What Is Your ‘Why?’
If you’re thinking about making substantial changes in your life, you must first discover your “Why.” It takes a lot of effort to break the inertia of how things are today and you’ll need a lot of motivation to sustain that effort until the job is done.
There is always a “Why” behind great people and great accomplishments. Any successful person can tell you in one sentence what drives them to be successful. They know it in their core.
And that brings us to you. What is your “why?” And remember, your “Why” has to be strong enough to motivate you to make great changes in your life.
Many people think their “Why” is money. Unfortunately, money by itself is not enough. To have money is great. But wanting money is not a strong enough motivator to get you past the ups and downs of starting your own business, being your own boss and becoming an entrepreneur.
So what do I mean by your “Why?” Here’s an example.
A woman and her husband decide after many years together to start a family. She had been a career woman all of her life and held an executive post in a big corporation. The woman had every intention of returning to work after her maternity leave. She kept in touch with the office during her time off and knew the status of every project she’d be working on when she returned.
Then came the big day. She dropped her 6-week old baby off at the baby sitter’s and headed in to work. The baby’s cries when she left replayed in her mind as she drove in to work and an overwhelming feeling of helplessness settled over her. She realized quickly that she would not be able to abandon her baby to the baby sitter for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. In that moment, the woman had discovered her “Why,” a motivation strong enough for her to make a great change in her life. She left work early that day, picked up her baby and that night she and her husband discussed their options.
But it’s not just women who want to leave the rat race and start their own businesses. Men can find equally compelling “whys” to motivate them into action. A young man attending college, for instance, already knew that he was not going to be happy working for other people. He wanted a dynamic and challenging career and starting his own business seemed just the thing for him.
But it wasn’t just the money that fed his desire for an entrepreneurial lifestyle. His drive came from watching his father stuggle for years in a job he hated, only to have to continue to work after retirement just to support himself and his wife. The young man wanted to take care of his parents in their retirement and make a better future for himself. He had found his “Why.”
It’s scary to think that in today’s world the typical work week is now much longer than 40 hours and that retirement is not retirement at all! Even so, you have to be honest with yourself. Before you “fire your boss,” you have to find your “Why.”
It has to be something tangible. It has to be something real. It has to be something so meaningful that it keeps you awake at night and drives you during the day to keep moving toward success.
So…what is YOUR “Why?”
- Daniel Joseph Moran
