About
WHO STARTED THIS THING?
Hi, Im Heather!
Long story short, I have put my Hollywood dreams of being a movie star aside so I can engage in the pursuit of finding out what people want. (True story.)
About Heather
Heather Shaw was born in San Diego, grew up most of her teenage years in Ohio, and is currently living in the heart of Los Angeles. She attended the University of California in Santa Barbara, emphasizing her studies in the creative and performing arts.
Throughout her life, she has read over a hundred titles in the Self-Help genre. She found there was one consistency with every single book that she read – the question, in one way or another, “What do you want from life?”.
Heather took it upon herself to finally answer that question one December day in 2009. After reading her various thoughts and answers on the subject, she soon realized this small endeavor was a real eye opener. Curious as to how others would respond, she began plotting the iWantProject.
The iWantProject is an anonymous survey which asks people of all ages around the world to respond to the question: “What do you want from life?”. Heather anonymously collects answers on her website, and features individual wants in her blog in order to help people get what they want.
She created the project out of her desire to inspire people to live a more fulfilling life, as she tries to do herself each and every day.
A LITTLE BACKSTORY ON THE PROJECT:
“What do you want from life?”
That’s a question that most people, when asked, will shy away from, giggle, make a face about, say ‘Happiness, duh’, ‘I’ll have to think about that one’, or silently think in their head, ‘What I want, I can’t afford’.
I know, for me, it’s a question I’ve come face to face with in just about every self-help book pertaining to goals, happiness, and the battle that people have with themselves and this thing called LIFE. So, to say I’ve read the question a million times, doesn’t mean I’ve ever answered it. Until, one day, the question stopped me again in yet another book. The instructions were to grab a piece of paper and a pen and to start writing what I wanted from life. The author said, “Do it now. What you have to write on that piece of paper is far more important than anything I have to say in this book.”
He was right.
So, I sat there self-consciously thinking, ‘What do I want from life? And what would people think if they found out what I wrote?’. Then, I broke into reason and thought, ‘Who cares?’. I just started writing. I began my list with ‘I want…’ and then filled in the blanks. I scribbled down about five things and before I knew it, I had written six pages back-to-back full of elaborate answers of everything I wanted from life concerning family, work, relationships, materials, opportunities, travel, spiritual awareness, personal goals, politics, world peace, finances, etc.
I looked at my pages filled with ‘I want’, ‘I want’, ‘I want’, colored with dozens of my answers. Unraveled on the sheets of paper were details of life that I imagined for myself, written in my own handwriting. I expressed everything from simple, foolish wants to my most imagined dreams. This simple exercise of responding to a single question was exhilarating, therapeutic, motivating, and I couldn’t wait to tell the next person that, ‘They should try it’. Minutes later, I began plotting the iWantProject.
iWantProject is an anonymous survey which asks people of all ages around the world to respond to the question: “What do you want from life?”
Goal? Encourage people to start living with more meaning and purpose. Motivate people to vision a life full of detail. Inspire people to dream more, want more, live more. At the very least, this project will challenge people to answer the question, “What do you want from life?” This alone would be a success in itself.
