Need vs. Intention

Getting what you want is easier when you don’t want it anymore

Intention — Latin intentio, means, literally, a “stretching out, a straining, exertion, effort, or purpose.” It can be more literally defined as follows:

“A stretching toward something.”

It doesn’t matter what you are trying to do. You are going to need a good, renewable source of intention if you plan to be successful.

Intention is different than desire. Merely wanting something doesn’t tilt the world around in your direction. Desire is actually great to have — it’s better than need. I disagree with the emotional “state conditioning” program from the 80s/90s — there are serious problems with trading “want it” for “need it” that hurt you in the long run.

If you are building a business or trying to get to a certain level of income, you should be very careful to keep the word “need” out of your vocabulary. It was common 30 or 40 years ago to replace “wants” with “needs.” If you’ve studied any self development material, you‘ve been trained to believe that you get what you “must” have.

But “must have” triggers threat responses from the brain¹. We were taught to use “desperation” and “necessity” as a conduit to more power. But this is a trap far more likely to backfire than it is to consistently work.

I frequently train people how to switch it back to “want” instead of “needs.”

Why?

Because need has a way of sticking around long after its utility. For example, if you say, “I need $10,000 per month in income and 5 clients a month,” the opportunity will inevitably arise for you to ascend beyond that — but a need is difficult to change and a want is easy to change.

Let’s say you have a great month, 8 new clients and $15,000 in revenue. But your mind “needs” that number to be at 5 clients and $10,000. What will happen?

The brain is not comfortable until the number is what it needs it to be. Needs can work as floors and ceilings². If you’re too high, it must be regulated downward. This is a terrible place to get stuck in.

“Need” also attracts resistance faster than almost any other emotion³ (perhaps the emotion of ‘need’ is only outdone by jealously in terms of inflicted damage). Nobody likes a needy person. You don’t require a reason to want something, just wanting it is reason enough.

As kids, most of us were raised to understand the difference between needing something and wanting something. “Do you want that candy or do you need that candy?” The implications being: do not pursue anything unless you need it to survive. What a depressing state to live in for the rest of your life.

You don’t need bigger reasons. If everything you attempt to achieve requires massive, existential reasons to achieve them – you will become addicted to chaos, “clutch” behavior, and desperation as a driver. That isn’t a great life, that is a stressful life.

Most self help curriculum is outdated nonsense that can work for a second but has very little staying power if you want to win forever…

I’m not discounting all of it, I’m saying there needs to be an update to the algorithm of self development that has not happened yet.

What really powers progress is intention. You can have powerful intention even if your reasons are small. You can have magnetic intention that attracts the best outcomes into your life, even if you don’t “need” the best outcomes.

The cleanest form of momentum (barring any of the spiritual junk that people can mix into this equation) is [Intention] X [Velocity] = Ascension.

“Your power is a function of velocity, that is to say, your power is a function of the rate at which you translate intention into reality.” -Werner Erhard

Let’s make it practical.

Intention is the idea of expectation, but focused on the process before the outcome arrives. When you expect an outcome, you have already paid for the outcome. If you go to a fast food restaurant and pay for your food, you expect the food to be delivered. When you walk in the front door, it is not expectation that drives you forward but intention.

Intention is the precursor to expectation.

Nobody reads my books, attends my events, or watches our lectures online because they expect to get dumber and poorer. The intention is in place because they expect that by engaging in my material, they will move forward in some aspect of their life.

Intention is a cleaner way to drive behavior than need.

The last interesting difference between intention and need is the time involved in the process. Most intentions are not chained to the chassis of “time.” When you need something, you usually have a timeframe in which the outcome must occur. It is desperate because it must work. This is not a heathy way to live your life.

Intention operates differently in that it decreases the time preference necessary for it to work.

This is because intention is less linear than need. You can have an intention to do something for a specific reason, and not become a slave to it. When we practice healthy intention, we are “expecting” something to eventually happen because we are doing the right things — but we are not burdened by doubt and negativity when it takes a little bit longer than we thought it would take.

Intention escapes the past and future, and relies solely on the present. I “intend” to do something, now, and therefore, I “expect” something, at some point (whenever that thing shows up).

Time in the West is linear. Time in the East is less linear and more cyclical.

“I did something. I do something. I will do something.”

The same words can be used to describe all three at the same time. Intention works with all three realms and keeps the wheel spinning even when the timelines are delayed.

People with strong intention do not wait for the “appropriate time.” They create the appropriate time constantly by how they think and how they operate.

1. Rock, D. (2008). SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others. NeuroLeadership Journal, 1, 44–52.

2. McEwen, B. S. (1998). Stress, adaptation, and disease: Allostasis and allostatic load. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 840(1), 33–44.

3. Levine, A., & Heller, R. (2010). Attached: The new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find—and keep—love. New York, NY: Tarcher/Penguin.