Do You Know Your Why?

I learned about this concept when I was a broke college student working my way through college.

Summer Learning Experience

During the summer, I sold educational books on 100 percent commission. This crazy, life-changing job put me through college. Before each summer began, we were required to sit down and write out why we were willing to do this hard job, why we needed the money, why we would be willing to work 80 plus hours a week in another part of the United States, why would we put ourselves through that? We wrote down all our whys the very first summer. One of my big whys was that I wanted to prove to my mom that I could do it. As I did this job each summer, I would pick out nice gifts I wanted to buy my mom. I wanted to help her out because, for her entire life, she’d been the single mom raising four kids. For me, knowing I was going to make good money so I could pick out a special present really motivated me.  During the tough times, I’d to go back and re-read my why. It helped me when the bad days happened, which they did, a lot. You got a lot of rejection. It was hot. Often people weren’t home. And, there were times that you just really wanted to quit. But we would pull out our whys and review them. It gave us the motivation to pick ourselves up and go to the next door.  If we had strong enough whys while we were doing this really hard summer job, it would push us through the tough times. It would keep us going. It gave us reasons not to quit. It was essential to finishing out the summer.

That same idea can be incredibly valuable for you. How can we use this in our lives today?

Why Do You Do What You Do?

Do you know your whys? Have you ever taken the time to evaluate your life from this angle? Have you ever asked yourself why you do what you do?

I’m going to suggest that you put your thoughts to pen and paper. But for now, I’m going to keep explaining about what your whys are.  

Everything we do, even the most mundane task, we have a reason for why we do what we do. Most people never think this way, but with everything we choose to do, or not do, there is a payoff. There is a reason why we are doing this all day, every day. We may not even be consciously thinking about it, but this is the way our life works. Everything from the big decisions to the little mini choices, we have reasons why we do the things we do.

Take a hard look at your whys. Do you like your reasons for why you’re doing the things that you’re doing and why you’re doing them that way? Or, why are you not doing other things? We all have our reasons, but if you want to change anything, the ability to change that thing is going to come down to your why.

Dreams and Goals

We can all go after dreams and goals, but if we don’t have a strong enough why it may be impossible to attain them. The why is significantly important.

I hope you will get a pen and paper. I want you to write down the most important areas of your life. It could be your relationships, your Christian life, your work life, your health and exercise, or other areas.  Once you have written them out, go back and add why you’re doing that area of your life the way you’re doing it.  Just write out your whys. For example, why do you enjoy being married or why don’t you enjoy being married? There’s a reason why you’re doing it the way you’re doing it.

Next, take a look at all those whys. Why are you making the decisions that you’re making in each area of your life?  These choices serve you in some way. This is where you must get really honest with yourself.  

Making Changes

The first step for all progress comes with self-awareness. Telling the truth and seeing it on paper, is part of understanding that we have reasons and beliefs for doing our life a particular way. If you really look at these areas of your life, there is probably at least one area that you’re not happy with. That’s okay.  If you want to change and you want it to improve, you really have to create a big enough why. Why you want that, how do you think you’re going to feel if you actually attain that or that thing is changed? Because if you do not create a big enough why, you’ll either not start, or if you do start you’ll quit at some point. You’ll convince yourself that it wasn’t possible anyway or you really didn’t want it bad enough anyway.

Your why is not all you need, but you’ve got to start with a strong enough why, you’ll figure out the strategy.

Feeling the Change

An important part of figuring out your why, is the feeling you will have if you make this change or you accomplish this goal.  It is the key to your success. Your why has to be strong enough that no matter how many obstacles come up—and they will on the way to that goal that you’ve set for yourself—nothing is going to stop you. You have a big enough why to push you through the hard times, the difficult times; to not give up.

So, are you willing to look at your life right now? Are you willing to do the exercise I’ve just suggested?

If you really want to change or want to go after that goal, you have got to spend the time to figure out your why. If the why is not big enough, you’re not going to follow through. You’re going to quit or you’re not going to start at all.

The exercise of taking all those areas of your life and why you want to do something different in that area is big.

Responsible for Our Own Lives 

Once you write out these different areas, you may be tempted to blame other people. This is the big caution: we must take 100 percent responsibility for our lives. We are the ones making these decisions. We’re adults, we’ve got to accept responsibility because, if anything is going to change, we have to change. And, if we want to make that lasting change, we’ll have the motivation to continue when it gets tough going toward that goal or trying to make that change.

With a strong enough why at the beginning, we’ll figure out the needed strategies. If the strategies aren’t working, we’ll be able to change the strategies along the way. But if we don’t have a strong enough why we will not follow through; we will quit.

Nothing is Impossible 

The reason we do the things that we do is because we have beliefs, and we have reasons that are strong for us. If we don’t look at the reasons, they will be the culprit; the reasons why we don’t want to keep going. It is easy to fall back on that idea or that belief. If we want things to change, the why has to be strong enough. If you have a strong enough why, there’s almost nothing that’s impossible, that you can’t improve. Whether it’s your marriage, or your job, or where you’re working, or you don’t want to work there anymore. If you have a strong enough why to pursue a different job, you will take the risk.  

The joy of life is in the journey. When we figure out our strong enough why, we will experience, not only joy, but some major satisfaction on this journey.  

(This content is from Monette’s August 23, 2023 podcast)

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Monette hosts a weekly podcast: Mornings with Monette. She has been a life-long learner and and appreciates the opportunity to share what she has learned–both through her podcast and here at The Best-Life Project (based on the content of her weekly podcast). Her messages are raw, honest and straight from the heart.She lives in Albuquerque, NM with her husband Leland. They have three adult children and are enjoying living their best lives filled with travel and adventure.