We don't get what we want — we get what we agree to. When we truly want to change a situation, we change it immediately.
“We don’t get what we want, we get what we agree to.”
I heard this a few years ago, and I keep finding out how true and how wise it is.
An important caveat: this idea only applies at the level of your own life and your own actions. Don’t try to stretch the same logic to foreign policy, global warming, or the exchange rate. We’re only talking about what a person can do with their own hands and their own head.
A very large share of people constantly complain about circumstances and about the people around them. They’re unhappy with how things are going and think everyone close to them is behaving foolishly.
And yet, when a person has a real chance to change the situation, they don’t take it.
Someone doesn’t like their reflection in the mirror, but they don’t join a gym and don’t fix their diet. Which means they’re actually fine with how they look and what they weigh.
Someone else has money problems. They could easily spend 30–60 minutes in the evening on free YouTube courses, learn a new profession and pick up the skills they need. But in practice they do something else — they scroll an endless feed on Instagram and TikTok. Which means they’re actually fine with their income and their way of life.
A man complains about his wife: she’s cold, she’s on edge, she’s frigid, and he generally got very unlucky. He was young when he married her… But if you ask him how many books he’s read to understand the woman he loves even a little, the number will be close to zero. Because he’s actually fine with living in that emotional hell.
We get in life what we agree to.
It’s the same everywhere. When we genuinely want to change a situation, we change it right away. And when we find 101 reasons why we can’t act here and now, that’s self-deception — a way to calm ourselves down and avoid looking the truth in the eye.
And the truth is that we all live the way we want to live.
Again, a caveat: I’m not talking about a soldier in a trench, a person in intensive care, or an inmate in prison. I’m talking about a healthy person in civilian life.
Of course, people do have inner conflicts that keep them from moving toward a goal systematically and changing their lives. But those can be worked through too, if you want to.
In my courses “The Art of Achieving Goals” and “Self-Discipline” I share a lot of techniques and tools for working with your inner state and your discipline.
So do you agree with the idea that we all live exactly the way we want to live?