Have you ever thought about why you do the things you do and why you do them the way you do? Do you ever stop to consider the whys or do you just keep doing the things you do even if the reason why you started doing them may no longer be relevant.
YES! Why? The big question is why, but most of us don’t stop to consider our whys or if we do, we don’t stop often enough to consider if our whys are still relevant. So because we don’t stop to consider the relevance of our whys, we keep plodding along.
The other reason why “why” is so powerful is because it gives you power, because if you have strong enough why you can deal with anyhow.
If you have a strong enough why you should do the things you want to do then you can easily find a way to do them because you have a burning reason why you should do them.
However, most people start with the how and not the why. But focusing on the “how” does not give you power because at best you are merely looking for the means to do something even though you don’t have the heart to do it. Starting with the why gives you the heart and the means to do the things you want to do. It gives you the courage to never back down and to follow your goals through the dark alleys of life that you would have had the courage to go through had you not had a strong why.
So why are you doing what you are doing? Why do you want to succeed?
Why do you have the goals you have, are they even worth pursuing? Why are you doing that to yourself? Is it because of money? Is money even good enough or a strong enough reason to want to succeed, do you put yourself through all that you are putting yourself through simply because you are paid to put yourself through that? Besides money what else is there, why are you doing what you are doing?
Some people pretend that money is the beginning and the end of everything, that money rules and they are in love with the idea that money is the power behind the throne. But is it really? What I have found is that upon further investigation these people are usually the first to admit that money has its limits.
But today I really didn’t want to talk about money because money has its place and nothing can take the place of money where money works. That much I admit, but I merely wanted you to ask yourself why you do the things that you do. Could it be possible that you are doing them because everybody else is doing them? Is it possible that you have not given much thought to what you are doing?
Do you know that it is possible to do things that you think are in your best interests but that upon further investigation by yourself reveal themselves to serve not your best interests but the best interests of others?
So you must think about these things objectively, make time to think and investigate your own behaviors to see if you are getting the required return on investment. Are some of your behaviors bearing the kind of fruits that you expect and if they are bearing the wrong fruits why are you continuing to engage in them? But then how can you ever know which behaviors are good for your short term and long term success if you don’t sit down often enough to evaluate them.
Note that you have said short and long term success because the behaviors that are good for your short term success may not be good for your long term success. So you may have to reach a compromise with yourself depending on what it is that you want most. But then once again I ask, how can you ever make such a deal with yourself if you don’t make time to think about issues that are IMPORTANT TO YOUR LIFE?
Life is about thinking and it is amazing how often we don’t think. We mistake habit for thinking. Not thinking in itself is a habit and the amount of thinking that goes into habit patterned behavior is not much. So why not engage your thinking capacities, your medulla oblongata as we were so fond of saying in high school. Start by asking yourself why? Examine if you “whys” are still relevant or if they are serving someone else’s best interests.
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