Finding The WHY To Motivate Ourselves

A reader contacted me with a question today. As my response was getting longer, I realized that this would be a very relevant topic to share with everyone on the blog. Her e-mail reads as follows:

Hello Alex,

I ran across your blog (and subsequently have sent you a LinkedIn invite) regarding finding what motivates you in reaching your goals, and having a powerful “why”.

My question to you is how do you find your “why”? Do you have resources you could guide me to that will give me some direction in finding what my “why” is? It really isn’t as easy as people think, would you agree?

Thanks so much for your website and blog, it’s been a huge help to me, I look forward to hearing from you.

~Judy

Thank you very much for such an excellent question Judy, I’m happy to have you as a reader. As you already know, figuring out our why is not always an easy and simple endeavor. I’ll try to give you a few tidbits of my opinion on the subject, to go along with all the research I’m sure you’ve done and are currently doing.

Motivation is a core, fundamental principle is doing everything from getting out of bed, overcoming adversity, to conquering the world. You already knew that. I’m sure you’ve also heard the saying, “if your why is big enough, the how doesn’t matter,” aka “if there’s a will there’s a way.”

Our motivations are shaped largely by our environment. The books we read, the people we talk to, as well as the random events that we happen to go through (and our reactions to those events). All this input creates a belief system, or paradigm, of the way the world works (in our mind) and what we consider to be good, virtuous, or worthy of going after.

Without a doubt, my opinion, is that our belief system guides us. The question is, does our belief system control us without our knowledge from within our subconscious, or are we holding the reigns by examining (and reexamining!) our belief system consciously.

Our “current” why, attached to our current belief system, is already within us. Everything that has shaped us up to this point, including how we consciously shaped ourselves, has created a belief system with it’s own why for the motivating itself. It’s always a selfish why. Selfish because the why is self serving, and our personal belief system is the only one it will serve directly.

This selfish drive, or motivation, to achieve also has a lot to do with our self-worth. Are we worthy of getting what we feel we deserve? Do we deserve the things that we “know” to be the very best, and will we allow ourselves to go after them. This principle of self-worth will help to determine what we spend our life on. The currency of our life is our time and energy, and the things that we consciously choose to spend our time and energy on are the things we’re giving up our life on.

So we begin by consciously asking ourselves. What am I willing to die for? If you think about it, your career is most likely where you’ll spend most of your life, then sleeping, then with family and friends. You need to ask yourself, is the place where you’re spending most of your time and energy worthy of your life? If yes, then how are the other things, like exercising, eating healthy, having delicious relationships, all contributing to your maximum output in this place. If the answer is no, the question becomes, what is a time, place, cause, and journey that i’m willing to give up my life for, one hour at a time?

Thanks for the excellent, thought provoking question.

Dear readers, what have you done in order to find your why?

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http://www.warriordevelopment.com Jarrod – Warrior Development

I first allow myself to dream about what I really want.

Then I check my why for wanting that (what does it give my life?), if it is acceptable then I can pursue 100%.
http://www.questforbalance.com Lisis

Alex, I have found that the BIG “why” for me is fairly simple: my son. But the little “whys” are the ones that I stumble over. For instance, Why should I exercise? I don’t enjoy it, I don’t need it to fit into my clothes, I’m not vain enough to need washboard abs… and yet, I should do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do? Is that really enough of a “why”?

(Apparently not.)

My question, which I also posed to Leo on Zen Habits, is how do I get an external motivator to be enough?? I still haven’t found that answer.

=-)
http://www.alexshalman.com Alex Shalman

@Lisis, I would say that you should concentrate on daily incremental improvements. Move towards the things you already know to motivate yourself, and remove all of the demotivating things. Eventually you’ll be surrounded by lots of external motivators, which usually come in the form of people that say positive things, and can motivate you by the example of their own success.

Also, why should you exercise? It benefits every part of your mental and physical. It will give you energy, it will become an addictive source of motivation, and it will increase your longevity so that you can have the energy to play with your sons grandkids one day.
http://www.sarahmerion.com Sarah Merion

My “why” often comes from an uncontrollable feeling to do something. In that sense, I don’t have reason to not do it, and the why is the fact that I can’t help myself. What I have trouble with though are those activities which I don’t receive that wonderful, uncontrollable feeling. There are often things that need a “why” but I still need a push.
Rudolf

Interesting article, thanks Alex. My “why” comes from my purpose, values and passions. Of course it is never easy because nothing is static, even values can change from time to time based on our life experience or at least priority of values. But this is what helps me. That inexpressible, sometimes strong, sometimes subtle, feeling that this IS right and long term and can make a difference. The more I choose the “right” stuff to do the better I am at this and my “why” is in bigger harmony with my actions. It is calibration, sort of.
http://reviveyourlife.com Jake | Revive Your Life

Alex,

Interesting question that your reader has posed. Sometimes that’s a question that’s nearly impossible to answer. I would like to think that the reason why I do certain things is because I have learned a lesson in the past and choose to better my life. Without prior life experiences, its hard to think that we would choose what tends to be the more difficult path (self-improvement). That being said, hope and encouragement for the future are great motivators!

Thanks again for the great insight. I am new to your site and it looks quite interesting.

Jake
http://stopthepain.wordpress.com/ Cassi

I could never figure out what I was put here for. I don’t even recall having a big dream in my youth. I bet if I could, it would change how I feel about things right now.
Vedapushpa

I sort of spontaneously get ‘motivated’ when I find the need to speak of rights and wrongs ; logics and illogics of a situation IN GENERAL.

And – even risking a lot of displeasure and even agressive reaction – I manage to dare motivate myself to refer to the erring person of the context… and this naturally gets me into troubles. But then – my condoning of the error will only increase the erring around me – with a sanction ‘it’s human to error’ that I get to the worse plight of ‘having to make do their errings’… !!!

So I’ve decided to go ‘Motivating Myself’ to speak and even Act against any disadvantaging or disparaging talk or act as affecting me – in the first place ,, I used to give in most when things affected me in person… Motivating myself to act on my behalf as person was indeed the hardest…In fact it should beging with oneself…..Then Motivating others for good reasons will become far easier…
Vedapushpa

Saw Rudolf’s earlier post now…It gave me a sanction for my ‘Motivation Cause’… Thanks Alex for the Forum.
http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/personal-development-roadblocks-taking-things-for-granted Personal Development Roadblocks – Taking Things for Granted

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http://www.andinia.com/indexen.html Pablo

I think that when things get confused or complicated, you should look at the simplicity that underlies everything: Instead of trying to find a “why?” to do things, try to think “why not?”