One Key To Success: Answering Why

Have you ever read or seen something amazing and thought, “I’m definitely going to do that?” Why did you want to do it?

As I started to chase my dreams and transition to truly living I read every blog my eyes could handle. I listened to every podcast I could find about self-improvement on iTunes. I devoured content and was inspired every ten minutes, it was a blessing and curse!

As I started to take action and apply what I was learning something happened: it didn’t work!

What was going on? I studied, I came up with a plan and the people I learned from were really successful, so what went wrong?

Why is the engine that drives the car

I missed something very crucial, I couldn’t answer WHY I was doing what I was doing. I would write a certain way or even use a certain tool because that’s what I saw the big shots doing.

I would use social media this way, I would promote my books that way. I started this service or created that product, all because of what others had done with success.

The reason I didn’t have success and why you won’t either is because I hadn’t thought of why I should use that tool or why I should do things that certain way.

If I had thought of why I wanted to do this or that, I could have saved myself a lot of valuable time and resources.

Different situations require different actions

Great content and instruction is amazing and inspiring but not all of it is meant for you. You are unique and your dreams are unique, what worked for someone else might not work for you.

Sure you can force it and maybe see a few results but more than anything you’re taking time away from a different solution that could work much better for you.

Take great instruction you get and use the process but personalize the implementation!

Click to Tweet

The simple test with big results

If you see a new idea or something you want to try, perform the simple why test. Before you use that idea, just ask yourself why it makes sense for your situation.

Ask yourself why you think it would work and why it applies to your uniqueness. If you can answer why specifically, then you won’t waste your time or take away from a better solution.

It’s easy to get fired up from amazing content and it’s much easier to just want to copy someone else.

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My why illustrated 

Now as I added these click to tweets I’ve asked myself why I would do it. I heard Derek Halpern talk about using them and I used to use them because he does.

By asking myself why I can clearly see the reason and value: people are more likely to tweet these quotes then the entire post. I put a link back to the post and when people tweet, their friends are likely to click back to here. I answered my why

See how that works?

Have you been guilty of not asking why you do something? List one example please