is not you is half of knowing what is.
START YOUR LIST WITH THESE
- A drink you order out of habit. Do you actually like it?
- The last show you watched to the end. Liked, or did not like?
- The piece of clothing you reach for first. How does it feel on?
- Something you did last weekend. Would you choose it again?
- A room in your home. Where do you naturally sit, and why?
Reread the list once a week. When the same kind of thing lands in the liked column three times, you have found a preference. Keep it.
What if you still do not know what you like?
Some weeks the list will be thin and a test will produce nothing more than a shrug. That is part of it. You are not grading yourself.
If you feel stuck, go backward. What did you spend your own money on at sixteen? What did you do on rainy afternoons, what did you collect, what made you lose track of time? Old interests tend to wait under the schedule for a small invitation back. For a wider place to begin, how to find yourself again starts with this same kind of honest noticing.
Expect some guilt, too. Choosing for yourself, even the mug, can feel indulgent when you are used to coming last. It is not indulgence. It is paying attention. You are allowed to have opinions about small things.
Give it ten minutes on Sunday.
Preferences come back faster when they have a regular place to land. On Sunday, choose the week's test and write it down. As the week closes, look back at what you tried, how your body answered, and which column it belongs in.
If you like that rhythm on paper, The Year of You, an undated planner built for this kind of noticing, opens every week on Sunday with intentions that start with you and closes it with a few minutes to write what actually happened.
Give it a season. The answers come back slowly, and then one day someone asks what you want and the answer is already there.
ONE THING FOR THIS WEEK
Pick week one from the table and do it before Sunday. Afterward, notice whether your body leaned in or pulled back, and write it under liked or did not like. Your list has begun.
Your opinions are still yours. Ask for them.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Cari Hawthorne is the founder of Discover HER Collection and the creator of The Year of You, an undated planner for the woman who is ready to come first in her own life.