LifeArchitecture: Part 5 of 23 – The Difference Between What You Want and What Needs to Change
Agnes Szabo is an entrepreneur, author, and creator of LifeArchitecture, with more than three decades of experience. Built through LifeCode, LifeCommand, and LifeInspiration, LifeArchitecture is a methodology connecting clarity, decision-making, and the development of solutions.
Knowing exactly what you want does not necessarily mean you know what has to change in order to get there. Many people can clearly say what they want: more freedom, more money, less stress, a better relationship, more time, a different life. The desire is often clear. The change is not. Because what we want and what has to change in order to make it possible are two different questions.
What we want usually describes the result
If someone says, “I want more freedom,” that still does not tell us what is limiting their freedom. Their work? Financial obligations? Too many commitments? The need to control everything? The lifestyle they are maintaining? The same desire can require completely different changes. That is why it is not enough to say, “This is what I want.” The more important question is, “What is currently preventing this from happening?”
A different result often requires a different way of operating
We want more time, but we do not want to give anything up. We want less stress, but we keep making the same decisions. We want more freedom, but we keep every obligation. We want a different life, but we continue living in exactly the same way. That is not change. That is expecting a different result from the same way of operating. If we want something different, something has to function differently.
Sometimes we do not need to do more, we need to do things differently
If we want more money, working more may not be the answer. The income model may need to change. If we want more time, better scheduling may not be enough. We may simply be taking on too much. If we want a better relationship, more attention may not solve the problem. We may need boundaries, honesty, or a decision. The result we want does not always require more effort. Sometimes it requires a different way of operating.
Sometimes the biggest obstacle is what we keep maintaining
We often ask, “What else do I need to add?” But sometimes the answer is not to add more. It is to remove something: a bad habit, an unnecessary obligation, a way of operating that no longer works, a relationship or situation that keeps producing the same result, or a role we are used to carrying but no longer want. Many goals remain out of reach not because we are doing too little, but because we continue maintaining what works against them.
It is not always the circumstances that need to change
It is easy to say, “I need a different opportunity. Different people. Different circumstances.” Sometimes that is true. But sometimes our own way of operating keeps producing what we no longer want. We say yes too often. We do not set boundaries. We do not decide. We do not let go. We do not accept the consequences of change. In those situations, the problem is not simply the outside world. Our current decisions are working against the result we want.
The real question
It is not: What do I want? It is: What has to change for this to actually happen? If I want more time, what has to receive less of it? If I want more freedom, which obligation has to be reduced? If I want a different life, which of my current decisions no longer fits into it? This is where desire becomes concrete.
This is also where we discover how much we really want it
Wanting something is easy. Accepting the consequences of change is harder: time, energy, risk, discomfort, sometimes loss, sometimes giving something up. That is why the second question always has to be: What am I willing to change for what I want? Because if the answer is nothing, then perhaps we do not really want change. Perhaps we only want a different result from the same way of operating.
Desire does not change the system
We can want something for years. We can talk about it, plan it, imagine it. But if the same decisions, habits, obligations, and patterns remain in place, the result is likely to remain the same too. That is why, for me, the question does not end with: What do I want? The more important question is: What has to change so that what I want has a real place in my life?
The future we want shows us the direction. The necessary change shows us what has to work differently. It is not what we want that changes our lives. It is what we are willing to change for it. Have you come to the same conclusion?
Read more from Agnes Szabo
Agnes Szabo, Entrepreneur, Author & LifeArchitecture Creator
Agnes Szabo is an entrepreneur, author, and creator of LifeArchitecture, with more than three decades of experience in real estate development, education, and building businesses. LifeArchitecture is the conceptual and methodological system developed through her three books, LifeCode, LifeCommand, and LifeInspiration, guiding the process of consciously shaping one’s life from clarity through decision-making to solutions. Her work is defined by creating, thinking independently, and building systems that work both in theory and in practice. She is also the founder of Nilvara, which extends the ideas behind LifeArchitecture into a new physical form.
