The Spark of a Burning Desire

For years, I have heard the saying, “You gotta want it bad enough.”

I always wondered what that meant. And why do I have to want something bad enough to have it?

Then I kept living and began to see the wisdom in that statement.

Most psychologists agree that we form our belief systems early in life.

Probably by the age of 8, your core beliefs are set in stone. These fixed beliefs are excellent if you grew up in a healthy, stable environment, but you have to change those beliefs if you didn’t have that type of upbringing.

Changing your beliefs is easier said than done.

A researcher estimated that 90% of cardiac bypass patients do not change the habits that led to the procedure.

These people could not change even when their lives depended on it.

Change can be challenging.

So how do you break out of years of apathy, poor decision-making, and lack of execution?

The power of desire.

In Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, having a burning desire is the first step towards riches. As Hill described, wealth can be a tangible or intangible goal.

Everything we see in our world starts with a burning desire to make it a reality.

Frank Kafka said it like this: “The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”

I like the term burning desire because fire can destroy almost anything.

Your burning desire can destroy all of your excuses, reasons, hangups, or any other obstacle in your way.

I remember when years ago, I was trying to make a flight. I had to take a city train to a regional train to take me to the airport.

If I missed the second train, I would not catch my flight, which was the day’s last flight. I had to make that train.

So when I got off the local train, I had to run up two flights of stairs with luggage and then four more flights of stairs, all while the commuter train taking me to the airport was waiting. I had no room for error; if I tripped or dropped something, I missed the train.

I made the train.

Why?

I had a burning desire to make it, and that fire burned down every obstacle in my way.

Whether you’re trying to change your behavior, lose weight, get out of debt, finish that paper or thesis, or anything else you want to do, there is a negative momentum that you must overcome. That momentum has been heading in the wrong direction; you’ve been doing things a certain way for a certain amount of time.

You need to break those habits for you to change. The pattern of spending more than you make, eating more food than you burn off, or watching Hulu or Netflix instead of working on something that will free you from your 9–5 job are all things that can keep us from our goals.

A burning desire is a spark to get you from where you are to where you want to be.