What is really going on with where there's a will, there's a way?

What's true in this slogan

Before I start dismantling - an honest admission.

"Where there's a will, there's a way" has a grain of sense in it, and you can't throw the grain out with the husks.

Without wanting - nothing really starts. Motivation as a starting point is real and necessary. Intention gives direction to action. When someone says "I want to change jobs" - before they do anything concrete - that "wanting" is the first step in the process.

I've seen this repeatedly working with clients. People who clearly articulate what they want and feel emotional investment behind it do better in moments of difficulty and discouragement. Not because wanting magically clears the road. Because it comes back to them as a compass when they stop seeing the way.

So wanting has value. But it's just one ingredient.

The four missing ingredients

The model from the post - expanded:

1. Competence. Knowledge, skills, experience needed to achieve the goal. You can acquire them - but that takes time, work, and often significant investment. Desire doesn't substitute for competence. Honesty about your own gaps matters more here than optimism.

Example from practice: a leader wanted to move into a Chief Product Officer position. Strong motivation, clear vision. Problem - he'd never managed a product roadmap at a strategic level, had no experience working with a board. Wanting without a competence diagnosis led him to a series of disappointing recruitment conversations. Together we developed a plan - 18 months of specific experiences and skills. Wanting was the engine. Competence was the road.

2. Resources. Time, money, energy, support. Limited and real. A person with three young children and a mortgage has a different time and financial resource than a single person with no obligations. That's not an excuse - that's a map of the terrain. Ignoring resources doesn't make their absence disappear.

I once worked with a client who wanted to start his own business. Motivation - high. Plan - good. Financial resources to live on for a year without income - zero. I didn't tell him "forget it." I said: "Let's break this into stages that match what you actually have." The wanting stayed. The timeline adjusted.

3. Context. Market, timing, environment, surroundings. Some things are more or less possible depending on the moment, place, and system you're operating in. "Wanting" doesn't change the job market in a given industry, doesn't change legal regulations, doesn't change an economic crisis.

4. Access. Networks, relationships, information, opportunities - which aren't evenly distributed. This is an uncomfortable truth, but a truth: who you know, where you grew up, what school you went to - these influence access to certain paths. Wanting doesn't level those asymmetries on its own.

Example? Two people with equal competence apply for the same position. One has someone in their network who can recommend them internally. The other doesn't. It's not about fairness - it's that access is an ingredient in the formula. And - importantly - access can be built, to some degree. Networks are built over years, before you need them. That doesn't eliminate asymmetry. But it reduces it.

Metaphor for the whole thing: wanting is the engine. Competence - skilled driving. Resources - fuel. Context and access - roads and traffic laws. You can have the best engine in the world and terrible roads. Or great roads without fuel. Everything together - only then do you move.

Do these ingredients interact? Yes. High motivation can partially compensate for fewer resources - because you look for creative solutions, work harder, don't give up at the first obstacle. But it doesn't compensate completely. And context is often more important than competence - because you can be the best in an industry that's dying. The formula isn't mechanical. It's a map for thinking, not an equation.

The astronaut

I wanted to be an astronaut. Seriously. Not metaphorically - for real.

I was around ten years old. Fascination with space, rocket models, every book I could find. I wanted it badly - the way a ten-year-old can want something with every fiber.

And? Nothing. I didn't become one.

For a long time this was just a funny childhood story. But now - after years of working with people - I come back to it as something more important. As a thinking pattern.

What "didn't work"? Let's check the four ingredients:

• Competence - physical (vision, health parameters), engineering, piloting. None.
• Resources - the path to NASA or ESA is years of specialized education and career. In Poland in the 90s there wasn't even a clear route.
• Context - Poland didn't have an active space program at the time, nor a clear path for aspiring astronauts.
• Access - zero.

I wanted it. Badly. Nothing came of it.

But here's the point, and it matters more than the story itself: distinguishing "what I can change vs. what I can't" doesn't have to paralyze. It can liberate.

If my ten-year-old self had gotten this analysis framework back then, he could have channeled energy and interest toward where he had real access. Not "abandon the dream" - rather "find out which version of this dream is achievable for you, with your resources, in your context."

That's how I ended up - through engineering, through management, through people - doing something I actually do. And like doing.

The "can" formula

Can = wanting + competence + resources + context/access.

Not as a mathematical formula. As a checklist before deciding on a goal.

Before you write that SMART goal (article 7 of the series!) - ask yourself four questions:

1. Do I have the competence? And if not - do I have a plan to get it and time for that?
2. Do I have the resources - time, money, energy - to pull this off?
3. Does the context work in my favor? Is this the right moment, the right market, the right environment?
4. Do I have access to what I need - networks, information, opportunities?

If the answer to any of those questions is "no" - that doesn't mean "abandon the goal." It means: what do you need to do first so that answer can change?

That's coaching - not motivating. Motivating says: "you can do anything, want it harder." Coaching asks: "what specifically do you need for this to become possible?"

Coaching Bullshit says: "If you want it badly enough - anything is possible."

Reality says: "Wanting is the first step. Without competence, resources, context, and access - you stay on step one. And that's not yet a road."

One question to close

Which "wanting" did you actually turn into "can"... and what was needed besides the wanting itself?