Desire and Capacity

Your desires aren’t random. They reflect who you want to be and what matters to you. The desire and the ability to have it are linked together.

We don’t all want the same life. Some people want to build companies. Others want to make music. Some want to be scientists. 

Desire asks you to choose. Not in your journal or in meditation, but in real life moments. 

We say we want the bigger business, but sometimes we want safety more. We say we want freedom, but in the moment we may want certainty more. 

We say we want to be strong leaders, but there are times we want to be liked more.

Those are the moments when you align with your desire, or you don’t. They’re the tests. And each one is a chance to say yes to what you really want.

If you don’t say yes in one moment, notice it, learn from it, and move on. You’ll have the opportunity to choose differently in the next test.

Values Conflicts

But repeated misalignment is information too. Sometimes it means the desire isn’t actually yours. It’s something you think you “should” want, but don’t actually. 

For years I thought I wanted a very expensive house. I had an image in my mind of where “successful” founders live. But when it came time to commit, I would stall. I wasn’t aligning with the desire because it conflicted with my value of freedom.

Desire isn’t just a thought. It calls for an agreement to be the person who lives and makes decisions in such a way that the desire is fulfilled. Life helps you by bringing moments where you get to prove you mean it. 

If you want a bigger business, you’ll be invited to take more risk and have more responsibilities. If you want more freedom, you’ll be invited to let go of what no longer fits. 

If you want to be a stronger leader, you’ll be given leadership moments that feel hard. They’ll feel like problems. They’ll feel like, “Everything’s going wrong and I don’t know if I can do this.”

This doesn’t mean you should abandon your desire. It just means you’re at the doorway of choice. Here’s what this looked like for me.

Tests and Choice

During the financial crisis, most of my customers, large and small, stopped paying their bills. I had to close our office and move the business into my home. I laid people off. I thought I might have to go bankrupt.

Then came the day when I had to decide whether to keep going. I chose not to give up. I used a line of credit to stay alive long enough to change our business model. I told myself, “You’re an entrepreneur.”

And for me, that word meant something very specific. It meant I was the captain of the ship and the owner of the ship. No one else was going to decide for me. It also meant I had to be willing to make hard calls without drama or self-pity.

I started asking a different question. How can I make sure this never happens again? The answer was to rebuild our model so we got paid monthly, up front. Years later, that’s what made an exit possible.

At the time, the situation felt like the worst thing that could ever happen to me. But it forced the exact evolution I needed. It forced me to say yes to being a founder.

That’s what I mean by tests.

A test isn’t life telling you no. It’s life presenting the next step and asking if you really want it.

Lately, my desires are quieter. I want simplicity. Clear thinking. Freedom.

What I’m noticing is that life gives me daily moments where I get to show whether I mean it.

If I say I want simplicity but get swept up in holiday sales, I’m choosing accumulation.

If I say I want clear thinking but spend more time consuming content than contemplating and writing my own, I’m choosing noise.

If I say I want freedom but say yes to every request to fill my schedule, I’m choosing approval.

When it happens, I notice, but don’t judge. I simply recommit. Because every day we choose again.

So if some goals seem to elude you, it doesn’t mean you’re incapable. Life is a process, not a performance review. Your results are feedback, not a verdict.

Let desire be what it is. A signal. A direction. The next test will come and with it, another chance to choose what you really want.

Each time you choose it, you become the person who’s ready to receive it.