Many people have aspirations for a better life and never come close to consistently achieving their goals. I get stuck in the HOW stage, which is asking how questions such as:
- How to loose weight?
- How to make more money?
- How to be more successful?
The internet is a unlimited source of HOW. At the time of writing, a Google search for “How to lose weight” yielded 623,000,000 results! With so many results, information overload is hard to avoid. For example, I struggled with jumping from diet to diet, financial plan to financial plan, self help guru to self help guru looking for the “secret” how to make my aspirations easy to achieve. Therefore, the major issue was this: all how’s take a sizable time investment, and I never stayed with any of them long enough to see the advertised results. At least not until I learned about a new way to process my aspirations.
The power of why
Over the last 6 months I have lost 30 pounds and now weight the lowest I have in roughly 10 years. Firstly, my weight loss journey didn’t progress until I started thinking about my WHY. Consequently, I got real with myself and didn’t accept my first response. Those of you with kids know the endless cycle of questioning given by a toddler who has learned to ask a why question. Above all, this process of asking multiple why questions is one of the most powerful tools I have come across to building motivation and life momentum.
The plan
Start by asking a why question and then ask another why to get more specific answers, for example:
- I am overweight and want to lose weight. Why?
- To be alive for my child’s graduation. Why?
- It would mean the world to my child for me to make this life change and show them how much I love them.
- To be alive for my child’s graduation. Why?
As you can see, the final reason why is incredibly more powerful than a simple “I want to lose weight because I’m fat” answer.
The challenge
Go at least 3 layers deep to find your serious WHY. Remember the more specific why questions and answers you can give, the stronger the motivation. Get to it now!