Want vs Should

Read time: 5 minutes

Welcome to The Ascend Archives, a weekly newsletter where I share a story about a transformation, revelation, or change in thinking that has helped improve an aspect of my life.

A few months ago I wrote about hosting a meetup.

My friend Brian sent me Nick Gray’s book on how to host great events and I was determined to accomplish my goal of hosting an event by the end of the year.

But life got busy and hosting an event just sat towards the bottom of my to do list for weeks.

Then an opportunity came up with my Gobundance community to become the Texas Region Lead. The organization wanted to roll out quarterly in-person events across the country and needed local leaders to plan them. While these events would be different than my initial plan to host a small creator meetup, it would allow me to practice hosting while getting support from an established group. I applied, was selected for the position and hosted my first event last week.

I held the event at a ranch 45 minutes outside of Austin. 31 people attended for a 7 hour event. We had a guest speaker with a $20M+ net worth speak about the power of accountability, I facilitated group discussions, and we made activity kits & blankets for kids at the Dell Children’s Hospital.

While there are some things I want to improve next time, I was proud of how it turned out. The best part was seeing the impact of people having breakthrough ideas, people meeting for the first time and building connections, and the smiles that resulted from the experience.

Want vs Should

As we approach 2025, many people are starting to think about goal setting. Our guest speaker talked about the importance of writing down our goals and sharing them publicly for accountability. With that in mind, I set aside 30 minutes during the event to give everyone time to think and journal about their goals for 2025 but through a unique lens.

I encouraged everyone to write a list of things they want out of 2025, not because it’s something they should want but things they want with no explanation needed as for why they want it.

I talked about the concept of want vs should in my life by design piece, but many times we go through life doing things because we believe we “should” do them. These shoulds come from different reasons:

• Logic: I should keep my job because it’s stable and pays well

• Societal Norms: I should go to college because everyone else does

• External Pressure: I should go to this party because my friends will give me shit if I don’t

• It’s What You Know: I should be a doctor because both my parents are doctors

It comes down to intention. There’s a difference between setting the goal of going on a trip to Italy because all my friends have already been and I feel like I’m missing out vs me genuinely being curious about exploring Italian food, culture, and landscape. I’m going to enjoy the trip much more if my intention is the latter.

There are many ways to do this exercise, but I like to do a brain dump of all the things I want (in the next year or in life). I come into it with no judgment - if I want a house on the beach because I love waking up to the waves crashing then so be it. But I try to get beyond the easy stuff like cars, houses, and vacations…I think about what I want my daily routine to look like, what I want my relationship with my partner to be, what impact I want to make on my community, and what I want my health to look like.

After I have this list, I go back and ask myself why. And I try to be as honest with myself as possible. If I want this just because I think I will enjoy it and it will make me happy then great, no further explanation needed.

But if any part of me has that word should creep in, then I dig into it. Do I want it because I saw someone else have it? Do I want it because that’s the way it’s always been done? Do I want it because someone else wants it?

Takeaways from the event

As I mentioned above, the best part of hosting this event was seeing the impact it made. Here are 3 positive takeaways that attendees at my event took from this exercise.

1. Reden’s Want List

Reden took the time to get super clear on what he wants out of 2025. Then he posted his list of goals on Facebook for everyone to see. This is huge for 2 reasons:

1. Publicly stating his goals is the ultimate source of accountability

2. By sharing his goals with his network, he increases his chances for “luck” of someone being able to help him accomplish things from his list

2. Jenny’s Questions

Jenny put some deep thought into what she wants and by talking about it with someone else from the group, had a powerful breakthrough.

3. Taylor Stating What He Wants

Immediately following the event, Taylor posted in our community Facebook group his intention to focus on Short Term Rental Property Management because that’s what he wants.

A few hours later he closed his first client:

Final Thoughts

Seeing the impact of this event made all the running around picking up bagels, renting chairs, ordering pizza, and dealing with trash worth it. I’m excited to continue to improve how I run these events so that I can enjoy them more myself instead of just worrying about making them go smoothly.

Also, try this exercise and share your list with someone! I’d love to hear what you come up with

Thank you for reading! As always please reply and let me know what resonated, what didn’t, or what you question. I love chatting about this stuff!

Cheers,

Andrew