If we want to feel an undying passion for our work or feel we are contributing to something bigger than ourselves, we all need to know our WHY. – Simon Sinek
Life can be so overwhelming and meaningless at times. Just out of the blue, everything can suddenly lack direction, making our whole lives seem like an endless toil towards no particular end at all.
In such times when you feel helpless, only one thing makes it all worth it, and that is to remember your WHY.
This is the very purpose because of which we wake up every morning and look forward to the day with great enthusiasm.
Importance of Self-Purpose
The importance of having a WHY in life goes past mere superficial justifications for doing what we do. Without a why, it is tough to come up with a how, where, or pretty much anything else that makes life worth it.
○ Search for Life Meaning
In the book Man Searching for Meaning by Victor Frankl, the author highlights a few importance of self-purpose. Doing this, he shed an incredible light on why, without having a WHY in life, there is barely any meaning to existence in the first place.
Think about it this way, could there be a meaning to life when all we do is wake up, follow the same routine, toil, and labor, and then repeat it all the next day? Of course not.
But if all our toil and labor are all done for a purpose. If we know that all the sweat and tears are shed for a reason, everything becomes worth it.
○ It is Your Weapon Against Self Doubt
You don’t need to wait for anyone to recognize you.. You don’t have to wait for some external event or some other person’s approval. You can just know that you are worthy and start living your life on the basis of that knowledge.
Self-doubt and self-criticism can be a vicious cycle. One of the most common patterns is that we internalize the feedback or criticism from others, then beat ourselves up with it until we believe that it’s our own voice.
Self-doubt creeps in when we either have no WHY in life or our reasons are too weak to stand up to scrutiny. Once we have a valid purpose in life, a purpose we believe in with fervor, self-doubt stands no chance.
5 Ways to Consistency in Self purpose
Just as important as having a genuine reason to live is having the fortitude to stick to it and cultivate a significant amount of consistency towards it.
Below are five ways to ensure consistency of self-purpose so that we may reap the rewards that come with it. If you want to always remember your why, these are the five places to begin.
1. Create a Daily Ritual
Daily rituals are activities we never fail to carry out every day. Unconsciously, many of us already have such activities. To cultivate consistency in self-purpose, we must set daily intentions to help reinforce our whys.
How do we do this? A very efficient place to begin is by holding our goals in mind at all times. This way, we start to subconsciously carry out activities that reinforce our beliefs in these goals.
While this tends to happen subconsciously, there is no reason we can’t consciously come up with a routine, align it with our goals, and make it a daily ritual.
2. Understand Your Purpose
Before we can stand out, we must first get clear on what we stand for. – Simon Sinek
In life or in business, having a genuine purpose is just as important as having a why in the first place. The best way to achieve this is to stay true to our core values.
If, for example, anyone chooses to base their life’s purpose on a series of goals that are entirely unrealistic and unaligned with their strengths, it is safe to say that there is only pain to be gotten from this.
This is why, to ensure consistency in self-purpose, we must always ask ourselves what our core values are, and what defines us as a person.
Those who answer these questions and base their life’s purpose on the answers are very well on their way to mastering consistency in self-purpose and deriving the benefits of doing so.
3. Setting short-term and long-term goals
We may think of goals as checkpoints In life. Some checkpoints are pretty easy to attain, while some take longer. Both are just as important.
Goals are a powerful tool for motivation and achieving success. However, they need to be specific and measurable. In order to set short-term goals, it is important to get a clear understanding of the long-term goal. Short-term goals should be smaller milestones that get you closer to your long-term goal.
Having a broad WHY to life is understandable and vital. But this can sometimes be ineffective without having concrete short-term and long-term goals to analyze just how far we’ve come and what adjustments need to be made.
4. Prioritize what’s most important to your WHY
There’s a reason why setting priorities is regarded as one of the most important skills for success. This is because life is full of so many options, and yet we have very little time to explore these options.
Add this to the fact that some options are useless and only there for time-wasting, then we start to get a clearer picture of why priorities are essential.
The same goes for maintaining consistency of self-purpose. There are specific moments, tasks, and actions in life that are more conducive to helping us achieve our WHYs than others.
A vital step in maintaining focus and consistency is identifying these critical tasks, separating them from the unimportant ones, and dedicating our time to pursuing them.
5. Prioritize Emotional Stability over Emotional Highs
The most successful people in the world are often those who can maintain their composure at all times, not just when they’re high on emotion. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment, but it’s important to maintain emotional stability when you’re feeling down so that you can focus on getting back on your feet again.
Pairing emotional stability with emotional highs is key to maintaining a healthy life balance.
Many people don’t know that, directly or indirectly, they have the power to influence the ebb and flow of life. Some people, consciously or unconsciously, make decisions that bring about great emotional high points, followed by low points that are just as profound.
To maintain consistency of self-purpose and a constant reminder of our WHYs in life, the priority must be on emotional stability and not emotional highs. Adopting various activities like Meditating & Journaling can help long way to maintain emotional stability.
Sure, stability may not be as fun as that brief moment of emotional euphoria, but in the end, its reward is more profound. It lasts longer and eliminates unnecessary suffering, depression, and haziness of purpose.
Conclusion
The importance of setting up a WHY for life can not be overstated. What’s just as, or even more important than this, though, is maintaining consistency and always remembering this WHY.
Life is full of distractions, and what’s more, it’s full of sensible distractions. After all, one must survive. The problem, though, is that these distractions, no matter how sensible, can end up derailing us from our purpose in life.
When this happens, we start to lose direction, self-doubt creeps in, and in the end, life takes on no meaning, so that we find ourselves in an endless abyss of depression.
Thankfully, all of these can be avoided. Understanding our purpose, personally prioritizing only the important things, setting a daily routine, focusing more on stability rather than euphoria, are all things that put us squarely on the way towards maintaining a sustainable sense of purpose and clarity in life.
