When you’re at war with what you want, you unconsciously destroy it—even after you get it.
“I’m not allowed to want this thing, but I want it. There’s a lot of war that comes with that.”
The Pattern
Joe has seen this dozens of times: people worth $100 million who made mistakes “they were way too smart to have made”—and ended up with $5 million. Why? Because they had an internal war with that level of success.
Lottery Winners
“90% of lottery winners of over $100 million are bankrupt inside of two or three years. It’s because they were at war with having that money. So of course it went away.”
The money didn’t disappear due to bad luck. It disappeared because the winner’s internal state couldn’t hold it.
Relationships Too
“I can’t tell you how many people I know who have blown up what would be a great relationship because they don’t feel like they deserve the love, because they can’t actually own the want.”
The pattern is universal: if you can’t be okay with having something, you will destroy it.
The Solution
If you have a war with your wanting, it makes it much harder to achieve—or keep—what you want. The solution isn’t to stop wanting. It’s to end the war.
Related Concepts
- Wanting is aliveness
- Owning your wants means being okay with having them
- Resisting parts of yourself creates more of that behavior
- The difference between craving and wanting