What Happens When You Sit Down to Want 100 Things

I haven’t written here in almost a month.

I could give you a list of reasons life, work, the weight of everything I’ve been carrying but honestly? Sometimes the people who write about healing need a minute to just be in it without documenting it. This past month has been that for me.

But I’m back. And I’m coming back with something that’s been living in my Moleskine notebook for the past two weeks, taking up space in the best possible way.

I’ve been writing down 100 things I want.

Not need. Not should have. Want.

You’d think that would be easy. It is not.

The first ten come fast. A house. Peace. More money. Travel. Health. You write them down feeling good about yourself, like yes, I know exactly who I am and what I’m building toward. And then you hit item eleven and something shifts.

Because now you have to go deeper.

Now you’re not just listing the obvious things you’re being asked to get honest about the quieter ones. The ones you’ve talked yourself out of. The ones that feel too small to say out loud or too big to believe. The ones you stopped wanting because someone once made you feel like you shouldn’t.

That’s where the real work is.

I’m not going to share my list with you. That feels sacred to me it lives in my notebook, between me and God and every ancestor who’s ever rooted for me. But I will tell you what the process of building it has felt like, because I think that’s actually the part worth talking about.

Around item 30, I had to get honest about things I’d been quietly grieving versions of my life I thought I’d let go of but apparently hadn’t. Around item 50, I started laughing because some of what I wrote felt ridiculous. Audacious. The kind of thing you whisper, not say. And I wrote it anyway.

It’s uncomfortable. In the best way.

By item 70, I was crying. Not from sadness from recognition. Like something in me had been waiting for permission to be seen.

Here’s what I’d tell you if you want to try this:

Start without rules. Don’t organize by category, don’t second-guess what belongs. Just write. Let it be a mess. Categories will find themselves.

Don’t edit while you’re building. The moment you cross something out because it feels silly or selfish or unrealistic, you’ve started lying to yourself. This is not the place for that.

Sit with the discomfort when it stalls. It will stall. That stall is usually pointing at something important. What you can’t name yet is often what you need the most.

This isn’t a vision board exercise. This is an excavation. You’re not just dreaming you’re deciding. There’s a difference.

Will you give this list for yourself a try?