Wanting to Stop Wanting Is Still Wanting
Everything we do is about one or more of our wants.
Posted May 7, 2026 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods
From time to time, I see articles about letting go of wants and why you should do that. Some even suggest that letting go of wanting is the way to get what you want!
No doubt some people find this advice useful. But if wants need attention , it might be more useful to know how they work. When fixing or improving something is required, knowing how it works is important.
If you don’t know how something works, you might not be able to change it when it needs changing. You might not even know if it's the thing that needs changing. When a light on the dashboard of your car comes on, that often means that something somewhere isn’t working. But it’s not the light itself that’s the problem. Putting some tape over the light so you can’t see it won’t fix things! It's the same with wants.
I’ve seen, for example, people suggest we should focus on habits rather than goals. In fact, James Clear’s #1 New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits (2018), is a whole book about this.
Even in James’s words, though, a misunderstanding can be found. In the Introduction, James explains that a habit is "a routine or behavior that is performed regularly” (2018). But, actually, we don’t perform behaviors regularly. James knows this. A bit further on, he explains that “behavior is always changing: situation to situation, moment to moment, second to second.” (2018).
How can those two ideas be in the same book? “Behavior is performed regularly,” and “behavior is always changing” are opposites.
But, in a way, they’re both right. Control science makes it clear that what we care about are results (Powers, 2005). There is no doubt we perform behavior regularly. We just don’t perform the same behavior regularly. We change our behavior regularly so that we get the result we want.
When you drive your car repeatedly to the same location, you use different behaviors to get there. What repeats is the result—car at location. What changes is your driving behavior.
There are lots and lots of terms that capture the idea of a result. I’ve already used: want, habit, goal, outcome, and end. Other words like ambition, value, point, expectation, attitude, fancy, aspiration, hunger, desire, need, yearn, benchmark, crave, objective, aim, setpoint, wish, mission, hope, intention, and purpose are different names for the many ways a person likes their world to be.
A wish for your college roommate to come to your wedding is a statement about a face you want to see on the big day. That face is part of the recipe for making the day be the way you want. A setpoint of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is a statement about the temperature your body wants to be. A habit of flossing, then brushing your teeth before bed, is a routine to keep your teeth the way you want. An attitude of open-mindedness is a statement about how you want to consider differing ideas and opposing views.
James (2018) recommends forgetting about goals and focusing on systems instead. This is a great example of why it’s important to know how something works. Focusing on systems is a goal! He also suggests that goals “are about the results you want” and systems “are about the processes that lead to those results” (2018, p. 23). But goals live in those systems (Powers, 1998). That's how goals work. Goals use the system to get the desired result.
It’s the system that makes whatever the goal demands happen. The system constantly checks what is happening against what the goal wants to happen, and uses behavior to keep the match very close (Powers, 1998). That’s why behavior constantly changes.
So even when you mostly want a certain result, if a part of you has a different goal or craving, that little part will work like crazy to get what it wants. Maybe you want to give up smoking . But it’s tough going, and you find yourself stopping at the store to buy a packet every now and then. You don’t know why that happens. Well, the simplest reason is that a part of you wants to keep smoking. No one else is making you stop at the store. It must be you.
When results happen over and over again, there are goals at work. Even if it’s a result you’re not happy about. Maybe you’d like to shed a few pounds but, day after day, you find yourself snacking. Do you also have a goal to eat what you want when you want?
Whenever it seems like we’ve failed to achieve a goal, it could be that we’ve bagged another goal instead.
Getting to know more of you can help you get more of what you want more of the time. The trick is not to stop wanting. We all stop wanting one day. That’s inevitable. Before that time, making sure our wants are cooperating rather than clashing is key to living well.
Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. London: Random House.
Powers, W. T. (2005). Behavior: The control of perception (2nd ed.). New Canaan, CT: Benchmark.
Powers, W. T. (1998). Making Sense of Behavior: The meaning of control. New Canaan, CT: Benchmark.
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Timothy Carey Ph.D. , (Clinical Psychology) is a professor at Central Queensland University based in Rockhampton where he is the Director of the Centre for Health Equity in Regional and Remote Communities.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.