One of the most compelling stories your mind tells you is “If I could just have (insert thing), I’d do more (work) and be a real (noun).”
If you buy or acquire something, that will unlock your talents and potential, eventually making you the type of person you want to be.

Seth Godin has this great example with the writer Stephen King:
“Stephen King, one of the most beloved, famous and bestselling authors ever, often goes to writer’s conferences.
After he talks for a little bit he says, “Any questions?”
Inevitably, someone raises their hand—I’m paraphrasing here—and says,
“Mr. King, you are one of the most beloved, famous, and bestselling authors ever. What kind of pencil do you use to write your books?”
It’s almost as if knowing what kind of pencil Stephen King uses will help them be more like Stephen King.”

That’s the pattern; if I have ______, I’ll then do ______ and eventually be ____.
And it’s not true.
It starts to glorify objects as the source of your power, as if wearing Air Jordans made you a drastically better basketball player.
I’m sure they’re good for basketball, but if I buy a pair for my mum, she’s unlikely to start showing up at pickup basketball games and sinking three pointers.
The problem is we’re seeking a magic item or solution to somehow change our nature.
The story is essentially “until I acquire _____, I won’t do any _____”.
I know a lot of people who have delayed doing the work until they have the best equipment, but I haven’t seen it end well.

In reality, it’s often the reverse; if you become a _____, you’ll naturally do more _____, and in the process acquire more _____.
e.g. if I decide that I am a half-decent writer, I’ll naturally produce a lot of ideas and drafts and manuscripts, and eventually buy more notebooks and pencils and folios.
The hard part is changing how you see yourself, but once you do, the work becomes natural, and the results seemingly happen on their own.
Inventors and tinkerers have full sheds, but acquiring a full shed is unlikely to make you a curious inventor and tinkerer.

Have-Do-Be In Action
This comes up a lot with entrepreneurs; they see opportunities and deficits in their work, and look for fixes.
They might wish for more sales, a vibrant online community, a healthy team culture, being a household name, having more free time, etc.
Then they reverse-engineer the problem to find a “realistic solution” for their deficits, usually something they have to buy or be awarded.
e.g. if I buy a ping-pong table, work will feel more fun.
If I get good business cards, I’ll talk to more customers and make more sales.
If I bought this software, I’d have an extra hour back in my day.
You can see how the logic works – ping pong tables are a lot of fun, nice business cards are impressive, software can save you time.
But in reality, the entrepreneur is actually longing for an attribute: they’d like to be the type of person who has fun with their team, or who feels confident in sales meetings, or who can enforce boundaries between their work time and personal time.
Without these attributes, the objects don’t work.
When I was at ANZ in 2011, some teams had a Nintendo Wii in their workspaces, as a bit of a treat.
I asked the team members about them, and they told me “Oh, nobody uses those, you’d almost get in trouble if you did”.
I guarantee you that’s not written anywhere, but culture is set by patterns of behaviour, so this person had good reason to think it wasn’t a genuine offer.
The unspoken rule is “this place is for work and work only”.
The person who bought the Wii’s would have hated that, but the philosophy would have been brought in by whoever replaced them.
I also guarantee you that if you replaced that old Wii with a modern Nintendo Switch, nothing would change.
Fun leaders create fun without props and gimmicks.
Confident salespeople can talk to anyone, anywhere.
Effective leaders manage their time boundaries year-round, no matter the season.

Mindset, Methodology, Then The Tools
This approach might feel counter-intuitive at first, but it makes the work come naturally.
From observation, the people who build lasting habits and make great work start with either “Be” or “Do”, making progress and changing how they see themselves, before they invest in tools and trinkets.
They work out what they like, what they typically use, who their work is for, then acquire more stuff as they go.
This is similar to the Adam Savage rule, which says “Buy cheap tools until you know what you really need from that tool, then buy the best one you can afford.”
If you start with the basics, then use something so much that it breaks or limits your work, then you know it’s time to get a really good version.
If you want to draw, you’ll draw in a cheap notebook from Officeworks or Kmart just as much as you would with a Rhodia or Moleskine.
Fill the cheap notebook, then buy a lovely one.

I have similar advice for new facilitators – say yes to volunteer projects while you learn about your style, who you like to work with and how you like to hold a room.
Try things in a low-stakes environment before buying equipment or stationary, so that you get a sense for what will actually be appreciated by your participants.
This helps you develop your principles – how you will treat each other, what you expect of each other, etc, as well as your core content.
This makes marketing so much easier – you can speak with confidence about how you work and what results you frequently achieve, which in turn makes it more likely that you’ll be recruited for more work.
It also becomes the basis for your social media posts – they’re quick to put together when they recap or describe your work and methodology.
This takes 3x longer when you don’t have a methodology, because writing the social media content now feels like you’re designing/inventing your content, leading you to second-guess and overthink your points.

What Do I Really Want?
It helps to start by understanding what you’re actually after, and sometimes you want things for the sake of enjoying them.
e.g. I might want a pair of NFL wide receiver gloves, with zero intention of actually using them in a contest.
They’d be either art or a mild form of cosplay.
But at least I’m not pretending that it will somehow make me fitter, stronger or more skilled at catching a football.
Sometimes you buy things because you like them, and that’s often enough of a reason.
The danger is when you can’t justify the purchase and so invent a story about how this item or experience will change your nature, make you a different type of person, and somehow lead to a prolific output in the coming months.
For my clients, they are usually driven by a desire to do more work and become a more competent/confident business owner.
In these cases, my suggestion is to start with the mindset and methodology work, then make a lot of stuff, then spend more money once you’re earning more money down the track.
And if the thought of that approach repulses you, it’s usually a sign that you’re actually wanting to stay as you are, just with nicer equipment.

Staggered Rewards
A neat way of forming production habits is to set incentivised goals, like a star chart.
Star charts sound childish, but they work.
You do the work, then you earn the reward.
Gary Vee does this when people ask him “I’m starting a podcast, will you come on as my first guest?”.
Their though process is “If I can get Gary Vee on first, people will take me seriously, then the next episodes will be great and I will succeed at podcasting”.
I love Gary’s consistent response: “I would love to, as a guest on your 101st episode”.
No matter what you think of Gary Vee, that’s a smart offer; if they can put in the work for 100 episodes, they’re a serious podcaster, and the dangling offer of Gary as a guest is likely to keep them going through the learning curve.
It rewards the diligent, and weeds out the casuals.

These first pieces of work are crucial, because they rewrite you “Be’s” and create habits for your “Do’s”.
Once you’ve done something consistently for three months, you’ll see yourself and your work differently, and will find it much easier to show people what you do, without the need for props to boost your legitimacy.
It will also refine the “Haves” you value, now that you have a better sense of what you use and where you notice an improvement in quality.

A Tougher Sell
I’m aware that this is a tougher sell, because changing how you see yourself is hard and acquiring nice things to improve your work is a romantic story.
See for yourself; look at the people around you who have “Become” what you’d like to be, and ask them how they made those changes.
Did they get picked?
Did they win an award?
Did an object unlock their talents?
Or did they start making bad drafts that turned into average drafts?
Did they choose themselves and make progress in secret?
Did they seem to acquire their stuff almost by accident, as a byproduct of doing the work?

My colleague Kate Wilson has this brilliant question; “Is this belief still serving me well?”.
If Have-Do-Be is working well for you, go for it.
But if it’s not, think about switching to a Be-Do-Have approach.
You can work with advisors and coaches, you can make changes in secret, you can use star-charts and incentives.
Give it three months and see what you’ve enjoyed.
At the very least, you’ll be better informed on what’s worth buying.
But more likely, you won’t need gimmicks and possessions, you’ll be enjoying being the kind of person who does interesting things.