Ask yourself these questions:
1. Why do you repeat the habits that you tend to have everyday?
2. When you do those types of habits, are you thinking about how it contributes to achieving your goals and ultimately your identity? or do you feel like you are stuck in rut?
If you feel like you are wasting time when you do those habits, then it might be a good idea to review the most fundamental question of your existence.
Answering the question “What is your Why?” is a huge step and should be the foundational criteria in order to make a difference in your actions and behaviours. Numerous individuals, leaders and companies fall short of their goals simply because their reasoning wasn’t a great enough force to make change last.
I personally have met several people who had a goal to lose weight or to become stronger but lifting weights and running on the treadmill had derailed them from coming back to a gym setting. One of the culprits of this, is that their “Why” wasn’t a strong motivator enough to keep pushing themselves to expend the calories in a gym setting.
Every individual is different, and that makes your “Why” so unique. Your “Why” can be developed at any age based on past experiences, cultural factors, social/work environments, beliefs, knowledge and logic. All of these concepts are analyzed by your brain because your brain’s #1 job is to make sure you survive. If the events that you involved in are considered “safe” by your brain, then you are more likely to do it again. If your habits are closely associated with your “Why” then you have the emotional driver to aid in your desire to achieve your goals.
That emotional component is very powerful, because it can solidify new habits and make you stronger as a whole.
Let me explain with an example: A mother of 2 children who works at an 8 hour office job, then only has about 5 hours left in the day to cook, clean and rest/recover for the next day. One of her goals is to lose weight, but she has never been to a fitness center before. She is unlikely to go to the gym after work everyday to expend more calories, especially if she is a novice at the gym. How is she planning on achieving her goal?
If the mother’s “Why” is to support the family more than herself, then her tendencies will follow suit. She will wake up everyday and do the activities that follow her values and leave her personal health on the back burner. If her “Why” is to promote growth and development in her family, then we would assume that after her 8 hour office job she would do more activities that involve her family being together. This will make her more happy and less stressed in her day.
Having less stress and being able to do the activities that you know will make you happy. It will ultimately have your brain release the natural hormones that make you want to do it again (Dopamine). The release of Dopamine leads to less of the “stress” hormones that contribute to you slowing down and doing less. Slowing down, leads to low metabolism and perpetuates the vicious cycle of not achieving your goals.
Knowing your “Why” is where people choose to do things and instill habits. It is the authentic reason for your goal. If you are a runner, you choose to run often and enjoy every minute of it. You enjoy the preparation work of it by signing up for races for the near future, the type of physical and mental training you do, as well as the type of clothing you wear when you are training and when you are not running. The community you are involved in even keeps you motivated, because you have fun and it helps you stay on track with your goals.
Anyone can set goals but it is your “Why” that can help drive you to achieve those goals. Mark McMorris, a Canadian professional snowboarder. Who is an Olympic medalist in both 2014 (Sochi, Russia) and 2018 (Pyeongchang, South Korea) Winter Olympics. He has also won several medals in 2015 – 2017 at the Winter X-Games. Despite having a life threatening injury in 2018, where anyone would have thought this would be the end of his professional snowboarding career, he made the incredible comeback to compete and won 2 medals in 2019 and 3 medals in 2020 X-Games. This is an astonishing story of an athlete’s desire to win and participate in professional snowboarding.
Another athlete who has really taken off from knowing their “Why” is one of my stroke clients. For confidential purposes I will call him Mr. G.
Mr. G is a hard working grandfather who moved to Edmonton from India with his family. He was a retired taxi driver, truck driver and construction worker. Learning from his job in construction he decided to retire and build his own house for he and his family to live in. After going through some health complications with his digestion and heart, he ended up having a stroke which paralyzed his entire left side of the body. Sensation, strength, coordination and movement was almost obsolete on his left side. Fortunately from the support of his family and understanding about neuroplasticity, Mr. G had the emotional drive and determination to overcome this injury and be able to do the things he enjoyed doing with his family. After about 2-3 weeks of intense neuro therapy and lots of exercises on his own, Mr. G met all of his goals but he didn’t want to stop there. Mr. G wanted to be able to drive again and to get back to what he loves to do, which was construction. After 2 more weeks of therapy, Mr. G was back at renovating his basement and he got cleared from his doctor that he was in great health to drive again.
A massive contributor in successfully recovering from Mr. G’s stroke was that everyday he gets to help out the family. If he didn’t have a motivator like that as his “Why”, then any exercise that I would give him, would be unsuccessful. He would lose interest and give up.
By acknowledging what your “Why” is, can open doors to learning new skills, new experiences and overall increase happiness in your life. Your brain will thank you because our brains are made to learn and adapt to any type of changes. It will be ultimately up to you to decide if whatever goals you have, will be aligned to your fundamental question.
Whatever your “Why” is, whether it is being a parent, a reader, an artist etc. you will be spending most of your time in your waking hours doing those types of activities. This is because you have set that as your identity and it is because you are doing the activities towards your identity that brings you fulfillment and joy.
Remember that the activity is not your “Why”, it is your identity that is your “Why”. You are not a golfer, if you golf once or twice a season with your friends. That won’t be a lot of time to perfect yourself in that sport and improve yourself. Likewise you are not a swimmer if you swim once a month. You are just a person who is swimming.
People can have multiple “Why’s” but as a suggestion it will save you time and energy to focus on one. That is because you need to put time and effort into deliberately working towards your “Why”. If you have multiple “Why’s”, then your time is spread out among them and it may seem like you are getting nothing done as opposed to having one direction to go towards.
If you are working towards your goals, and you find that you are struggling in achieving it for the moment. Thinking about your “Why” before attending to it, can create an emotional outburst of increased motivation to accomplish it. For myself, I like to train my vision and balance exercises so that I can improve my skill in the sport activities that I like to participate in. Visualizing and recalling my “Why” before exercising, has been a helpful driver in keeping up and achieving my goals.
Lastly, do not forget that this is YOUR “Why”, not your friend’s or your spouse’s “Why”. By setting goals towards your identity based on YOUR “Why” is so much more rewarding because you know that all the time and effort that you put in. You are accomplishing certain goals that you love to do rather than for someone else.
If you need assistance in discovering your “Why”, please read my last post about neuroplasticity. You can also contact me, and I will be happy to assist you in discovering it.
I would love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for reading.
Mack Rutherford – Owner Neuro Training Performance LTD
“Keep on learning.”