Your reason why you want to achieve a desired outcome is the fuel that will keep you going at the times when your willpower gives out. It is like the sun’s light, in the sense that it is mild in its normal state, but when focused, its energy is magnified into a point that can burn what stands in its path. This is why it is important to have a clear understanding of the specific reason why you want to achieve the things you want to achieve.
To know this specific reason you will have to ask yourself a question you probably asked a lot when you were a kid. “Why?”
Every time you answer the “why” question, you get closer and closer to your specific reason.
In the example below, you will see that the “reason why” will be the second last answer you give. I will explain the reason for this in a minute.
“Why do I want to be a doctor?”
“Because I want to help people.”
“Why do I want to help people?”
“Because I will be making the world a better place”
“Why do I want to make the world a better place?”
“Because I will feel like I have contributed something.”
“Why do I want to feel that I have contributed something?”
‘In order to feel good.”
At the root of all actions is the desire to feel good (or not to feel bad). This will always be the last answer to a string of “why” questions. The way we associate what exactly is most pleasurable (second last answer) varies from person to person; this is your reason why.
The doctor’s reason why was to feel that he had contributed; this was what he believed would make him feel the most amount of pleasure.
Ofcoarse, some other doctor may have a completely different reason than the one in the example above.
My reason why is to have more freedom. Yours is probably different to mine.
Why is it important to know the reason why?
Because this is the only way that anyone can do something of personal significance. Without a burning desire (as Napoleon Hill puts it) we will be running solely on will power; something that we get only in limited amounts.
When I write for my reason, I can write thousands of words with relative ease, and have to stop myself from writing too much for the reader to be able to handle in one session. When I wrote an essay on the environmental setbacks of bioethanol and biodiesel earlier this year (something I am not particularly passionate about) I struggled for many hours just to scrape up a few thousand words.
Without a solid reason why, it is almost impossible to do the things you need to do on a long term basis.
That’s the reason why it is good to have a reason why.
