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Knowing your ‘Why’
This is the Swim Jump Fly Advent calendar, 12 bite-sized pieces of advice from my new book Swim Jump Fly: A guide to changing your life. I’ll be posting all the way up to the end of the year and this week I’ll share the first step in my 5-step process — focusing on your why and your where.
I’ll start with why. Making changes in our lives can be hard but knowing why you want to shift things around (your motivation) will give you more impetus to get going.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who said having a ‘why’ means we can bear almost anything. Focusing your efforts and actions on the things that bring meaning and purpose will make for a better life. That’s why you need to be clear about what matters to you.
So, here is an exercise to help you focus on your why, which might help. It’s from my book Swim, Jump, Fly:
First, identify a change you’d like to make. You might like to go back to the exercise in my last blog post on spans of control. Pick a topic that you identified was in your control, otherwise you’ll be making your climb steeper than it needs to be.
Then, ask yourself these questions:
1. What’s so important about working on this problem? What is my motivation to shift? What are the benefits and what are the costs/what will I lose if I change?
