Because how many times have we relied on willpower to make us to do something?
At the start of the year, I had wrote about how it’s the lack of the why that may have caused us to let go of our set New Year’s resolutions. The new “New Year’s Resolution” system included focusing on WHY-power rather than WILL-power.
We are going to go a little deeper on what it means to focus on our WHY when it comes to accomplishing our goals.
Willpower failed me
Willpower alone had never helped me stay on course with everything that I’m working on.
I know that there were countless times where willpower was my only hope. I relied on willpower to allow me to keep going with all my systems and habits.
I relied on willpower to keep me going with the habits that I tried to acquire.
I relied on willpower to stop me from falling back into my old habits.
For instance, I relied on willpower to get myself to eat more fruits and vegetables. I also relied on willpower to stop me from snacking too much.
But then what happened?
A couple of weeks in, one long day made me believe that I deserved a “reward” and I ended up falling back into my excessive snacking habits. At the same time, a hard week made me believe that I deserved a cheat day… every day.
It took a while for me to end up breaking out of this endless cycle of setting a goal, new year’s resolution, or commitment to myself only for my willpower to fail me.
It wasn’t willpower that I was supposed to rely on – it was WHY-power. It’s where we have a powerful WHY that gets us through both the good and also the mundane days…
We’ll go a little deeper into this:
WHY-POWER
On top of setting my New Year’s Resolution, I was also supposed to clarify my WHY on why I wanted to accomplish it.
Otherwise it would just be the same cycle where I would set a New Year’s Resolution, rely on willpower to keep me going, and before I knew it, one bad day slips me back into my original routine.
Pretty much, me assuming that willpower is all I need to change my habits and systems is like trying to recover from a heart attack by solely taking painkillers. To recover from that heart attack, obviously something stronger than painkillers are needed.
The problem with willpower is that we don’t really have a driving force to keep us going especially during the rough days. If we have a WHY, we would have a reason to keep going no matter what. We would have a reason to keep going regardless on how we feel or how the day is.
I always thought that if I had a challenging time doing all the work that I need to get done to accomplish my goals, it was because I lacked willpower. However, The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy had made a good point about all of this. It is not enough to simply say that we are going to do or not do something.
There were always countless times when after stopping my bad habits for a few days, or after starting a new habit for a week, once things just got just a bit uncomfortable, the temptation is so high to fall back into the routine.
Ultimately, willpower had failed me most of the time – it wasn’t my number one help in assisting me in accomplishing all the goals that I had set for myself.
So of course, since doing the same thing over and over again wouldn’t always give us different results, there’s something new that we could try… WHY– power.
WHY-POWER over Willpower
WHY-power is such an interesting concept – it is when the choices that we make are only meaningful when it’s connected to our desires and goals. It’s where our choices are aligned with our values and our purpose.
It’s where we’ve got to want something and know why we want it so badly. Otherwise, if the why isn’t clear enough, it will just make it easier to give up.
It is the why that gets us to stick to even the hardest habits and choices we need to make. If it isn’t powerful enough, then it’s going to be like another New Year’s Resolution we let go.
This was something that I had to ask myself – what is my why?
I needed to know the why to be able to make those changes in my life and stick with them.
Whether the choices that I had to make were hard or easy, I still needed a why to keep me going and stick with them.
For example, during lockdown when we had no choice but to watch our lectures online, there were plenty of instances where I just wanted to skip them.
However, it was something as little as a WHY that ended up making me watch them anyway. The why evolved on my degree, but also on what I wanted to do with my degree. Even though watching my lectures is my least favourite part of the day, it was that small why that pushed me to watch them anyway.
Whenever I felt like skipping a lecture, there was always a thought running in the back of my head:
“If you skip this lecture, you skip important information. If you skip important information you won’t pass this subject. If you don’t pass this subject you won’t get your degree. If you don’t get your degree, forget about being a lawyer”
It had all gone back to my WHY. There were always little thoughts that would pop up in my head haunting me on what would happen if I didn’t watch my lectures. To get my degree and everything after that may have been a small why, but it was enough to push me through not just my lectures, but all the other parts of studying.
Just because we have a WHY doesn’t mean that we’re going to enjoy everything 24/7
Having a why is similar to having a passion for something. Just like with assuming that willpower is the only thing I need to keep me going, I was also wrong about how passion worked in my life.
For instance, I had always assumed that if we’re passionate about something, we are never going to experience pain. However, the truth was that pain was part of the process nonetheless.
This was similar with having a why. Just because we have a why it certainly did not mean that I was never going to have hard days and challenges to keep up with my habits. The role of the why is to keep us going through the process of accomplishing our goals, even if we don’t love everything about the process. The why would become our little reminder to keep going even when we don’t feel like it.
Another assumption I made about passion is how there are going to be no problems at all. Again, it’s similar with having a why. Having a why isn’t going to stop our problems. Instead, it’s supposed to help us through the problems and challenges of accomplishing our goals. It’s supposed to stop us from giving up when things get really hard.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve never watched a motivational talk or listened to a podcast where someone said that they never dealt with any problems when accomplishing their success (if there is, someone please tell me, I’m so curious). And to be honest, the motivational talk wouldn’t actually be so motivational if the person speaking just said that they had a perfect journey.
What we may notice a lot whenever we hear an inspiring story, is how the person kept going no matter what, because they kept remembering why they started. At times when they felt like giving up, they always go back to why they began in the first place, and remembered what they wanted to accomplish, and how badly that they wanted it.
Regardless of the circumstances, it is not the willpower, but the why-power that would navigate us through all the good and bad days of accomplishing our goals. The willpower can help us in good days, but on days when we don’t feel like it, the why is what would be kept in the back of our minds.
Finding our WHY in 2 steps
At first, I had trouble figuring out my why for the goals that I had set for myself, especially the New Year’s Resolutions. Because I like having a step-by-step process for everything because I get easily lost, that is what I’m about to breakdown.
Step 1 – Knowing our core values
To know our why, we first need to know our core values.
The main core of our why comes from our core values – who we are and what we stand for.
It is our values that are our base point in our choices and temptations, ensuring that it’s leading us to where we want to be.
One way we can know what are values are is to observe our choices. We can do this by observing our choices, and whether our words align with our actions. For example, if health and fitness is apparently our value, but we spend our nights binge snacking and watching TV, then there’s a conflict.
When face with a choice, we can ask ourselves if it aligns with our values. If it doesn’t then we don’t undertake those choices, and instead focus on the choices that do align with our values.
Step 2 – Put our WHY to the test
Of course, one way to know whether our WHY is working for us is to see how much it actually helps us get through even the most challenging days.
In the blog post that I had written about a different way to approach New Year’s Resolutions, I mentioned this really good analogy that was used in The Compound Effect. I’m going to mention it again because I loved that analogy so much.
It’s where it mentioned that if someone was to put a ten-inch-wide, thirty-foot-long plank on the ground and said that they will give you $20 if you walked across the plank to the other side, it’s easy to say yes. As you can tell, there is a why. That why is the $20, an easy $20 to make.
However, if that person took that same plank and put it between two 100-story buildings and told me to do the same thing (walk across the plank), and I get nothing in exchange for that, I wouldn’t do it. You may have noticed that there is no why to motivate me from doing the challenge of walking across that plank.
Even if they told me that they would give me $20, I still wouldn’t cross that plank. The $20 doesn’t seem worth it anymore – the why was not powerful enough to push through that challenge.
BUT, if one of my loved ones was on the opposite building, and the building was on fire, there would be no question that I would walk that plank to save them. That was my powerful why. It is that why that would get me to walk that plank even though it was extremely dangerous. That’s an example on how our why can drive us to even do the most challenging things.
This analogy is my favourite – it’s a clear example on how the why could make a difference on doing the hard or easy things regardless of the circumstances. Doing what we don’t want to do, when we don’t feel like doing it, wouldn’t matter if the WHY was powerful enough.
If we notice that we keep putting off the things that we should do, and continue with the things that we shouldn’t do, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate our why.
WHY we have a WHY
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the why is big or small, as long as it’s strong enough to keep going no matter what. It’s also best to keep in mind that the why is different for every person. We’re either motivated by what we want or what we don’t want.
For instance, two people would want to eat healthier for two different reasons. For one, it would be because they want to lose weight, and for the other it is because they don’t want to fall back into bad health.
Overall, it’s common sense to want to have something that would keep us going with everything in the long-term. While willpower can be a source of motivation in the short-term, it is the why-power that provides a bigger and better reason to keep going.
We just got to figure that out and know it.
Book(s) this post was inspired by:
(not sponsored in any way!)
Disclaimer: If you think that any of what I had written was good, the credit actually belongs to the one whose book was the inspiration for this post. If there’s anything on here that you think is quite stupid, that’s 100% blame on me 🙂
Share This Blog Post Here:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, this is Lauren! I’m a law grad from Melbourne, Australia. On laurenbarri.com, I create content on all things personal development, productivity, self-care, and habits! I am super passionate about these topics because of how they helped me in all areas of my life, and I want to share it with others!
CONNECT with ME!! 🗯
Instagram:
@laurenlbarri (blog Instagram)
If you got value from this blog in any way, it would mean the world if you could show your support on my Buy Me a Coffee platform! (otherwise I am just really happy that you’re here 😊)
Related Articles:
Based on the same book:
Similar Articles:
