To be successful, it’s important to know what your true WHY is. Now you may be wondering what this is, so let me explain a little, then I’ll tell you what my why is and how it drives me forwards each and every day.
Now I know this may sound a little fluffy, but your WHY is what you believe is your true purpose in life, what’s deep in your heart to make you get out of bed every morning. Your why helps keep you going even when times get tough! It’s your vision, core belief mission and purpose all rolled into one. It’s your passion and what burns deep inside to keep you motivated and driven, no matter what. Friedrich Nietzsche once said, ‘He who has a Why to live can bear almost any How’. What he means is, that without a real purpose and something to strive for, life can be pretty mundane. Another great quote is by John C Maxwell, who said, ‘Find your why and you’ll find your way’.
Your ‘why’ may well change over time as when we’re young we want to marry and have children and provide for our family. As we get older we want to have a nice house, holidays, a nice car and so on. Then we want to have a good retirement fund for when we get older still. However, saying your reason for getting up every day is ‘just to make money’ is not sufficient, it’s too broad and not deep enough. Ask yourself, so what’s that money for, so you and your family can have a better life, yes but why.
The 7 Levels Deep Exercise
There’s an exercise you can use called The 7 Levels Deep Exercise which asks you the first main question, for example ‘why do I work every day’ then after each answer, it asks you why again, 7 times. This is so that you can really question yourself and get to your true feelings. The deeper you explore this, the more specific your answers will become and in turn, you will discover your true why. If you’re not sure how to do this exercise, there are lots of templates online and videos which explain the process too, as well as other examples of how to discover your true why.
If you feel like you’re going through life on autopilot, I suggest you take some quiet time to watch some videos online, then really think about your why. You may just find, that deep inside your heart, there is a burning purpose you never even realised was there. Then you can use that as your passion and driver to keep you going!
My WHY
Once I became self-employed, I knew I had to discover my why, as I understood there would be lots of challenges ahead of me and yes, I wanted to earn money, but I wanted more than that. I’ve always been an animal person, rather than a people person. Don’t get me wrong, I do like people and spent my career helping them, but I’ve always had a deep-seated need to help animals in one way or another. Even when I was young, I wanted to help animals, so my first job when leaving school was a veterinary nurse. It was the best job I ever had but had to give that up as a career, as I became allergic to cats! So when I was older, I volunteered at a local RSPCA Wildlife Centre, which was wonderful. I’ve always been a ‘dog’ person and had 6 dogs so far in my lifetime and I often thought about packing a rucksack and travelling the world rescuing dogs – but what was I going to do with them once I’d rescued them?!
My answer as to how I could help dogs came after I got Kita, my white Siberian Husky. I rehomed Kita when she was a year old and she is the most loving dog I’ve ever had, with boundless unconditional love. I was so lucky to find Kita when I was going through some difficulties in my life, as she really kept me going.
SHARE Rescue
While researching the breed, I came across SHARE Rescue – Siberian Husky Aid Rescue and Education, a UK charity that specialises in rescuing and rehoming Siberian Huskies. They were formed in 2011 and the charity is run purely by volunteers, their story touched my heart. I became a volunteer with SHARE to carry out house checks in South Wales and I’ve helped with a ‘dog run’ where my husband and I collected a dog in Swansea and drove him towards Nottingham to hand him over to the next volunteer who was going to foster him.
Unfortunately, Huskies can be misunderstood, as they do have a personality and foibles all of their own. So over the last 10 years, SHARE has rescued and rehomed over 350 Huskies, finding them safe, permanent homes, where they would be cherished and loved. Allison Condon from SHARE said ‘SHARE continues to help support huskies and their owners through behaviour support and advice online and over the phone. SHARE continues to take in unwanted huskies and after assessment, we find them a new future. SHARE continues to be there for the life of our rescues, however long they need us to be.’ Remember, this charity is completely run by volunteers so that all their funds go to the dogs! Their funds are used in various ways for vet fees, transport costs for moving dogs around the UK, kennels and rehabilitation costs.
Due to the demand SHARE are under, they need funds, as they have many dogs on their list waiting to come into their care. I’ve seen some of the videos in their Facebook group showing the transformation of dogs who were mistreated and scared into loving happy dogs in their forever home. This is why they are my chosen charity as if I can help prevent even just 1 dog from harm, then I’ve achieved my purpose – that’s my WHY! So I decided that when I pivoted and launched my new online business, I will give at least 5% of all of my income to SHARE. As I said, ultimately if I can do anything to help just 1 dog gain a new loving home, where it will be safe and loved, then I have fulfilled my purpose. I hope I’ll be able to help lots of SHARE’s Huskies, as that’s my way of giving back to a breed that I’ve come to love in my own home. So that’s what makes me keep going when the going gets tough!!
Below I’ve put a link to SHARE’s website if you’d like to find out more about them and you can make a donation there too. Remember, I’m going to be donating at least 5% of all of my income to them so that I can make a difference.
I hope this has inspired you to really delve deep within yourself and find out your why, so that you’ll be even more driven and passionate about what you do. Hopefully, then you’ll also be able to ‘give back’ in some way, whether that be to people or animals.
I’d love to hear from you once you’ve discovered your why and what it is, so please feel free to comment below or contact me directly.