What is Your Why?

“He who has a why can endure anyhow” Fredrick Nietzsche.

Amanda Lang and Simon Sinek are most popular for evangelizing the “why” concept through their books “The Power of Why’ and “Start with Why” respectively. They also speak about it regularly.

So what is this “why” concept?

It’s basically about finding out your purpose for doing what you do. It’s about understanding your cause and finding your truth as a person or as a business owner.

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” -Bob Dylan

Why do you do what you do? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get up in the morning? These are questions Simon Sinek talks about in his book “Start with Why”. He says; “when you think, act, communicate starting with why, you can inspire others”.

As residents of this planet, we tend to have very little control over what happens to us, or so we think. We live mostly on default.

Knowing your why has to do with living life on purpose. Building businesses not just for the sake of making money, but for the core intent of adding value to people’s lives.

And this approach, my friend, will help you stay committed to your dream at every stage and in every terrain.

Lots of entrepreneurs knowingly or unknowingly crave freedom of expression. We want to express ourselves through our products, but lack of self-awareness denies us of effectively delivering and communicating well enough to get others onboard.

Digging deep through self-reflection is a necessary practice to understand why you truly do what you do. The saying “if it don’t make money, it don’t make sense” has truth in it, but at the same time there’s so much more to businesses than money.

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.” — Maya Angelou

In an age where almost everything is measured by money, jobs are taken because of the money, spouses and friends are chosen because of money, religious organizations measure blessings and God’s love based on how much a person has, it would be really difficult to identify a why that isn’t connected to money.

However, it is important. Customers have access to so much information and are over-saturated with superficiality, they have developed this deep need to connect to products. Understanding your why would help you connect in an effective way. Your enthusiasm would be well communicated, and connections would be made.

This doesn’t mean everything you are passionate about would make business sense, neither is it everything you love you’ll want to do professionally. All that is ok, you just need to keep testing, not just through thought, but by engaging, and then clarity would come, according to Marie Forleo of MarieTV.

I’ve been around people who complain all day, but once they are given opportunities to change their circumstances they don’t take them. They’ll rather continue complaining, they seem to feed off it which is really sad. Everybody deserves a life they love, a life where they live on purpose and wake up every morning, or at least most mornings with excitement.

A life where you can look back and be proud of most of the choices you made.

When you ask yourself this question consistently, and apply it to your life and work, you’ll see the world differently and be free to make decisions in ways that would positively impact your life.