You Gotta Wanna

Do you beat yourself up when your willpower fails you?

Maybe this sounds familiar…

You are trying to stick to a diet but you indulge in too much dessert. Then—craving satisfied—you feel bad that you succumbed. You knew that 4th cookie wasn’t good for you but you ate it anyway.

I’ve been there too.

Why do we do this?

Here’s the truth: willpower is fickle. Don’t depend on it. It will desert you when you need it most.

Using willpower is exhausting, when it even works at all. Willpower is a limited resource.

Instead, focus on desire—on what you actually want. Desire is an unlimited resource.

Don’t work against your desires, work with them. Shape them and then use them. You gotta wanna.

you gotta wanna—says it all. If people don’t want to do something, it’s not going to get done.

—The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham

Socrates thought that failures of willpower were actually failures of knowledge.

In other words, it wasn’t that you acted against your better judgement; it’s that you didn’t have the right knowledge to inform your judgement. You acted completely rationally based on your true beliefs.

If you had truly digested and understood the right information, you would have judged and acted differently.

There are probably temptations that you now resist easily just because you understand them… You know they would feel good or taste good, and don’t even experience them as temptations. Why not? Because you know too much.

—The Socratic Method by Ward Farnsworth

You “don’t even experience them as temptations”—that’s the key right there!

If you still want the cookie, you’re just not there yet. Your work is not done. Don’t sweat it, don’t fight it… eat the cookie.

But! This next part is important: you need to observe the results!

Pay attention to all of it. What did it feel like while you were eating it? Did the last bite have the same effect as the first? How did you feel after? How did duration of enjoyment compare to the duration of regret?

Compile all of this in your mind or in a journal and use it the next time you’re faced with a similar decision. It’s all a learning experience.

It may take a while. You will likely eat a lot of cookies.

But if you’re doing it mindfully—if you’re paying attention and learning—eventually you’ll start to notice that your underlying motivations start changing all by themselves.

This is the process of shaping your desires, of bending them to serve you.

Then one day… what’s this?!… you notice that the cookie is less appealing! The craving not quite so strong!

This is huge! Now you’re moving towards an experience where you don’t have to rely on willpower. You are approaching apprentice level: you don’t want the cookie… you could take it or leave it.

When you want to not eat the cookie then willpower is out of the equation and you have reached master status. It’s on easy mode now—you just do what you want.

That is the mindset you need to cultivate. You gotta wanna.