Want Over Should (Self-Discovery, Not Self-Improvement)
Replace shoulds with wants and experiments — self-improvement encodes 'I'm broken' and slows evolution.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Hudson argues that the self-improvement frame carries a hidden premise — that you are broken and will be lovable once you fix yourself — and that premise produces shame, stagnation and a should-loop most people never escape. The alternative is to follow the want. Wants are the signal that shows where your natural evolution is trying to go, and reframing everything as self-awareness, self-experimentation and self-discovery restores the speed the shoulds removed.
Origin
Joe Hudson, Art of Accomplishment. He draws on the Daoist image of the river that always finds its way, and on the oak tree question: at what point in its life is an oak tree perfect?
Core principles
- 01A should creates a failure state; a failure state creates stagnation and abandonment. A want creates movement.
- 02You are not broken. The oak is not more perfect at 200 years than as an acorn.
- 03Only 10-15% of people can actually execute their shoulds — and if you do, you build a life for who you think you should be, not for who you are.
- 04Wants mark the direction of natural evolution, the way a plant moves toward sun.
- 05The person who loves themselves has loving relationships. The person who does X, Y and Z in order to become lovable gets relationships full of criticism.
- 06Reframe self-improvement as self-awareness, self-experimentation, self-discovery — because understanding the problem dissolves it.
How to run it
- 1
Catch the should in the body
Say 'I should do X' and notice the sensation — Hudson describes stagnation, a heaviness. Then say 'I want to do X' or 'here's an experiment I can run' and notice the movement.
Pro tip The body is the fastest test for whether a goal is a should or a want. Use it before you commit calendar time.
- 2
Surface the subtext of your improvement goal
When you say 'I want to improve', find the implied clause: once I do X, Y and Z, then I'm lovable / okay / worthy / enlightened. Name it explicitly.
Watch out If the subtext is 'then I'll be lovable', the goal is a shame engine wearing a growth costume.
- 3
Restate the goal as a want
'I want to be closer to people.' 'I want great sex.' 'I want a business that supports me.' Wants have alacrity; shoulds have drag.
Pro tip A child who wants to run faster isn't trying to become a better person — which is exactly why they improve so fast.
- 4
Convert the goal into an experiment, not a to-do list
Word it as self-experimentation and self-discovery. Explore the thing rather than making a list of shoulds you will eventually fail and then beat yourself up over.
Watch out A list of improvement tasks is the entry point to the should-loop where most people live.
- 5
Act from authenticity and let things fall away
Move from who you actually are. Certain jobs, people and situations will stop working — that is the mechanism functioning. What survives is right for you rather than right for who you thought you should be.
In the wild
You meet someone, decide how you should be for them to love you, and perform it perfectly. You get married. They love the performance.
→ They love who you think you should be, not who you are. Hudson's inversion: show all your parts, and if you get married, you're married to someone who actually sees and wants you.
At what point is an oak tree perfect? As an acorn? A sprout? At 20 years? 150? The question is absurd, because the oak is always exactly where it is in a natural process.
→ The self-improvement premise ('I need to be fixed') disturbs a natural evolutionary process that was already running.
Common mistakes
Using should as a motivator
As soon as you say you should and then you don't, you have failed — and after failure you are less likely to try again. Shoulds reliably end in stagnation.
Succeeding at your shoulds
The rare 10-15% who actually execute their should-list end up with a life built for a person they invented. The success is real and the life is not theirs.
Confusing 'I want to grow' with 'I need to be better'
Wanting is the engine of evolution. 'Better' smuggles in the claim that what you are is broken, which adds shame and slows the whole thing down.
Is it for you?
Best for
Ambitious people running long-standing self-improvement programmes who keep failing them, or who suspect they've built a life for someone else
Not ideal for
Contexts with genuine external obligations and deadlines where reframing a should as a want does not change that the work must ship
From the transcript
“And if you fail, then you're less likely to try it again. That's why the the should just it it it ends up usually in…”
“Whereas if you say something like oh, I want to do or here's an experiment I can do or here's what I enjoy, there's less…”
“we try to word everything as like self- awareness, self- experimentation, self- discovery instead of self-improvement.”
“what works is the person who loves themselves has loving relationships.”
From the episode
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Joe Hudson (executive coach, Art of Accomplishment)