Do you know why you want to do what you are doing? Much less what you want to do in the future? Why do you want to be happy? Can you answer those questions? If not, you have some thinking to do.
Whatever journey you have in front of you, it is long and filled with obstacles, and if you don?t have a solid grasp on your ?why? then you?re not going to reach the end. You?ll give up somewhere along the way and go back to living as you did before.
To have a WHY, may sound simple, but it is not. The answers have to go far deeper than surface level and you need to get to the core of the reasoning behind them. Let?s say that you?ve decided your ultimate goal is to take early retirement and move to a beach to spend your days surfing. Why?
Let?s unpack that simple word. Why do you want to take early retirement? Do you not like your job, your boss, or your work? There are other ways to handle that. Do you want to be your own boss? Well, there are other ways to be self-employed too. And why surfing?
The answer to this last question can?t just be ?because it?s fun.? What is it about surfing that makes you want to do it all the time? What about it calls to you so strongly? Have you ever taken an extended vacation and spent all your time surfing? If not, you might be living in a fantasy that doesn?t exist anywhere but in your head.
What will happen then if you follow through on your goal? You?ll get to your paradise and discover that surfing?s fun for an hour a day, but then what? You might even discover that you?re bored out of your mind after a few weeks of living like that. Some people do this sort of thing and end up going back to work out of boredom.
This is why it?s so important to get your ?why? right. It doesn?t matter what your goals are, if you don?t know why you want them, you?ll either fail in getting them, or you could achieve them to discover that victory is hollow. Is that where you want to be? Most like likely not!
Sit down and do some thinking to determine your why. Get to the root cause of your motivation and you?ll not only make certain you?re headed in the right direction but have more drive to get yourself there.
One of my mentors, Dean Graziosi, teachs an exercise for finding your WHY that goes 7 levels deep. Each time you ask yourself WHY you want to do something, ask WHY to that answer. Why is that answer so important. If you ask WHY in resonse to each question at least 7 times, you will many times get to the emotional level WHY as to what is going to keep you going and help you stay motivated when things aren't going well.
