Do you know why finding your why matters?

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 immediate response that pops into our head, "Because it's what I'm supposed to do." annoys us more than helps us. The answer is one that immediately instills doubt in our actions and once that emotion is unleashed there's no telling where our thoughts will take us. It takes some effort to engage with finding your why, and the answer can be ever changing but when we can answer the question "Why are you doing that?" It becomes the ultimate power boost to our resilience. So, how do we go about finding our why?  

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Up Life's River Without a Why

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Let's be honest, achieving in life is hard, it is really HARD. The longer we engage with it the harder it becomes. If we aren't prepared it will slam into us and leave us reeling. When that happens it's so easy to feel out of control like we've lost our footing. With our foothold lost life becomes a wild river rapid, dragging us along it's tributaries until we reach a final destination we never wanted to go towards, and are left to wonder how we got there. To avoid this we have to keep our bearings and maintain 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 will keep us moving, our vest will keep us afloat when we fall, and our skill will help us survive in whatever way is necessary.  

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

The one thing we cannot do without an oar is steer. We can't direct ourselves down the paths and parts of the river we want to be on. Without an oar we are at the mercy of where the river flows the hardest. The odds of being on the path we truly desire is not in our favor if we don't have a why. Navigating the rapids of life this way all but leaves the final destination to chance.  

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The Winding River of Finding your Why

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One thing is at the core of finding your why, this is your decision making. When you make a decision it is the manifestation of why. Refuse to decide and it's the same as not having a why, decide in haste and the river will be just as unpredictable as if you have no why at all. To navigate properly, you must pay attention, you must engage with the flow of the river. Only through watching for the streams and pathways that will lead you in the direction you want to go will you achieve the results you want. To find your why, the reason that in this moment, you do what you do. 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 will feel the violent push or embracing pull of your why as a result of the decision 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, did you feel pushed away, or pulled towards it.

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

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Your Why Matters

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It's powerful to put your why into words. To find those words are an entirely different matter. Few things are as the reason why we do things. Our motivations and decisions are wide and varied, but even with all this variation we will always find someone next to us on the river. When we meet this person we can help them or we can hurt them. They can heed our help, or they can ignore us. We encourage you, to help and to heed.