Finding Your WHY
Five questions to ask yourself to find your why.
Adapted from this post by Ellie Burke.
If you’ve ever set goals for yourself but found yourself unable to follow through to achieve them, you are not alone.
When it comes to changing our patterns, habits, and eventually our lives, we must have powerful energy behind us, something that pushes us to keep going when we don’t feel like it.
This is where our why comes in.
When we know our why, we can then tether all of our decisions and actions back to it. It keeps us motivated. It keeps us inspired. It allows us to prioritize the things that will move us towards our goals versus away from them.
It gives us a quality of certainty even in the midst of change and uncertainty.
What is the “why”?
In order to motivate ourselves to move forward on a new or challenging action (aka a step towards our goal), we have to have a reason behind it. That bigger, deeper reason we want to achieve the things we want to achieve.
Having a meaningful reason behind your goals, will help to achieve them. Doing something because we “should” is different from doing something we “want or need.”
“Should” is connected to the outer or surface-layer thoughts and ideas. “Needs” are connected to the inner desires, something that is more deeply important to each individual person.
As Simon Sinek, marketing guru in the consumer world, puts it “the Why is the purpose, cause or belief that drives every one of us.”
Having a meaningful reason behind your goals, will help to achieve them. Doing something because we “should” is different from doing something we “want or need.”
“Should” is connected to the outer or surface-layer thoughts and ideas. “Needs” are connected to the inner desires, something that is more deeply important to each individual person.
In order to find the clarity you need to truly understand your Why, you can ask yourself five questions.
What is the change you want to make?
Why is that change important?
Why does that matter?
Why is that important?
Why?
You can keep adding why until you feel clear on your deeper need to make a change. Once you land at an answer that has an emotional tie, an emotional experience connected to it, you’ve found it.
Now that you have your Why, from using this series of questions, you can use it as a way to assess your choices going forward.
When faced with a choice to take action toward your goal (or not), return to your why. When you feel resistant to take that next right step, come back to your why.
Your why, that deep inspiration, has the ultimate power to move you into action.
