Today I thought I would share the value of the WHY!? This theme has been coming through so strongly lately & I feel I haven’t done it justice unpacking it yet. For me, in this season, it has been SO vital to remember my WHY & to remain focused on it. Let me unpack this a little bit for those who do not understand…
WHAT is a WHY?
A WHY is part of the reason God made you… might be the whole reason depending on the structure of your life. A WHY plays into every area of your life as it will be your natural tendency in your job, your relationships, your responsibility etc. It is the force that drives you towards & away from certain experiences, choices & paths. A WHY is part of the reason you find the strength to wake up in the morning & it is the beautiful thread woven through the tapestry of your life. A WHY brings consistency, purpose & destiny into the forefront of your mind.
My WHY
In 2016, while I was deciding to leave corporate… I was really struggling to define my WHY. The reason I struggled was because the corporate world has alot of extra bits that are ‘man made’ measurements that determine our ‘worthiness’ & success within the structure of an organisation. I understood at this time that I loved people & that I loved walking alongside people BUT I fought with these instincts because corporate has other factors like budgets, targets, performance indicators, strategy & goals that sometimes cause people to act completely out of character & perhaps even affect how people show up.
Upon leaving corporate, I could finally explore my gifts without the constraints of the code of conduct. I could fully explore peoples magnificence without the graphs of the sales performance & strategy. I could look beyond their measurables & see the humans as they strived towards their destiny & I could help people navigate their thinking & their actions based on whatever God led me to see 0r wherever God led them to be. All the debris of corporate capitalism could be removed & the human spirit, mind & heart could take president.
In these last few years, I have realised that my WHY is about reflecting peoples magnificence back at them. To show how God has always been in the detail & how every step we have taken is part of the process. How people have everything they need already inside of them & how their gifting is totally part of their original design. How God doesn’t make mistakes & the extra qualifications, skills & expertise people acquire are just part of the refinement of the beauty & resourcefulness God has purposed you with anyway. This my WHY & I get to play that out in every area of my life. As a mother, my children are my greatest blessings & I am challenged in raising them to see all of the above as they navigate their day to day. I don’t always succeed but I get to practice daily… meaning that I get to flex my WHY muscles frequently.
A WHY & your brain
Your brain is a connection machine. Its main function is to make connections to & with the information that you are feeding it. A WHY is such an important part of your brain function as it helps to direct your brain towards & away from certain things. This is why I work with Vision as a starting point for my coaching process. Vision is like the foundations of the WHY & helps to direct your thinking, your awareness, your reflection, your relation, your existence. The brain does not know the difference between the actual & the imagination so if you give it enough stimulus to support something like a thought or a belief, it will see whatever you give it as truth. This us why it is vital to be cognisant of what you ‘feed’ your brain. What you talk about in your conversations, what you read, what you WhatsApp to your friends, what you look for on the internet, what you listen to, what you reflect on etc etc etc. Facebook for example, reads your SEO & information in WhatsApp, instagram etc & adjusts your ‘feed’ accordingly. If your brain is focussed consistently on the correct thing, like your WHY then all your feeds will be in alignment to your WHY. You brain will also seek out anything that supports your WHY, your purpose, the things that bring you joy, the relationships that feed your purpose & the fulfilment therefor. You can literally be transformed by the renewing if your mind dependant on what YOU are exposing your mind to.
A WHY & your boundaries
A WHY helps you to have boundaries. It assists you to establish what is important & what you need to prioritise. It helps you to determine what the direction of your life needs to look like, what rest looks like, what rejuvenation looks like. It helps to keep you grounded, focused & balanced. It helps you to say NO to some things so you can say YES to other things. It helps you to say no for a better yes.
So many times I hear people complaining that they feel burned out & stretched to beyond their capacity. I can bet you that its everything outside of their WHY that stretches, maxes them out & exhausts their resources. I remember in my corporate tenure, the responsibilities that tired me were everything outside of my WHY. I loved chatting to people, I loved exploring their struggles & their challenges, problem solving using their strengths & building their resilience in challenging times. I loved seeing them find their sweet spot & totally playing into their gifts. the things I hated were budget meetings, client strategy meetings about figures, systems meetings, logistics & administrative focus sessions. Multitasking was something I was extremely good at but its something I have to be very wary of. If I am not focusing on my strengths… I am reliant on my human ability & then I am not hearing clearly from God. In my sweet spot… in my WHY… I am totally comfortable (most of the time) to give it over to God & just use my gifts to navigate the space.
My WHY allows me to define my boundaries. It allows me to make choices around my time. It helps me to know what helps me to rest & what rejuvenation looks like to me. I know when I am pushing myself beyond my capacity & I know when I am able to extend myself & when not.
How to start uncovering your WHY
A WHY is not a destination. It is a journey of discovery. The discovery or rather the uncovering of the self can only be done through time with the self, self love, self care, self awareness. Time with God is part of self care. For me… time with God is complete self care. For me self care & God connection is one & the same thing. To hear myself, to hear my spirit guiding me, directing me, whispering to me is to also hear from God. He speaks to me in the recesses of my heart. The Holy Spirit guides my inner man to hear, to see, to feel & through taking time out, I am able to hear clearly. When my boundaries are over run, when I have had too little sleep, when I have been eating badly or drinking too much wine, when I have been dabbling in areas that are NOT part of my WHY… then it becomes more & more challenging for me to hear clearly.
I would say that the journey to the WHY is part of & key to the evolution journey. Discovering who you are, what makes you happy, what brings you joy, what makes you fearful, what drains you, what fills you. You see you are already walking with your WHY inside in you. It is not something that you need to go OUT & find. It is something that you need to go IN & find.
Today is as good a day as any to decide that YOU & your WHY is worth exploring. God decided that YOU were needed on this earth. That is the reason you are here. What could be more important than that? I’ll leave you to ponder on that question & if you cannot manage to find the answer & need help with your own Evolution journey…. you can find me through here! Go ahead. Make this the year of the WHY. Connect with me right now through this link.
Much love until the next time…
Lynne
xxx