‘I Wish’

With all due respect, the word ‘wish’ has become one of my least favourite words in the dictionary.

The simple reason is because of how often this word is misused and reduced to a veiled excuse not to do something.

Allow me to explain: In my work of developing strategic visions, mentoring individuals and goal setting, I often lead discussions to a very delicate point where the organisation or individual is able to express their ideal conditions for achieving a goal.

For some unknown reason, they then proceed to convert this very reasonable action, into a hypothetical wish. For instance, a chief executive would say “I wish we were better at invoicing” or an individual would say “I wish I knew how to swim”.

I hope you can understand that it is wildly nonsensical to wish for something you have full or partial control over.

Even in cases where you have no control, it is still nonsensical to wish for things that are outside of your control, such as “I wish Covid-19 did not happen” or “I wish I could relive my youth”.

The point here is that we must not use the word ‘wish’ to hide being passive and unproductive.

We use it in a lazy way to allow us to express desire without expressing commitment.

Personally, I never allow someone to tell me about their wish without provoking further expectation to act.

Saying “I wish” and following that with a perfectly doable action is implying you need luck or a miracle to do something you can begin on any given day.

The simple start is to replace “I wish” with “I will” and taking aggressive immediate action in that direction.

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