Knowing your 'why' helps lower anxiety when times get tough

Many years ago, when I worked in IT, I had a colleague who loved ‘office-speak’. He’d come out with phrases in meetings like ‘we need some blue-sky thinking’ or ‘let’s pick the low-hanging fruit’. I know some people find these figures of speech annoying, but I was fascinated by them. It was funny how, although we may never have had heard an expression before, we instinctively knew what he meant. It was like a kind of poetry, where a whole concept was distilled into a few well-chosen words.

One saying in particular sticks in my mind. It was something like: ‘When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it can be difficult to remember that the original aim was to drain the swamp.’ In other words, we can all become so side-tracked by dealing with problems that we forget what motivated us to start a project in the first place.

I see this effect in the therapy room all the time. Clients who have moved to the beautiful West Country for a better quality of life, who quickly get so bogged down with household admin, job-hunting or renovations that they forget to go out and enjoy themselves.

This is especially true of people who have opted to become self-employed. There’s so much involved with running your own business, from book-keeping to promotions, tax returns to appointment management, insurance policies to keeping your skills up to date. And that’s before you provide your service or make your product. So often they become burnt-out and disillusioned.

And that’s because they’ve forgotten their ‘why’. They’ve lost sight of the benefits of being their own boss. Advantages like not having to answer to an over-bearing manager, or not needing to negotiate with co-workers about holiday leave, or simply being able to take time out for the dentist or a massage whenever they want. Reminding themselves of these benefits, of the reason they went self-employed, helps to give them a more balanced perspective. Remembering their ‘why’, gives them permission to do things that are non-work-related and enjoy the freedom of having no one to answer to.

Another group of people who are more successful at achieving their goals when they’re clear about their ‘why’, are those clients who want to improve their health and fitness. They might want to lose weight. They might want to give up smoking. Or they might want to adopt a habit of walking, swimming or going to the gym regularly. With all of these activities, it’s difficult to stay motivated if you’re not in tune with why you want to do them.

It's the reason I ask clients who want to quit smoking what’s motivating them to give up. If they’re doing it to please someone else, they’re probably going to find it harder than someone who has a more compelling, personal reason. If they’re doing it because they want to be alive long enough to see their grandchildren grow up, they’re more likely to be committed to making the changes necessary.

It’s the reason I ask clients who want to lose weight what they hope to achieve by being slimmer. Knowing their specific ‘why’ is a powerful motivator to make the mindset changes necessary. Maybe it’s for an upcoming wedding. Perhaps it’s in order to reach a certain Body Mass Index (BMI) to qualify for a job. Often it’s because they’ve been diagnosed as being pre-diabetic and they’re desperate to avoid developing type 2 diabetes. With a strong enough ‘why’ it’s easier to remain motivated to eat a more healthful diet.

And it’s the same with people who want to get fitter. It’s much easier to stick to a fitness regime if you have a goal in mind. For many of us we simply want to maintain our flexibility and keep our hearts and minds active, and this is easier if we can measure our progress in terms of reaching a certain level of fitness. It doesn’t have to be as challenging as running a marathon or climbing Kilimanjaro. The goal could be something as simple as being able to walk up the steep hill in town and still be able to breathe easily at the top, or to cut down the time it takes to walk from A to B. Having a tangible measure of how well we’re doing helps us to keep going on days when our mojo might be lacking, so we can achieve the goal of maintaining our fitness levels. The goal comes the ‘why’ that makes all the difference.

I recently read a wonderful story about a 60-year-old teacher in Australia who was due to take sabbatical leave and decided she wanted to volunteer to track turtles for a conservation charity. There were strict fitness criteria to join the project, as it involved walking for miles through soft sand late at night. Because she was motivated by the thought of helping to save wild turtles, she did the work necessary to lose weight, build her calf muscles and become fitter generally. She had a strong, clear ‘why’ and that helped to spur her on.

So knowing your ‘why’ and reminding yourself of it can keep you on the straight and narrow. It makes reaching your goal much less stressful, and that’s because, when the going gets tough, tapping back into the reason you took on the challenge reignites your motivation. You’ll be able to get back on track and drain that swamp.