Wanting More vs. Becoming More: Which One Are You Actually Doing?

You wake before sunrise. The alarm sounds. Your hand reaches for the snooze button before you have formed a complete thought.

You want more sleep.

You also want a meaningful day, a clear mind, and the satisfaction of keeping your word to yourself. Yet the first desire wins. The familiar response takes command.

This is the difference between wanting more and becoming more.

As Dr. Greg Stewart writes in Chapter 1 of I³: Information, Interpretation, Intensity, Unlock the Inner Strength Behind Your Negative Emotions, “Everyone becomes what they want to, only some people think about becoming more.”

The sentence contains two decisive words: want and think.

Want Is Often an Automatic Response

The word want appears straightforward. It is not.

You may say, “I want to exercise,” “I want to stop procrastinating,” or “I want to respond calmly.” Those statements express conscious intentions. They describe the person you hope to become.

But another form of wanting operates beneath intention. Your mental models produce automatic responses. Whatever your mental model produces automatically is what you want to do in that moment.

You want to check the message because uncertainty feels uncomfortable. You want to withdraw because conflict feels threatening. You want to criticize because blame provides temporary relief. You want to hit snooze because sleep offers immediate comfort.

These responses do not necessarily reflect your deepest values. They reflect what your mind has learned to expect, prefer, and repeat.

Research on habit formation describes habits as learned behavioral patterns triggered by familiar contexts. Repetition strengthens the connection between a cue and a response, reducing the need for deliberate thought (Stojanovic et al., 2021). The alarm sounds. The hand moves. The mind explains afterward.

This is not a character judgment. It is a pattern.

Patterns can be understood. Patterns can also be changed.

Kahneman’s Two Systems Explain the Struggle

Daniel Kahneman’s distinction between System 1 and System 2 clarifies the conflict.

System 1 is fast, automatic, associative, and economical. It recognizes patterns and produces immediate impressions. It allows you to drive a familiar route, recognize a friend’s voice, and respond to ordinary demands without analyzing every detail.

System 2 is slower and more deliberate. It weighs evidence, considers consequences, solves difficult problems, and evaluates whether an automatic response is appropriate (Kahneman, 2011).

The snooze button belongs to System 1. It requires little effort. It offers immediate relief. It follows a familiar sequence.

Getting up requires System 2. You must remember the purpose of the morning. You must compare temporary comfort with the consequences of delay. You must choose the effective response while tired.

Kahneman observed that System 2 often accepts the answer supplied by System 1. Deliberate thinking demands energy. The mind prefers efficiency. When a familiar response feels satisfactory, the mind may fail to investigate whether it is effective.

Psychology Today describes this automaticity as the capacity to perform a behavior rapidly and with little conscious intention (Psychology Today, 2021). The American Psychological Association likewise explains that self-control involves resisting immediate rewards in service of longer-term aims, while emphasizing the value of habits, structure, and environmental design (American Psychological Association, n.d.).

The problem is not that automatic thinking exists. The problem is allowing it to make decisions after it has stopped serving you.

Why People Passively Follow Ineffective Mental Models

Many people permit their mental models to decide for them because automatic responses provide three immediate benefits.

1. Familiarity

A familiar response feels safe, even when it produces poor results. The mind often prefers a known disappointment to an unfamiliar possibility.

2. Relief

Avoidance lowers discomfort quickly. Snoozing removes fatigue for a few minutes. Silence removes the risk of a difficult conversation. Scrolling removes attention from an unpleasant task.

3. Efficiency

Deliberation takes effort. When people are tired, anxious, overstimulated, or emotionally intense, they have fewer resources available for careful analysis. They revert to what requires the least thought.

This pattern explains procrastination. A person may genuinely value completion, excellence, or personal responsibility. Yet the immediate desire to escape discomfort becomes stronger than the distant benefit of finishing the task.

A study published in the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research found that conscientiousness and college self-efficacy were negative predictors of procrastination among undergraduates. The findings support the relationship between self-regulation, confidence, and goal-directed behavior (Gregory et al., 2023).

Research in Modern Psychological Studies similarly connects self-efficacy with procrastination patterns. Confidence does not eliminate difficulty. It influences whether a person interprets difficulty as a reason to begin or a reason to delay (“Relations between Self-Efficacy and Procrastination Types in College Students,” 2020).

The automatic response says, “Later.”

Thinking asks, “What will later require of me?”

Think Is Present-Tense Consciousness

To think, in the sense used by Dr. Stewart, means more than having thoughts. It means becoming conscious of the response your mental model has produced.

The automatic response says, “Stay in bed.”

Thinking says, “I notice that I want to stay in bed. Is that response effective?”

The automatic response says, “They have not replied. Something is wrong.”

Thinking says, “What information do I actually possess? What interpretation have I added?”

The automatic response says, “I cannot handle this.”

Thinking says, “What is the next appropriate action?”

This is the moment of choice. You do not need to deny the automatic response. You need to examine it.

The Open Psychology Journal describes self-regulation as the capacity to initiate, adjust, interrupt, stop, or change thoughts, feelings, and actions in pursuit of goals. Its review distinguishes between reactive processes and more effortful executive control (Larraín-Valenzuela et al., 2022).

Thinking creates the space between impulse and action.

In that space, you can agree with the automatic response. You can also choose something different.

Introducing I³ and the Panama Canal Rule

The I³ framework, pronounced I cubed, examines the relationship among Information, Interpretation, and Intensity.

• Information asks, “What happened?”
• Interpretation asks, “What meaning am I assigning to what happened?”
• Intensity asks, “How much emotional energy is this producing?”

The Panama Canal Rule provides the sequence. A canal cannot move a ship through Lock 3 until Locks 1 and 2 have been secured. In the same way, you cannot responsibly manage emotional intensity until you have examined the information and interpretation creating it.

This is the discipline of becoming more.

Do not begin with, “How do I get rid of this feeling?” Begin with, “What information is present? What interpretation is operating? What response is effective?”

The snooze-button example follows the same pattern.

Information: The alarm is sounding.

Interpretation: Five more minutes will restore me, and getting up can wait.

Intensity: Fatigue and the desire for comfort feel urgent.

The automatic response is to press snooze. Thinking secures the first two locks. It examines the information and challenges the interpretation. It then evaluates the intensity rather than obeying it.

The effective response may be simple: sit up, place both feet on the floor, and begin the morning.

That action does not prove that you never wanted more sleep. It proves that you can think beyond the first want.

Becoming More Requires Repeated Deliberate Choices

A single deliberate decision matters. Repeated decisions create a new pattern.

Frontiers in Psychology research found that repeated behavior in stable contexts increases automaticity. The researchers also found a reciprocal relationship between self-efficacy and habit strength. Successful repetitions can increase confidence, while confidence can support future repetitions (Stojanovic et al., 2021).

This offers a practical path:

1. Name the automatic response.
   Identify the moment when your mental model takes over.

2. Separate information from interpretation.
   Record what actually happened. Then identify the meaning you added.

3. Evaluate effectiveness.
   Ask whether the automatic response serves your long-term purpose.

4. Choose one different action.
   Make the action specific and immediate.

5. Repeat it in the same context.
   Repetition gives the new response a chance to become familiar.

Becoming more does not require constant self-rejection. It requires greater interior honesty.

You do not become more by pretending that the automatic response is absent. You become more by refusing to confuse an automatic response with a final decision.

Wanting More Is Not Enough

Wanting more is valuable. It reveals desire, aspiration, and dissatisfaction with remaining unchanged.

But wanting more does not guarantee becoming more.

You may want patience and still react with anger. You may want discipline and still delay. You may want closeness and still withdraw. You may want a different life while repeatedly selecting the responses that preserve the old one.

The decisive question is not, “What do I want?”

It is, “What does my mental model automatically produce, and will I think carefully enough to choose differently?”

That question moves you from desire to responsibility. It moves you from passive repetition to deliberate formation.

In I³, Dr. Greg Stewart invites readers to examine the inner strength behind negative emotions rather than merely suppressing the emotions themselves. His TEDx talk offers a concise introduction to this approach. His book, I³: Information, Interpretation, Intensity, Unlock the Inner Strength Behind Your Negative Emotions, develops the framework in greater depth.

The next time your first impulse appears, pause.

Name it.

Examine it.

Then decide whether it deserves to become your action.

That is where becoming more begins.

References

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Willpower. https://www.apa.org/topics/personality/willpower

Gregory, B. B., Golson, M., & Larsen, M. (2023). Psychological and behavioral predictors of procrastination in undergraduates. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.psichi.org/resource/resmgr/journal_2023/28_52_Gregory.pdf

Grass, J., Krieger, F., Paulus, P., Greiff, S., Strobel, A., & Strobel, A. (2019). Thinking in action: Need for cognition predicts self-control together with action orientation. PLOS ONE, 14(8), e0220282. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220282

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Larraín-Valenzuela, J., Mardones, F., Ansoleaga, E., & Kausel, L. (2022). Conceptualization, tasks and neurobiological correlates of self-regulation in children and adolescents: A systematic review of the literature (2015–2020). The Open Psychology Journal, 15, e187435012202040. https://doi.org/10.2174/18743501-v15-e2202040

Modern Psychological Studies. (2020). Relations between self-efficacy and procrastination types in college students, 25(2). https://scholar.utc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1476&context=mps

Psychology Today. (2021). The false dilemma: System 1 vs. System 2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/a-hovercraft-full-of-eels/202103/the-false-dilemma-system-1-vs-system-2

Stojanovic, M., Fries, S., & Grund, A. (2021). Self-efficacy in habit building: How general and habit-specific self-efficacy influence behavioral automatization and motivational interference. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 643753. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.643753

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