3 Benefits Of Knowing Your “Why” + How To Find Yours
Recently, I got to speak in front of the College of Business at WSU, which has been a goal of mine since graduating. So that was a pretty surreal moment. I got to talk to a bunch of college grads, juniors, and seniors who are, I would say, extremely anxious about entering the workforce.
I understand it feels overwhelming. But all the questions we got asked were all around, how can I do better? How can I get a job? How can I make connections? What should I do with my life? I wanted to shake all of these students and say, I still don't know what I'm doing with my life. But I at least keep moving forward and make changes as I go.
The Most Important Question To Ask Yourself
The point is a lot of the questions they asked were very tactical. And a lot of questions I hear from clients, people empowering people, and CEO society are also very tactical. But there are better questions to ask. The biggest one, the most important one is simple. It's why?
Why are you doing the things you're doing? If you don’t know, don’t worry. I am going to help you find your why. So let's jump on in.
First of all, this is going to be very interactive, but it's going to be super powerful for you too.
I'm really focusing on helping you identify what the heck you should launch in the first place, whether it's a new business, a new offer, a podcast, whatever that quote unquote “it” thing is, I want to help you do it successfully. But before you do it successfully, you have to know what you're doing. And you guessed it, you have to know why.
Honestly, if I were to give anyone a hot tip on what to do before they start a business, or a podcast, or group, it would be find your why. So let’s get to it!
The Three Benefits of Knowing Your Why
I'm gonna break it down into three main reasons you need to know your why in business –and I would argue in life too. Then I'm going to actually walk you through the steps to figure this out,
Be Decisive In What You Say Yes or No To
The way I like to describe it is when you say yes to something and it feels like you have to almost sell yourself on it –like you're not totally convinced it's the best thing to do. Maybe you flip-flop back and forth. Yes, no, yes, no. But you're not clear if it feels good in your bones.
That's because you don't know your why. If you know your why, you can do three things, you can be extremely decisive. You'll know immediately if it's a hell yes. And if it's not, it's probably a no.
Now hell yes. That's a little scary, but I think is a good thing. If you're having to lower your prices, if you're having to bend over backwards, if you're having to over commit, if you're having to do more than you would ask of you and it's not helping you get to your end goal, then why are you doing it? Knowing your why will help you confidently make those decisions of yes or no.
2 . Gain Clarity On Where You’re Going
Number two is, it's going to provide clarity. So oftentimes, I use the analogy of being a Business Owner is like being the captain of a ship. No one else can direct you on where to go. No one else is literally visualizing where to go and also helping the team get there –that falls on you as the business owner. Knowing your why provides clarity on where you're going because you know why you're doing it.
3. Stay Motivated To Keep Going
The last piece of the puzzle is it provides motivation to keep going. What about those days when you don't feel like getting up? What about those days when all you want to do is run away from your problems and go play all day? I'm not saying to not have work life balance, that's not the point here.
I'm just saying on those days, where you have to dig a little bit deeper than a goal you wrote on a sticky note one time –that's where the why kicks into play. That's why it's so important to have it front of mind so you can grab it at any time.
For me, I learned this the hard way. But I've also learned the more I understand why I am the way I am, when I fall off track, it's easier to bring myself back up when I get overly excited for something. It allows me to check myself when the schedule is starting to look pretty full, the social obligations are piling up. It's also a great metric or tool I can use to check in with myself to make sure the why is where it's at.
How To Figure Out Your Why
So now that we know the why, I want to help you figure out how to do it. I'm not a gatekeeper here. I'm a big fan of sharing all of the things. The only difference between this free content for you and paying me to do it for you is I get to come alongside you and help you on the execution piece of it. I also have a lot more tools in my toolkit than these little 15-minute sound bites.
That being said, the work is on you. It's on your shoulders, I just get to help you strategize what that is and hype you up as you go along your journey. So here's where we really dig in. This is not going to be easy.
What I Learned From Simon Sinek About Finding Our “Why”
First of all, I would encourage you to read Start With Why by Simon Sinek. He also did a TED talk on the topic. But I think the book has so much more than just the TED talk, and then I would also encourage you to read his second book, Find Your Why. The second book is where it's at. There's so many people who have no clue what the second book is, but it actually walks you through the steps I'm about to walk you through.
But here's the thing, I know you're not gonna read two books, and also want to spend four hours with me. So I'm gonna give you the Cliff Notes version. It's up to you to go and execute on this on your own. So here's the Cliff Notes version of Simon Sinek. Start with Why and Find your Why has been transformative for me.
I'm sharing my wisdom with you in the hopes that it helps provide that clarity, the ability to make better decisions, and the motivation to keep going when times get tough. So let's jump on in.
Write Down Your High Highs & Your Low Lows
The first thing I want you to do is write this down. And it's important that you don't just think about this. Write this down, write down your highest highs and your lowest lows, and I want you to expand beyond business. I want you to think of your whole life. When you were a kid, when you were a teenager in those awkward years, when you were first starting your business and times were tough, and you were hustling your butt off just to pay the bills. The high highs and low lows in story format. Just write them down, bullet point point them.
Notice How You Feel in The Moments
From there, I want you to really think about how you felt in those moments. How did it feel? What smells do you remember? What sounds do you remember? How did you feel in your gut? How did you feel in your body? Where where is your mindset at? When things were tough? How did you feel? Were you afraid? Were you anxious? Were you stressed? Were you overwhelmed? Really get clear on how you felt in those moments.
Find Common Threads To Craft Your Story
Next, I want you to start to look at the common threads. This is why writing it down is going to make it stick so much more. It's just going to be easier to map it all out together. Because at the end of the day, we're trying to tell a story. And the story is, who are you really? And why do you make the decisions and life choices and actions that you do?
So high highs, low lows, reflect on how you felt in those different moments and then look at the common threads.
I'll share some of mine with you. This is getting really invulnerable. Some of mine are when people say no but push through anyways, applying for things I am underqualified for, sticking up for the underdog, sticking up for what's quote unquote “right,” and trying new things.
Some of my hard stuff is protection. I have a fierce protection mechanism in me. If you mess with any of my people, I am extremely protective of them to a fault, to a point where I project that on people. You might hear a happy, bubbly, gets real and honest Kelsey about why she is that way. It's because she had to grow up really fast. She had to protect people from a very young age, from a lot of hard stuff.
I share that because that spills into how I do business. That's why I do what I do. I believe so fiercely in your dreams, I believe so strongly, that you are capable and destined for more that I will literally force you to do it. Sometimes you don't want to do it. That's something I've had to learn and grow through the whole, you can lead a horse to water thing. Sometimes people don't want to be led by Kelsey and I've had to check myself with that. That also means that the people who do want different, I am an accelerator to that flame.
So all that to say, having those stories and being able to reflect on them, they start to paint a picture of who you really are, who you are when you're at your best, who you are when you're at your worst, and what you default to. Because in both those moments, there's typically a lot of stress going on. So it starts to reveal who you really are when you're being tested.
Now, as you're doing this exercise, I want you to stop and take a couple deep breaths. Take a break if you need to. Because this is heavy stuff.
When I did this, I did it with someone who didn't know me very well. We talked for three to four hours about my life. It was emotional, it was hard, I came home and I cried and had a pretty good glass of wine. It was not easy. It was not a happy exercise. Because I had convinced myself that all the things that make me powerful and good at what I do, were motivated positively, when in fact, they were not necessarily coming from the best places. The intentions are good, but what caused me to be this way, is a lot of really hard stuff I went through as a child.
Narrow Down Your Why
So the more I'm aware of that, the more I can catch myself, as I'm moving forward in my career, business, and everything. But as you're doing this, I want you to start to narrow the scope a bit and try to pick out three to five common themes.
I mentioned mine earlier because at the end of this, we're going to have crafted a sentence. That’s the destination of where we're going, we're literally trying to aim at one core sentence that describes who we are. So we need to start to process of elimination, get rid of stuff.
As you're doing this, I encourage you to think really big picture. Maybe there's sub-themes that fit into a bigger theme. So for me, again, protection is a big piece.
Another way of saying protection is inspiration because we want it to not necessarily sound negative. So I think it's really helpful to start narrowing the list down to around three to four. From there, you're going to massage it out. You're going to workshop it until it lands and it feels good.
I would say this step is so much easier when you have someone doing it for you. But if you're doing it yourself, maybe you get close to it and start to share it with people close to you. I also highly recommend that you run this by people who know you from different perspectives, run it by your business mentor, run it by one of your clients, run it by one of your friends, run it through the filter of all the different people who see you from different perspectives and see if it really sticks with them.
Crafting Your Why Statement
Next, you're going to land on a why statement. I'm going to tell you how to set it up because there's a specific format for this. You set it up like this, it's a fill-in-the-blank. I'll share mine with you. Mine is to inspire people to take action so that they live an authentic life with purpose. That's it.
That's why the podcast is now called The Get Shit Done Podcast because it's about taking action on your goals. When you look at the networking groups I run, that's why I run groups for business owners specifically because they're business owners and they're investing time and money to be together around other business owners, which means they want more they want bigger. Those are my people.
It's why I'm a part of CougsFirst! Which if you know them, they're very passionate people, but they're business owners, meaning they want to grow together, whether that's growing the next generation or sending referrals through each other. They have a desire for more.
I constantly am putting myself in situations where I can leverage my why. That's why, when I launched my very first thing in the coaching space, which was a course that failed, it's because it was caught in conflict with my why: to inspire people to take action. How do I know if I give you a course that you're taking action on? I don't, the truth is I don't know. I even got to a place where I was so anti-course because most people don't finish it, I started to think finishing a course means success.
But then I think back to my life and there's been times when I've bought courses that I haven't finished, I bought one on podcasting that I never finished. I got to a point where I was like, I know enough now, I can go launch this thing. And here we are 115 or so episodes later.
So just because I didn't finish that course doesn't mean I didn't take action. In fact, it made me take action faster. So I had to change my mindset around courses. I also had to check myself. If I'm going to sell a course, which I'm going to be honest with you, I'm working on rebranding one because now I'm in a place where I believe in it and I know it can be a tool to help people, I'm going to be really direct in how I market it and really clear.
Why Taking Decisive Action Stems From Your Why
Because at the end of the day, the secret to running a successful business, the secret to the multi-seven-figure business owners or the multi-eight-figure business owners is they make they take decisive action. They do shit, they do it, they fail, they pick themselves up, they keep going. They try with little ROI until, eventually they have it.
Of course, there are a lot of other skill sets. But that's one of the biggest core ones. Again, that's because they know who they are. They know why they're doing it because wanting to hit six figures wanting to hit 10k followers, wanting to get 200 email subscribers is not enough. Because what are you going to do when times get tough? What are you going to do when you cross that finish line? You have to scramble and create a new finish line.
But if you know your why, and that never wavers, then you can constantly evolve and grow from there. And that is more sustainable.
So in conclusion, I hope you go through this exercise and ultimately, go do the thing. Go get clear on who you are. Go get clear on why you do what you do. I hope this helps you be really clear on who you are. I hope it equips you to make better decisions in your business. I hope it encourages you to realize there is no shortcut for the show up and to keep doing the thing.