Excerpt from Transformed! If you’re like most people, you know what you want. In fact, if pressed, you could probably rattle off a laundry list of wants: cars, houses, vacations, jobs, electronic devices, and so on. But when it comes to what you yearn for, you may draw a blank.     There’s something vaguely old-fashioned about the term. It has an Old Testament ring to it. Or it sounds like what a heroine in a Victorian novel might say as she stares out the window of her Gothic tower waiting for a lost love to return. As a result, you probably haven’t used “yearn” in a sentence recently. It feels awkward on your tongue, uncertain in your mind.     But take a moment to reflect upon what you yearn for. Let your mind go blank and listen to your heart. Imagine if your soul had a voice and could articulate what it wants most in the world. Or, more simply, consider what you desire deeply, what would turn your good life into a great one.     Still nothing? That’s okay. Yearning is a natural capacity you can develop.     Or maybe you’ve come up with a list of things you yearn for that are actually wants—you yearn to be rich, you yearn to travel the world, you yearn for freedom, you yearn to have your boyfriend or girlfriend agree to marry you, you yearn for a gigantic television. It’s okay, too, to mistake wants for yearnings—we all do it.     The good news is that we know what you yearn for—they are the same things that everyone in the world yearns for. Specifically, we yearn: ~ to matter ~ to love and be loved ~ to be seen ~ to contribute ~ to connect ~ to belong ~ to achieve mastery ~ to be affirmed ~ to connect with a higher power     There are different ways to parse these yearnings—Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is one way to view them—and we’ll look at them through various lenses, from stories of those who have learned to yearn effectively, to perspectives including education, positive psychology, and neuroscience to behavioral economics. But for now, recognize that these yearnings are universal, and that by getting in touch with them, you open your life to the possibility of greatness.     So all you have to do is memorize this list and you’re set? If only it were that easy, we could limit the frustration of career dissatisfaction, unfulfilling relationships, and much general emotional pain and frustration with a snap of our fingers. Getting in touch with what you yearn for is an attainable skill, but you need to learn the process. We know—the word “process” sounds dull and formulaic. But this process is neither of those things. Instead, it’s challenging, exciting, and transformational.