Your Best Year Ever, Chapter 10: Your What Needs a Why

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1:48Chapter 10. Your What Needs a Why. People Lose Their Way When They Lose Their Why. Gail Hyatt. It all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it. Edmund Hillary. It happens to me several times a week. I want to quit. Just the other day, I wanted to quit the exercises my doctor had suggested. I recently had surgery. There's overwhelming evidence that getting up and moving about following a surgery can decrease risk of infection, keeps blood pressure and circulation engaged, and lowers the likelihood of getting bed sores. I was up and walking around the nurse's station the morning following my surgery.

2:25When I was leaving the hospital, I was given strict discharge instructions. I talked with my doctor about goals for rebuilding my strength but not overdoing it while still pushing myself toward healing. But it didn't take long for my motivation to dip once I got home. One day in particular, I decided I didn't need my daily stretches or walk around the neighborhood. I could take a day off. I'd worked hard to this point, and I'd had enough. As the day wore on, I noticed an uncomfortable and unusual tightness in my stitches, and that my hands and feet were cold from lack of circulation. When I complained about my pains, my wife, Gail, pointed me back to my recovery goals.

3:02I admitted defeat, downloaded the audio of the book I was reading and headed outdoors. The temptation to quit is a recurring theme. If it's not my health, it's something else. My marriage, my business, my friendships, even God. This is just the nature of life. And if the voices in our heads are not enough trouble, the voices in our culture also urge us to throw in the towel, make a change, or take it easy on yourself. What these same voices fail to tell you is that there is a distinction between the dream and the work required to obtain it. Everybody looks good at starting line, sings Americana artist Paul Thorne.

3:39Starting is simple. It's progress that's tough. The hill is steeper than you thought. The road is longer than you assumed. You're not sure you have what it takes to finish. I've been in this spot many times. I've faced it in running every half marathon. I've seen it in my career as an entrepreneur. I've even experienced it in my marriage and in my parenting, especially parenting. When we begin a project, there's all kinds of enthusiasm. We're energized by the surge of excitement that comes from novelty and our own creativity. But that surge is like a starter fluid. It's not the fuel that will see us through the journey.

4:13That's why so many New Year's resolutions only make it a few weeks. To go the distance with our goals, we need something stronger. The Myth of Fun, Fast, and Easy Everything important requires work. And sometimes there is a long arc between the dream and its realization. Some of us are more prepared to accept this than others. In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown blames our reluctance on the culture of fun, fast, and easy. We are conditioned to want results now, tomorrow at the very latest. We want them without expending a lot of effort. And of course, we must have fun doing it.

4:50Otherwise, we're on to the next thing. But other than a few lucky exceptions, most payoffs are not immediate. Unmet by the instant success we expect, we can lose heart and give up. I've seen this a hundred times in a dozen contexts. The spouse who is worn down after several years of marriage and is ready to walk away. The parent who is struggling with an out-of-touch teenager and feels like giving up. The entrepreneur who has invested months, maybe years, into a new initiative but loses heart for lack of traction. The author who is excited about a new idea but grinds to a halt four months into writing the book.

5:26The employee who fails to hit revenue goals and starts checking out. The leader who is struggling to turn around a business unit and finally throws up her hands. I have personal examples galore, and I'm sure you do as well. The truth is that anything worth doing isn't all fun. It's almost never fast, and it certainly isn't easy. Remember what the IT guy said to Aliyah Crum? Just another cold, dark night on the side of Everest. Whatever Everest you're climbing, you'll experience some tough points on the path, probably several. Five Elements to Combat the Urge to Quit When I'm tempted to quit, I stick it out by leveraging five elements.

6:06The first is perspective. Look at the careers of great leaders, innovators, or athletes. Was it an instant shot to the top with no setbacks for any of them? Not usually. Obstacles, reversals, and even failures are all part of their success path. That's true for everyone. We can't bank on being the exception. That's just an illusion guaranteed to derail and disappoint us even more than the problems we're facing. Second, a new frame. As we discussed earlier, our expectations shape our experience. When we reframe our frustrations, we can usually find a foothold for forward momentum. Instead of letting the worst picture prevail, I ask myself empowering questions to help me push past the difficulty I faced.

6:48For instance, what could this obstacle make possible? How could I grow in this situation? What should I be learning in this challenge? Third, self-compassion. Perfectionism and self-judgment are sure to derail us. If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly, G.K. Chesterton once said. That line always makes me laugh, but it carries an essential truth. Doing imperfectly is better than not doing at all. Recall the power of liberating truths and move ahead. Give yourself a break and keep plugging away. Fourth, a sense of agency. Don't lose sight of this. Entitlement, as Brown says, is about feeling like we deserve success.

7:26Agency is the exact opposite. It's realizing we must work to achieve it. Agency sees an obstacle and says, I can overcome this, while entitlement complains about not being done yet. If we keep our agency, we can survive the times our dreams cease being fun, fast, or easy. Finally, the fifth element, your why. This one is so important, I want to spend the rest of the chapter on it. In my experience, the thing that keeps me going is answering this question. Why am I doing this in the first place? I then try to remember the dream. I try to get connected to the original vision, because that keeps me going when the going gets tough.

8:04No one crosses the messy middle to reach their goals unless they really want what's on the other side of discomfort. Think about parenting, or getting fit, or hitting a major professional goal. All of these challenges will test our perseverance. This means we have to connect with what researchers sometimes call our autonomous motives, reasons we find deeply personally compelling. Why does it matter to you? Identify your key motivations. When goal pursuit is tough, it's easy to lose focus or simply want to discard the goal. If we don't stay connected to our why, as one study puts it, the infusion of goals with energy may be distressingly temporary.

8:46In other words, chances are good we'll burn out and bail. But as another study found, autonomous goal motives will result in greater objectively assessed persistence towards an increasingly difficult goal. If individuals strive with more autonomous motives, they will be better equipped to overcome challenges and goal pursuit. Your why makes all the difference in the world. Blake is the Your Best Year Ever alum, whose girlfriend dumped him two days before a giant tree landed on his house. He coped the way a lot of us do. He ate and drank his way through the stress. Coupled with letting his exercise routine go, he put on 45 pounds.

9:23He knew that had to change. And as he followed the course, he assigned key motivations to each of his goals. Once I started working my way through them, I was able to identify the importance that it had for me, he said, not for some exterior force or a result, but why it was important for me to achieve this. That's when I really started connecting to them and started believing that not only were they words on a piece of paper, but this was something that, yes, I have a part in. Blake is talking about the power of intrinsic motivations. These drivers come from our hopes, our values, our ambitions.

9:57External motivation comes from outside influences like society, our friends, our bosses, and so on. External motivations are rarely as long-lasting or effective as intrinsic motivation. When goal pursuit is fueled by personal endorsement and valuing of the goal, commitment and persistence will be high, write the scholars of the second study I quoted previously. In contrast, when goal pursuit is the outcome of pressures or external contingencies, commitment will always be on the line, and goal attainment will be comparatively less likely. If you want to go the distance, you've got to find a reason, a reason that speaks powerfully and personally to you.

10:36Charlie Jabali is a great example of someone with strong intrinsic motivation. He achieved an extraordinary level of success in the music industry by his mid-twenties, managing top artists and even winning a Grammy. He accomplished things most people could only dream of, but there was one challenge he just couldn't seem to overcome. He was wildly unhealthy and extremely overweight. Jabali had struggled with his weight all his life and never could quite shake his junk food addiction. He tried dieting. He even ran three marathons, but he'd always eventually backslide into his old habits. By the age of 29, he was over 300 pounds.

11:14But then he got diagnosed with a brain tumor. Suddenly, he had a powerful new why, a stronger motivation for getting healthy, survival. He knew he had to change things, and he did. He left the successful company he had started and moved to a new city where he overhauled his relationship with food and got help for the emotional issues fueling his eating habits. He started training for his first Ironman and lost over 120 pounds in one year. Eventually, doctors reported that his brain tumor was under control. Today, Charlie is happier and healthier than he ever was before, and he's working with a new why in mind of providing inspiration to others.

11:51Finding a powerful, personal why was what he needed to completely turn his life around. When I was running my first half marathon, I had to get in touch with my why. It wasn't about what somebody else wanted me to do in terms of my own health. It wasn't a fundraiser somebody wanted me to run to raise money for their organization. Instead, I identified a series of motivations individually important to me. For example, I wrote this down. Number one, I'm tired of being overweight. Number two, I want to get into the best shape of my life. Number three, I want the stamina and the energy to be able to be the most productive self I can be.

12:26I had to identify my why. I had to see what was at stake if I achieved it. And I had to see what was at stake if I didn't achieve it. That got me through the grueling training. I needed even more for the race itself. The truth is, I'd never run that far before. In my training, I never ran farther than nine miles. Bad idea, I know. I remember getting to mile 11 and really wanting to quit. Sometimes the messy middle waits till nearly the end. But that's what happened. I had more reasons now, and they kept me going. I'd gone very public with my commitment to run. First and foremost, I didn't want to be embarrassed.

13:01Plus, I had convinced a ton of my colleagues to run with me. What would it look like if the CEO, whose smart idea this was to begin with, didn't finish it? So I said, I've got to finish. My leadership is at stake. One thing unifies these rationales. They were all deeply personal and intrinsic. I consider Steve Jobs a powerful example of intrinsic motivation. When he came back to Apple in the late 90s, the company was almost bankrupt. If Jobs hadn't stepped in to save the company, there would be no Apple today. No iPhone. No iPad. No iMac. No MacBook Pro. No Apple TV. No Apple Watch. These are tools I use every day of my life.

13:39But Jobs' why went deeper. Not only did he co-found the company, he also had a radical vision for the inherent value of simple, elegant machines. That vision drove a product line overhaul and new marketing strategy that not only saved the company, but drove it to dominance. Jobs and his team got in touch with their why and changed the world. So what are the whys attached to your goals? One challenge in identifying your key motivations is that desire is socially mediated. Sometimes we think we want something, but the desire is actually just the reflection of what people around us want. Our whys are copycats.

14:17Luke Burgess warns about this in his book, Wanting, the power of memetic desire in everyday life. Mimetic desire is the unwritten, unacknowledged system behind visible goals, he says, arguing that we need to focus on what he calls thick desires rather than thin. We can tell the difference by asking whether our motivation is truly substantial or merely superficial.

15:09and I bet it would be a lot to them too. So, take a second, hit the share button, send it to someone you know who deserves to have their best year ever. Thanks. Record and prioritize your key motivations. I write key motivations as a series of bullets and usually end up with somewhere between five and seven. I recommend listing each one until you run out. After that, you'll want to prioritize them, but not all. Identify your top three. You may have plenty more, but I find it's most effective to boil your list of motivations down to just a few that really inspire you. Go through the list and rank them.

15:46Why is this important? You want to identify your most compelling motivations so you have several convincing reasons readily available to keep pressing and accomplish your goal. For example, when Gail and I have a fight, and yes, we do have fights, I ask myself, so why should I stay in this marriage? Instead of pushing that question down like holding a beach ball underwater, I let it surface and embrace it. What is at stake? Notice I'm not asking, why should I quit? Because I will get answers to that question too. The mind is tricky that way. It will attempt to answer whatever question you ask it.

16:19So be careful how you frame the question. Instead, I focus on the positive. I'm looking for reasons to keep going. Here's the list I keep from my marriage. When the going gets tough and the question, why should I stay in my marriage arises, I have a ready resource to reorient myself. One, because I want love to be the defining characteristic of my life. There's no better place to learn how to love than in marriage. I really do love this woman with all my heart. Two, because I want to be a leader, leading myself first and then my own family. Whatever else this means, it means initiative and sacrifice.

16:51That's what leaders do. Three, because Gail is my best friend, even though we occasionally get on each other's last nerve. She is the one person I can count on to be there when I need someone to listen to me. I have a written list just like this for every important area or goal in my life. Each of the nine life domains deserves a list like this, even for the domains you may not struggle with. There may come a season when you do, and having already done this exercise will help tremendously if that season comes your way. If I get stuck and want to quit, I pull out the list and start reading through it.

17:23Immediately, it gives me perspective and energizes me. It makes it possible to silence the voices and get my head back into the race. Over a decade ago, when I was writing my book, Platform, Get Noticed in a Noisy World, I had a very clearly written goal, deliver a 50 ,000-word manuscript to the publisher by November the 1st, 2011. I had a great plan. As I started the year, I began writing. By the middle of the summer, I had a rough, very rough, draft of the manuscript that was about 50 ,000 words. But I had a lot of work yet to do. Then things got crazy busy toward fall. I was inundated with speaking requests, coaching inquiries, and consulting assignments.

18:02I had just launched my business, and I was reluctant to say no to anything. Well, naturally, I got buried alive. And I wasn't making any progress on the manuscript. I could see I was going to miss the November deadline by a mile. Honestly, I got discouraged. I didn't see any way to get it done. And despite all the work I'd already invested, I wanted to give up. Then I remembered something my wife had said to me many times before. People lose their way when they lose their why. That's when I remembered I had written out a bulleted list of my key motivations. I knew they would be important when the going got tough.

18:37Here are the top three motivations I listed then. One, I want to help tens of thousands of authors, artists, and would-be creatives who have been turned away because they don't have a platform. This was one of my fundamental motivations for writing the book in the first place. Two, I want to establish my authority as an expert on platform building and open the door to additional speaking engagements on this topic. Three, I want to prove that you can create a platform and use it to sell books. When I reconnected with my key motivations, not just intellectually, but emotionally, it reignited my passion.

19:11I recommitted to finishing the manuscript. I was a few weeks late, but I did it, and Platform went on to become a New York Times bestseller. All because I reconnected with my motivations. I found my why. Looking back, I find it hard to imagine what would have happened if I hadn't kept my list of key motivations for platform. One thing I know for sure, my current business wouldn't exist. This book wouldn't be in your hands either. Connect with your key motivations. Now, when I say connect, I mean this in two ways. First of all, intellectually. It's important to have intellectual buy-in to the motivation.

19:49Maybe some research you've done, remarkable data, or an argument you find intellectually compelling. Second, you need to buy in emotionally. Not only is it important to understand it, it's important to feel what's at stake. Anticipate what it would feel like to achieve that goal. Or conversely, what it would feel like if you missed that goal. One of my key motivations for strength training is to increase my energy, stamina, and productivity. I connect intellectually because I know all the research points to those outcomes. But I connect emotionally because I remember what it feels like when I'm strength training on a regular basis.

20:23Even before I exercise, I can feel that increased stamina, energy, and productivity. When researchers at New Mexico State University tried to figure out why people like to exercise, they came back to the power of this emotional connection. Nine out of ten in one group said they exercised because they expected to feel good afterward. Seven out of ten in another group said they did it because of the sense of accomplishment they felt. Writing your motivations down is important, but getting that kind of emotional connection is even more critical. Another example comes from how I structure my week.

20:56I talk about this in my book, Free to Focus, in my Free to Focus productivity course. I divide the time in my weeks between high-leverage work, administrative work, and personal activities. I block off time to work on high-leverage work first. These are the projects that drive the most revenue for my business and intersect with my greatest passion and proficiency. Administrative work time is dedicated to the more mundane tasks of managing the business and preparing for those high-leverage activities. Personal activity time is reserved for rest and rejuvenation. I used to work almost constantly, but then I began to see the wisdom in totally unplugging on the weekends.

21:31My key motivation is to recharge my batteries and be fully present with family and friends. I got that intellectually. The research on this point is irrefutable. That was enough to get me started. It was enough for me to commit to personal activity time, but it took a while to connect with it emotionally. I love my work, so completely disconnecting did not come naturally. Now I love the downtime and look forward to it. I'm not only intellectually committed, I'm emotionally invested as well, and that's enabled me to stay the course. Everyone struggles to stay the course. Ray, the Your Best Year Ever alum I introduced earlier, sure did.

22:07Year after year, he made health and financial goals. Meanwhile, his health deteriorated, along with his finances. Though he ran a successful business, he was spending more than he was bringing in and racked up$400 ,000 in consumer debt. When he told me that, I almost fell out of my chair. But that was only the start. A few years ago, Ray was diagnosed with Parkinson's, a degenerative disease that affects his central nervous system. It can be terribly debilitating. Ray said, I'm almost 50 years old and I've been telling myself one day I'm going to get out of debt. One day I'm going to take care of my family.

22:38One day I'm going to build a retirement fund. One day I'm going to get in shape. One day I'm going to travel and do all the things that I promised my wife from the day we got married. And I was suddenly faced with a reality that might not come. But as terrible as the circumstances are, Ray found his wife buried inside. I finally had that wake-up call where I realized I either had to do this now or I was never going to do it. And I also knew my family was watching. I wanted to be there for them. I wanted to be there for my son's wedding. I wanted to be there when he has my grandchildren. Those reasons, along with the desire to leave his family debt-free with a thriving business, lit a fire under him that kept him going even when he ran out of steam.

23:21When I felt the temptation to stop or to give up, or rationalize why I shouldn't do this after all, those reasons kept me going. When the year was over, Ray had lost more than 50 pounds. His doctor was surprised by his health. Ray also achieved a first-time-ever goal of hitting$1 million in top-line revenue for his business, and he paid off all$400 ,000 in consumer debt. Another Your Best Year Ever alum, Sundy Jo, has a powerful story as well. In 2009, she entered a residential program to turn her life around. With the help of therapy and prayer, she was able to work through several traumatic experiences that had crippled her.

23:58It was one of the hardest, most rewarding things I've ever done, she recalled. Then in 2012, Sunny Jo felt God tell her to start a residential program for other girls in need. At first she said no. I said no about 175 ,000 different times, she joked. It was too big for me. It was too scary. And I didn't want to do it. But she felt God nudging. When tragedy struck a friend, she realized it was time. Every year that Sunny Jo goes through the course, she adds to the vision of Esther's House of Redemption. She began with a goal to get the Articles of Incorporation started. Then the day program. Then finally the full residential program.

24:35There are some obstacles coming up, she said. But I remember my why. I can't tell you how excited I was when she told me she had met her goal and opened the doors of the residential program. Bottom line, you've got to write down your motivations. And you have to connect with them, not just with your head, but with your heart. What's at stake for you? To get through the messy middle, when progress seems impossible, find your why. Look at your goals and ask yourself, why is this goal important to me personally? What's at stake both positively and negatively? Once you've answered those questions, I recommend you list and rank your top three so you can quickly find your most compelling motivation when the going gets tough.