How Finding Your Why Will Guide The Way

It's one of the most daunting questions we can be asked: "Why are you doing that?" It always seems to catch us off guard, and the first response that pops into our head, "Because it's what I'm supposed to do," annoys us more than it helps.

That answer instantly plants doubt in our actions, and once that feeling is unleashed there's no telling where our thoughts will take us. Finding your why takes some effort, and the answer can keep changing. But when we can answer "Why are you doing that?" it becomes the ultimate power boost to our resilience. So how do we go about finding it?

Up life's river without a why

Let's be honest, achieving in life is hard. It is really HARD. The longer we engage with it, the harder it becomes, and if we aren't prepared it will slam into us and leave us reeling. When that happens it's easy to feel out of control, like we've lost our footing.

With our foothold gone, life becomes a wild river rapid, dragging us along its tributaries until we reach a destination we never wanted, left to wonder how we got there. To avoid that, we have to keep our bearings and hold our direction.

Some specific tools in life help us do that. Aspiration is our canoe, confidence is our life vest, knowledge is our skill on the water, and a why? Well, that's our oar. We can survive the rapids without it. Our boat keeps us moving, our vest keeps us afloat when we fall, and our skill helps us get through in whatever way is necessary.

The greatest challenges do not come from without, they come from within ourselves.

The one thing we can't do without an oar is steer. We can't direct ourselves toward the parts of the river we want to be on. Without one, we're at the mercy of wherever the river flows hardest, and the odds of landing on the path we really want aren't in our favor. Navigating life's rapids that way all but leaves the final destination to chance.

The winding river of finding your why

At the core of finding your why is your decision making. Every decision you make is your why showing itself. Refuse to decide and it's the same as having no why. Decide in haste and the river will be just as unpredictable as if you had none at all.

To navigate properly, you have to pay attention and engage with the flow of the river. Only by watching for the streams and pathways that lead where you want to go will you get the results you want. To find your why, the reason you do what you do in this moment, you have to look, you have to engage, and you have to decide.

That decision to engage with your journey down the river will reward you, or it will punish you. You'll feel the violent push or the embracing pull of your why as a result of the choice you made.

To find your why:

1. Make a decision in your life.
2. Reflect on how the decision made you feel.
3. Ask yourself whether you felt pushed away from it or pulled toward it.

The more decisions you make, the more you come to understand your why, and the better you can travel the river.

Self Discovery Deck

Step two is where most people stall, because "how did that make me feel?" is hard to answer cold. Pulling a card after a big decision gives you a specific question to react to, so the pushed-or-pulled check doesn't stay fuzzy.

Take a look →

Your why matters

It's powerful to put your why into words. Finding those words is an entirely different matter. Few things are as personal as the reason we do what we do, and our motivations and decisions are wide and varied.

Core Values Deck

If the words won't come, start by picking from ones that already exist. Sorting through values and keeping the few that feel true gives you real language for your why, which beats staring at a blank page.

Take a look →

But even with all that variation, we'll always find someone next to us on the river. When we meet them, we can help them or we can hurt them. They can heed our help, or they can ignore us.

So pick up your oar. And when you pass someone struggling in the current, we encourage you to help, and to heed.