It also forms part of the FireFrameForward Immersion Program (READ MORE). Knowing what your true values and motivations are, is the key to finding your purpose and your big WHY – the reason you get up in the morning.
In Positive Psychology terms, Dr Seligman refers to 3 kinds of lives: the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life. When they studied the correlation of the 3 paths to life satisfaction it yielded interesting results. The pursuit of meaning had the highest contribution and was followed by the pursuit of engagement (the good life). The pursuit of pleasure only played a role when both meaning and engagement were present already, essentially the icing on the cake. For this article’s purpose – we are considering an aspect of the meaningful life by exploring your “why”. This term can further be expanded to: “…it consists of knowing what your highest strengths are and using them to belong to and in the service of something larger than you are.” We will explore this in more depth at a later stage.
Steps you can take right now to find your WHY:
Brainstorm things that you are passionate about or that you care about deeply (pets, sports, family time, friends, money, success, art, reading, movies, etc – try being specific). Make the list as long as you possibly can! If you are struggling with this point, it might give you an indication as to where you are currently experiencing blockages / resistance.
Categorize your list using the following headings (you can also create your own) to highlight your priorities:
- Self-development
- Creative
- Career
- Relationships
- Meaningful / important causes
- Pleasure / entertainment
Now choose 5 of the items you listed that are the most important to you. No rules – if you had no fears / limitations / boundaries / challenges / obstacles – which 5 options are you choosing as the most important to you?
Consider your top 5 and why they are so important to you. A good exercise you can use is the “But Why” challenge. Write down Item 1 – then ask “Why?” x 7 times until you get to the core value underlying that passion / item you care about. For example, let’s say you want to lose weight:
Why do you want to lose weight? To be able to exercise more. Why do you want to exercise more? To be able to run a marathon. Why do you want to run a marathon? To push my body to greater heights. Why do you want to push your body to greater heights? To still be strong and fit when I am older. Why? To ensure I can look after myself. Why? I want to be independent. Why? To experience freedom.
In this example, it essentially comes down to the following: you want to lose weight in order to experience freedom. Thus, freedom is the underlying core value that contributes to your purpose / WHY. So, if you were to change your reason (negotiation with self) for exercising from wanting to lose weight to experiencing freedom, your motivation will be greater to actually go and exercise and assist you to keep pushing even during times of resistance (more about this topic HERE).
Another example might be why are you getting up for work in the morning? The obvious answer might be to make money but diving deeper will bring you to core values such as freedom or independence or success.
One Response