What’s your why??

mqaddison-black
4 days ago
2 min read

When life gets tough and rough (which it seems to do from time to time) it is incredibly important to understand why it is that you make the daily sacrifices that you do.

What gets you up in the morning?

What keeps you motivated at work?

What stops you from being cranky with the kids when you get home after a long day?

What makes you hit the gym when you are tired and all you want to do is sit on the sofa in your pants and watch tv?

What maintains your perspicacity and challenges new growth?

Every organization that I have been a part of over the last 30 years from schools to corporations have their own values or creed that they espouse and want their employees to align with. Great!!

Good to know that that people at the top are thinking about this stuff.

BUT so often when I speak with clients and ask them what their why is, I get blank looks. It’s not the phraseology that confuses them. It is having to peel past the values and motivators imposed by others and find the sacred values that they hold for themselves. Dare I say, to identify their own intrinsic motivations…

This is hardly a new concept:

· The Ancient Greeks had the ‘Eleusinian Mysteries’.

· Hinduism has ‘Sannyasa’.

· The Nepalese have ‘Kumari Seclusion’.

· Catholicism has ‘Tonsure and Novitiate’.

· Judaiism has ‘bar Mitzvah Preparation’.

· Islamic Sufism has ‘Khalwa’.

· Buddhism has the ‘Chöd Retreat’, ‘Anagārika’, ‘Bodong’, ‘Vipassana Retreat’ and ‘Nisshinkan Monastic Retreat’.

· Aboriginals have ‘walk about’.

· Native Americans have ‘Vision Quests’.

The frameworks for these things are all pretty similar:

Withdraw from your normal environment (nature is best).

Contain yourself (PEDs off, no disruptions for a set period).

Disrupt your thinking (physical challenge, privation, solitude, silence all work).

Reflect (notice, name and process your thoughts and emotions).

Return (bring new personal insights back into your day-to-day life).

Why should you do this??

Because getting to know yourself is bloody important.

Being comfortable with who you are impacts how you show up for yourself and others.

Learning to accept and love yourself warts and all is a big step in personal congruence which leads to personal master which ultimately leads to a life well lived.

Give it a try.

Let me know what you come up with