Finding Your Why
by Daryl Daughtry, Publisher
Are you curious about finding your why? You know, your mission in life that motivates you to get out of bed every morning. If you don’t, you may feel as though you’re just plodding along through life. If you don’t know your why, then don’t you think it’s time to discover yours?
Sometimes your why is commonly referred to by different people as your purpose, your destiny, your calling, your mission, your dream, or your meaning in life. I’m going to call it your why, because it reveals why you’re here and why you’re as unique as your fingerprint and individually significant.
Most people think of their why as something they do, but it’s really about what they are. It’s more like an overall theme for your life. If it was just something you do, and you can no longer do it, where would that leave you? Pretty darn discouraged and lost, wouldn’t it?
The things you’re passionate about doing are merely expressions of your why. And, you’ll experience a great many such expressions throughout your lifetime. Those things you do are what I will call your how. It is how you can express your why – by doing things that are in alignment with it.
For example, someone running a bed and breakfast business may have a why of hospitality. The bed and breakfast is not their why, even though they’re extremely passionate and fulfilled when running it. The bed and breakfast is just an expression of their why, which in this case is hospitality.
Your roles in life are not your why. A role or even a job is what you’re paid to do. Your why is what you’re made to do. If you lose your role or your how, you haven’t then lost your why. You just go find another way to express it.
Don’t you find this explanation of finding your why to be liberating? Doesn’t it free you from the notion that you’ve somehow missed your life’s calling? Because, even if you’ve wasted many years or made lots of mistakes, you still have your why and you can find creative new ways to express it.
Many people believe that they’ve missed the opportunity to walk in their calling or their why. They think they’ve somehow disqualified themselves, that they’re totally unqualified to have a meaningful purpose, or that it’s way too late in life for them. Those negative beliefs couldn’t be further from the truth.
If you’ve used a GPS system before, you entered your destination and the GPS gave you verbal directions along the way. You can mess up and miss your turn or take another street for food or fuel and it will then say, “Recalculating.” It doesn’t say, “You’re disqualified. You have to end your journey!” It just moves on. Your life operates the very same way. When you mess up or take a wrong turn, it allows you recalculate and get directions back to your proper path to finding your why. You don’t get disqualified or banned in life and you never lose your purpose or your why.
Isn’t it time you set about finding your why? Ask yourself these questions and write out your answers…
– What thing or experience did you really love when you were young?
– You always lose track of time when you are doing what?
– If you knew you couldn’t fail, you would do what?
– If money was not an issue, you would do what?
– You, and others, think you are pretty good at what?
– If you were not afraid, you would do what?
– You would regret not doing what before you die?
– You feel a sense of “rightness” when you…?
– Your dream in a sentence would be…?
– You would like to help people with needs in which area… mental, physical, social, business, spiritual, relationships, other?
Give yourself permission to dream. Put it into words and figure out your first action steps.
