Find Your Why, Stop Living the Why Not

How often do you wake up seeking to be comfortable? I would argue it is one of the most overused and abused words we have in our language arsenal. Comfort is an overrated and lazy pursuit. 

Being comfortable is choosing the “Why Not” in life instead of finding and focusing on your “Why.”

I have been a why not guy for a long time. Living the “why not” was an easy and lazy way out for me to achieve mediocrity for myself despite some excellence in results for others around me in the businesses and communities that I touched. 

Having a “why”, a focus with a definitive map for your decisions is a must for our nature. It becomes self destructive without one and will create the “why not” to occur. 

Situational awareness is a term often used in the military to represent the understanding of your surroundings and immediate reaction needed for successful response. In life you use risk analysis to determine actions based on that situational awareness. 

We all have our values and morals that drive our risk analysis and responses–often without critical thinking involved. If we simply rely on what makes us feel good, on self-care to determine that response, we fail. You have to separate from the “why not” destruction and find the “why” to champion your success in all aspects of life creating the legacy and sphere of influence the world you touch and affect deserves. 

Think about where you sit today with your role in life, your business, job and even family. Are you scripting your daily activity for yourself, or is there someone else driving that vision? Are you living in reaction, or defining what results you are seeking despite daily changes and challenges to the plan? 

No matter what occupies your time you have a choice to be a “why” or a “why not” guy or gal. 

For a business to succeed it must provide vision to its client base as well as its personnel. The Human Capital inside any organization is arguably the most valuable asset, but it is also the most unpredictable. Machines break, supply chains have hiccups, tech can go awry at times with updates to software or hardware, but the looming problems are predictable with scripted fixes. 

Oftentimes with personnel when things go off path it seems like people are making the wrong decisions. At times it almost seems purposefully detrimental to the cause, and likely an attempt to create some sort of change. 

I would argue that the leadership has lost direction and turned their employees into “why not” folks because they have lost the “why.” 

In life however, you are that leader. You decide for yourself what your purpose is, what your focus and drive will be or become, and the following results you create through action.

This affects sports teams, businesses and at a very granular level communities, families and friends. In business it will lose your company money, create a culture that is toxic and push your business and life into atrophy. 

In “The Purpose Driven Business: Why Your Mission Matters” Jan Bruce quotes Venture Capitalist Tony Tjan saying “It turns out there are many ways to make a billion dollars: real estate, investing, gaming and entertainment, retail, technology, and good old fashioned inheritance. But the most interesting (and most respected) businesses and personalities are also the ones with the strongest and most authentic purposes behind them.”

No matter what your good or service, no matter how “good” you see yourself and life to be, without a purpose and that “why” you are failing yourself and everything you touch. 

Finding your “why” in business is usually an easily defined process. Understanding your product and client base is the start, then finding the focus of how your business or product fits that role in the market creates the “why.” After that come mission statements, your business “Ten Commandments” or “Bill of Rights” if you will and voila! Product goes to market with defined why’s for personnel, and clients will see the vision and value what you bring to the table. 

One of the most overlooked and often undervalued “why’s” is yours personally. Finding what defines you, defines the legacy you want and the daily impact you have is sometimes seemingly impossible. 

I have been there–more times than I can count or honestly willing to admit. I have chased the lazy and easy by just saying, “why not, fuck it” all too often. It is what leads us to a path determined by self-care and self assurance with a lack of understanding how destructive it is to ourselves and everything you touch. 

I stated above that comfort is lazy–because it is. Being snug as a bug in a rug while you just take an easy path to obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse or the like is selfishness being defined by your life decisions. What I listed may seem extreme to some, but the easy path could be much simpler and is often less obvious.

At times we view failure in that list above, but I would counter without failure there is no learning. I don't see those things as failure because failure with intent is good.

You can’t fail if you don’t first try, and without trying you are becoming a “why not” living in self pity and surely will not have growth. I would rather be a failure 100 times over than be considered lazy or full of inaction. 

There are many variables in life you will not control–things that you have no say in what happens to you. How you react is up to you, but without a “why” to determine your focus and results, you will slide into the “why not” and never produce the results and impact the world deserves around you. 

Sure, you can find success, you can live easy and still win–but something will always be missing. That feeling in your guts won’t go away. 

Do yourself a favor today–find your why and stop living in the “why not” space in your head, heart and life. Those around you will see change, you will feel the change and the fulfillment that will follow will produce results with more intention and growth than you ever imagined.