How can I tell what I truly want versus what others expect from me?

The clearest signal is what you do with your discretionary time when nobody is grading you. Not what you say you want, not what looks good on paper, what you actually spend attention on when the choice is genuinely free.

The approval test

Most external expectations come with a built-in reward: someone is pleased, someone is proud, someone stops worrying about you. Notice how much of your motivation lives in that reward. If the thing you are pursuing would feel hollow the moment the approval disappeared, that is useful information. It does not mean the thing is wrong, but it does mean you are doing it for someone else's reasons, and you should at least know that going in.

The inverse is also true. If you find yourself doing something quietly, a little embarrassed by how much it matters to you, reluctant to announce it because you are afraid people will talk you out of it, that is often the realest signal you have.

The boring middle test

A mood wants the outcome. It wants the arrival. What you truly want will do the tedious, unglamorous, unwitnessed middle, and not feel cheated by it. Six months of the boring version with no audience tells you more about yourself than any amount of journaling or advice. Most people skip the test because running it risks finding out they were wrong. Run it anyway. Finding out cheaply is the whole point.

What to do with the gap

Often the answer is not either/or. What others expect may be worth doing for a season, it buys stability, it earns trust, it builds a base. None of that is betrayal. The question is whether you are spending that season or just surviving it. If you are moving toward something real in the margins, the expectations you are meeting in the daylight matter a great deal less.

You do not need to resolve this in one sitting. You need one honest answer to one small question: what would you keep doing if no one ever found out you were doing it?