Why Most People Know Their Coffee Order But Not Their Career Goals

How much milk can you put in coffee before it’s no longer coffee?

That’s the petty argument my wife and I have every time I order her an iced coffee. She wants so much milk that her drink looks more like chocolate milk than anything you’d find in a coffee shop. I’ll hand it to her and say, “Here’s your iced coffee,” and she’ll take one look and go, “It needs more milk.”

I’m not sure why it annoys me, but it does. We all have those small things in relationships that get under our skin. But here’s the thing—my wife knows exactly what she wants.
Which is more than I can say for most people when it comes to how to figure out what they want from their career.

We Know What We Want—Except When It Comes to Work

We all want what we want. We’ve got our favorite foods, our go-to shows, the same Spotify playlists we’ve been recycling since 2019. We have opinions. Preferences. We know exactly how we like our eggs, how we want our burgers cooked, and whether we’re a “back into a parking spot” or “pull into the spot” kind of person.

But ask most people what they want from their work life? From their career? From their Monday mornings? That’s where things get foggy.

Weird, right?

We put more thought into customizing our Starbucks order than we do setting our professional goals. We’ll fight over the right amount of ranch on a salad but won’t question whether we’re actually happy with the job we clock into every day.

When it comes to the 9 to 5, we settle for tolerable, not preferable. We convince ourselves that something is fine. We water (or milk) down our passions with practicality, safety, or other people’s expectations until the thing we once loved—if we ever even knew what it was—doesn’t resemble us anymore.

It’s like that cup of coffee. You keep adding a little milk here, a little sugar there, maybe some vanilla syrup because someone told you it’s sweeter that way… and eventually, what you’re drinking has no connection to the thing you started with. So why do we do it?

The Real Reasons We Stay Stuck

Why is it so hard to know what we actually want when it comes to work, purpose, and fulfillment?

Some of it’s fear. Fear of failing, fear of wanting something and not getting it, fear of looking ridiculous for trying.

Some of it is just habit. We’re so used to doing what we’re supposed to do—graduate, get a job, stay busy, pay bills—that we never stop to ask, “Wait, do I even like this?”

And some of it is noise. LinkedIn noise. Social noise. Noise from well-meaning people who want us to be safe and secure and responsible. Sure, security is important. But not if it costs you who you are.

So here’s the billion-dollar question (million feels tiny these days): What do you actually want?

Not what’s cool, not what looks good on a résumé, not what your parents would approve of. What do you want?

Do you want to lead or do you want to build? Do you want to create, teach, travel, work with your hands, start something new, quit something old? Do you want to work less, or work differently, or finally stop pretending you care about “synergy”?

You don’t need to have the whole picture. But you need to start asking the question. Otherwise, someone else will answer it for you.

Clarity Takes Work

And look, I’m not saying this is easy. Clarity takes work. It takes peace. It takes peeling back layers of expectations and giving yourself permission to want what you want—even if it sounds crazy or messy or unrealistic right now.

But once you figure it out? Once you stop watering (or milking) it down and start claiming it? You start moving with purpose. You stop chasing every trend and start building something real.

Something that actually tastes like you.

So yeah, my wife’s iced coffee might look ridiculous to me. But I’ve gotta give her credit. She’s clear. She knows what she wants. And she doesn’t care if it makes sense to anyone else.

We could all use a little more of that.