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START WITH WHY: HOW TO FIND YOUR TRUTH AT WORK SERIES

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If you want to bring enjoyment and/or enthusiasm into your work, it starts with knowing WHY you are doing what you do.

Are you clear about WHY you do what you do?

That is the best place to start in any career evaluation.  Maybe you know WHAT you do and even HOW you do it, but do you know WHY?  Most people and most companies don’t and it limits their success.

Watch this TED video to learn more.

 

To summarize, most people, organizations, and companies know what they do and how they do it, and that is the extent of their focus. However, the WHY of what we do is the real leverage for lasting success and personal fulfillment because that is what keeps us inspired and attracts others to us.

Your WHY is what keeps you inspired, what keeps you focused, what keeps you grounded.  Your WHY can change, of course, however it is always the North Star in your journey.

My Personal Journey

For many years working at Dow Chemical, I didn’t have a clear why.  Honestly I think it takes a certain amount of maturity to understand your why, and I didn’t have that yet.

Then, my why became about making money to enjoy things in life.  I think that was inherited from my parents, as we didn’t have a lot growing up and their dream was that I would have more than they did.

At some point, however, I realized that the nice car, the nice house, the nice clothes couldn’t fill the hole I felt inside. Something was missing.  I was feeling unfilled.  So I hired a coach.

That’s how I discovered that personal coaching was a much better fit with my talents and my interest than being a chemical engineer.  So I changed careers (slowly!).  Over the next 4 years I completed corporate coach training, and began to coach people at Dow as a hobby.  But even then, my why was to make money and to help people.

Eventually I left Dow to work in California as an executive coach at a small company, whose mission was to help people transcend their egos.  That was a clear why for me, and I felt more connected to my work than I ever had.  For me, this demonstrated the power of the WHY.  Their focus, their commitment was so intense that it swept me up and carried me along.

But after some time, I realized that their HOW and WHAT was not working for me. I saw a lack of integrity with many of them using their own tools in their lives and walking their talk. I didn’t like how they sold their services, and how they treated each other.   So finally, I left and returned home to take a sabbatical.

Eventually I started my own coaching business and started teaching wellness classes as well, but always struggled with how to put it all under one umbrella, one single unifying concept.

And then one day, I watched the video you just watched.

As Simon talked about the Golden Circle, I realized that I understood my WHAT and my HOW, but was missing my WHY.  And I saw why it is important to start with WHY.  I had floundered around for a long time simply knowing my HOW and WHAT.

So I embarked upon the journey to discover my WHY.

I started asking myself why I do what I do.

I started journaling the answers.

I gave myself 3 months to contemplate this question, because I knew it was important.

I started capturing potential WHYs for me:

  • graceful transformation
  • living an extraordinary life
  • finding peace within
  • acting from clarity
  • true transformation

I kept a list of potential WHYs, and just waited to see what would come up.

Then I asked myself, “What has my OWN path been about?  What has been my overarching life lesson?”

And I realized that the biggest shift in my own life has been about finding and living what is true for me.

Peeling back the layers, uncovering other’s expectations of me to discover what is really true for me.  And then learning how to live that truth in grace and ease.

Find Your Truth.  Live Your Truth.

It felt right. It felt true.

I ran it by my PR Consultant, Monica Miller Rodgers, to see if it would be a novel and powerful business tagline, and she loved it.  I could also feel that it had depth to it, that it could keep inspiring me for years to come. I felt very connected to it, and I believed that I had things to share with others about it.

So that’s how I discovered my WHY.   And it has inspired me, focused me, and pulled me forward on my own path ever since.

Your Journey

Regardless of whether your work for yourself or a large corporation, I believe you can only find lasting job fulfillment if you are clear about your WHY.

And I’ll also share with you that what I’ve discovered in working with hundreds of people over the years is many people end up with a WHY similar to:

“I want to live as long as possible, provide for my family, and be comfortable.”

But if you think about it, in today’s world a record number of human beings are living comfortable long lives, and yet the use of anti-depressants is astronomical.  Maybe this WHY is not enough.

Maybe it’s not feeding our spirit.

And most people who reach the pinnacle of achievement, who climb the pyramid towards material success find that when they get there it’s devastatingly disappointing.

I think the WHY above only satisfies our primal instincts, but not our true nature.

So what does?

  • Something that puts a stake in the ground.
  • Something that you believe in deeply.
  • Something that you have lived personally.
  • Something that inspires you.

You can begin to discover the WHY that feeds your spirit as well as your bank account by beginning to ask yourself these simple questions:

  1. What do I believe in most that could guide my actions and inspire others too?
  2. What lesson has repeated itself in my life?
  3. How have I been to hell and back and what did I learn?
  4. What values do I honor most?
  5. What inspires my passion and energy?

And then, my friend, be patient.  Finding WHY is a process of discovery, not invention.

Allow things to surface, and continue to wait. Give yourself 3 months to sit with it.  Ask for support and bounce ideas off of someone you trust.

And an amazing thing will happen when you find your WHY. 

When you begin to live it, others will follow you. We want to be inspired, to know what you believe in, to follow someone who knows WHY they do what they do.

So please give it to us.

Stephanie


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