#18 Where do you come from, where do you go? Where do you come from Cotton-Eyed Joe?

There’s a song that sometimes pops into my head when I work with clients: Where do you come from, where do you go… Cotton-Eyed Joe. Not exactly profound - and yet, those two questions matter deeply.

Most people don’t arrive at coaching because life is working beautifully. They come because something isn’t working anymore. A job, a role, a relationship, a version of life that once made sense but now feels tight, draining, or empty. From the inside, it can feel like living in a prison. Sometimes it’s a very neat, respectable prison, like the ones in Sweden! From the outside, everything looks fine. But on the inside there’s a quiet sense of being stuck. Of going through the motions. Of wondering, is this really it, is this as good as it gets?

It is easy to assume the prison is constructed by our circumstances - our job, our partner, our past, a lifequake that changed everything. So we tell ourselves: if only this external thing would change, then I’d be better.

If only I divorce this person, then I would be the person I want to be.

If my children grow up, then I would have the life I want.

If I can change jobs, or complete change careeers, then you'll finally see me happy.

The problem is that this mindset leaves us powerless. We can’t move until the world around us moves.

More often than not, the real bars of the prison are internal. Old beliefs. Old stories about who we’re supposed to be, what roles we must play, and what’s possible for someone like us.

Breaking free isn’t just about dismantling the prison. We also need to build something to move toward. Otherwise, we risk escaping one cell only to land in another. I like to call that future a castle - or if that feels like too much pressure, a playground. A place you actually wánt to live.

A few years ago, while learning to mountain bike, I was given one simple rule: Don’t look where you don’t want to go. Your bike follows your gaze. Life works the same way. When we focus only on what we don’t want, we often recreate it. When we start focusing on what we do want, our brain begins to map new paths.

So here’s one deceptively simple question at the heart of this work:

What do I want?

Not what you want to escape - but what you want to build. If anything were possible, and it didn’t have to be hard, what would you want your life to look like?