Have To or Want To

You produce your best work when you “want to” do the work that produces those results, not from when you “have to” do that work.

When you fill your work with purpose and meaning, when it’s about your vision and mission, you’re not working because you “have to,” you’re doing it because you want to. “Want to” is what pulls you forward. “Want to” is what makes you passionate about your work.

How you approach sales and marketing matters a great deal to your success and to the success of your business. If you “have to” do the work of building a pipeline of opportunities and mixing it up competing for new business, you won’t produce the results you want. You won’t bring your best self to that work, and it’s more likely you’ll avoid the work completely (for as long as that is sustainable, which isn’t going to be very long).

When you want to do the sales and marketing work you need to do to build your business, the work sings. Your passion pours out of you into the work and you produce the results you want.

You might “have to” have a difficult conversation with a client, a coworker, or your boss. The “have to” makes a difficult conversation more difficult because of your mental state. You won’t be in your most resourceful state, and you won’t produce the very best outcome in that state.

If you “want to” have that conversation because it is going to allow you to make a difference in the relationship, make a difference in some result at work, or make a difference in some part of your career, the “want to” is what gets you that result.

Turning Have To into Want To

To transform something you have to do into something you want to do requires that you tie that “have to” back to your purpose, the thing that gives your life meaning. The more you align the things you have to do with your higher purpose, the more passion you bring to those tasks. That’s true for you now, isn’t it? You have no trouble doing the things you want to do, the things you are passionate about.

What is it that you “have to” do that you should be turning into a “want to?”

How do the things you have to do help you reach your compelling future?

Why do you resist doing the things you need to do? What would happen if you brought your best self, your passion to these things?

What would your results look like now if you “wanted to” do the things you need to do to produce the results you want?