What’s My Why? How to Uncover Our Personal Truth

Understanding and articulating what we believe we are born to do – our unique life purpose – is one of the most powerful ways to focus our finite personal development energy in the right places.  It’s also one of the most effective ways to begin to visualize and become our best selves. And when we do that, it makes life better for us as well as those around us. Put another way, figuring out “what’s my why?” can be just the ticket – for our own personal development, happiness, and fulfillment.

That is, figuring out, or at least getting some notions about, our unique purpose and identity.

To begin to understand “Why do I, specifically, exist?”. To know: What’s My Why?

As we continue through this process, many questions will arise. There is no rule book. Some questions you may find yourself grabbling with include:

• What am I intended to do with the gifts I’ve been given?
• Who should I befriend and support?
• How can I make the most powerful impact?
• Where will my involvement bring the most good?
• When I am drifting off course, how will I bring myself back to “my why”?

What’s My Life Purpose? Keeping it Fresh

I’ve written before about various approaches to help us determine our life purpose. There is no shortage of tools and techniques to choose from. For example

• we can take an inventory of what I call our “superpowers”.
• or use a more textbook approach that focuses on various aspects of our own personal well-being.
• we can use our senses to help us better understand what brings us happiness.
• or we can focus on how we spend our time, and most specifically, what activities help us reach the state of flow.

The Latest Way to Figure Out Our Life Purpose

The technique I’m sharing today is different. It requires us to distill everything down into an answer to a one specific question: “What’s My Why?”.

Understanding “our why” allows us to simplify our thinking and reflection.

It provides a touchstone that can act as an instant and constant barometer of our well-being.

But it also goes beyond that.

We often have a pretty good sense of how we feel. Knowing our “why” can help us more because it focuses on action and activities and aligning those to one overarching mantra or guiding principle.

When we feel unease, it may likely mean we are drifting off-course. Understanding our “why” helps to us more accurately tune into what’s out of alignment. To more accurately know how to adjust our course to get back on the straight and narrow.

At first, I found it challenging to figure out one overarching answer to “what’s my why?”.

The process to get to your own unique “why” consists of asking yourself a series of questions about your life. Some of them will be challenging. At first, I found it hard to look at things this wholistically. I had to start by asking questions about components of my life, such as work, health, and family. That may work for you, too – or you may be able to tackle it all in one big bundle. Whatever approach you take, over time, seeing similarities and patterns in your answers will help you to refine your one, single, overarching “why”. And once you do, everything else becomes easier.

Why? Because understanding “what’s my why” helps us to clearly see where aspects of our life align to our best purpose and ideal life; and where we are missing the mark.

When our actual life is misaligned to our ideal life – “our why” – we feel uncomfortable and unhappy and restless and discontent. Anything that helps us keep our real life more closely aligned to our ideal life is an amazing tool to keep at the ready.

Getting to What’s My Why? Examples

There are no explicit procedures for this technique, but it always helps me to see examples of how others have done it. So, this will give you an idea. I could start with a basic question like “When am I happy?”. The times I identify as my happiest are likely the times when my activity and priorities are aligned with my life purpose and values. Once I have listed some answers, I would follow up with additional questions: Why don’t I spend more time doing this? How can I change my life so that I do these things more often? What’s standing in my way? Who would support me?

Here are a few more thoughts about where to begin your “What’s My Why?” questioning:

1. When am I most relaxed?
2. What brings me the most fulfillment on the job?
3. Who are the most important people in my life?
4. Do I feel as though I currently have work-life balance?
5. Am I clear on my life goals?
6. Do I feel as though I’m making progress or standing still?
7. What would make me feel as though I were growing and developing?
8. How would I spend a day if I had no obligations and money were no object?
9. What would I attempt to do if I knew I could not fail?
10. Who are the people who bring out the best in me?

There are no right or wrongs answers or outcomes. But some examples of “what’s my why” statements others have come up with are as follows:

1. I live my life as I do to provide my family with a loving home.
2. My purpose is to nurture and educate young children.
3. I am most fulfilled when I provide compassionate care to the elderly.
4. I share knowledge with others to help improve lives.
5. I bring people together and work to resolve differences amicably.

Happy reflection and here’s to living in tune with our “Why”!

Thank you as always for reading.

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KindCompassCoach

Joan Senio is the founder of KindCompassCoach. Her career includes 20+ years as a private sector corporate executive and 15 years as a consultant. The common thread through her professional life has been a commitment to compassionate coaching and leadership, including mentoring early and mid-career professionals as well as current and future executives and leaders. KindCompassCoach articles are backed by research and include facts and advice from relevant experts. Joan is a member of the International Organization of Life Coaches, serves as a thought-leader for KuelLife.com and is a regular contributor to PsychReg and Sixty and Me.