“I have to take out the trash” drains energy. “I want to take out the trash” — because you want the stink gone — transforms the same task entirely. Joe discovered this during a two-week experiment of only doing what he enjoyed. Faced with a smelly trash can, he realized the only way forward was to find the want underneath the obligation.
The shift from “should/have to/got to” to “want” isn’t semantic — it reconnects you with your actual desire. There’s always a want underneath the obligation if you look for it. You want the clean kitchen, you want the project done, you want the relationship to work. When you act from that want rather than the obligation, the task stops being a burden.
“I want to take out the trash — and as soon as I got in touch with that I could learn to enjoy the thing because it was no longer an obligation. It came from my want.”
Related Concepts
- Wanting is aliveness
- Should creates stress, not change
- Owning wants means being okay with having them