“If You Wanted To, You Would.” A Phrase Guaranteed to Create Disconnection and Stifle Meaningful Connection.

You’ve probably heard it. Maybe you’ve said it yourself: “If you wanted to, you would.” It’s meant to cut through excuses and to name priorities. But while the phrase sounds strong and simple, it’s not only ineffective, it’s also incomplete. For high achievers, holding on to this phrase can reinforce psychological rigidity that rarely supports connected relationships.

Where This Phrase Shows Up

When clients bring this phrase into my office, it’s rarely about themselves. It usually shows up in frustration with someone else:

• A partner who always runs late, despite acknowledging it and promising to change.

• A team at work who keeps missing objectives, and it doesn’t look like a skill gap — it looks like motivation.

The client says: “If they wanted to, they would.” And often it escalates into: “They don’t want to, and that must mean they don’t care about me.” This is the moment I slow things down and ask: How is that belief serving you?

Why the Phrase Fuels Disconnection

The statement “If they wanted to, they would” often does just one thing: it fuels disconnection. Unless your actual goal is to distance yourself from the other person, the phrase rarely serves you.

Most of the time what’s happening isn’t a lack of care, it’s a tangle of capacity, priorities, and unexamined beliefs. By personalizing the other person’s behavior, we stop evaluating what’s really going on for both us and them and instead armor up with judgment. It protects us in the short-term, but at the cost of true understanding.

The Self-Leadership Lens

This is where I remind clients about self-leadership and the 8 Cs of IFS (clarity, curiosity, compassion, calm, courage, confidence, creativity, connectedness) or their own guiding values.

I’ll ask:

• Does holding onto “if they wanted to, they would” help you feel aligned with your values?

• Does it move you closer to solving the issue, or just deepen the divide?

Usually, clients realize the phrase locks them into resentment rather than helping them shift the situation.

The Capacity Problem

Everyone struggles to follow through on things they genuinely want. You do. I do. Your partner and your team members do. It’s rarely about not wanting. It’s about finite capacity.

• Competing priorities drain energy.

• Habits are hard to shift.

• Fear or shame undermines motivation.

So instead of “If you wanted to, you would,” it’s often more accurate to say: “If you can, you will.”

From this angle, the question isn’t “Do they care?” but “What’s limiting their capacity, and how do I want to respond as a leader/partner/colleague?”

Curiosity Supports Connection

Instead of collapsing human behavior into a one-liner, try going deeper and asking:

• What might be getting in the way?

• How can I zoom out and look at this more holistically?

• What’s the most self-led response I can bring right now?

This is where growth lives: not in judging others’ effort, but in evaluating the dynamics clearly, with compassion and courage.

Final Thought

Most people already want to. The real challenge is aligning desire with capacity. And as leaders — in families, in relationships, in workplaces — alignment is the gold standard we thrive in, not assumption.

So the next time you hear yourself thinking, “If they wanted to, they would,” pause. Ask yourself if that belief is serving you — or just fueling disconnection that is keeping you stuck. In my opinion, the most effective leaders approach themselves and the people in their orbit with the belief: If you can, you will. What flows from that is compassion, safety, and opportunity for meaningful perspective and growth.