The Evolution Of Your Why

How many times has someone asked you, “What’s your why?” In response you may say, “I don’t really know my why” or “I think I’m doing this for my family” or “I want to be financially free.” A lot of you have messaged me and said, “Pat, I want to find out about my why.”

First of all, whether or not you know it, you have a why. Everybody has a why. The challenge is that the majority of people never graduate their why. And while it starts with having a why, the evolution of your why for your business is very important. So in this video I talk about the evolution of your why and the four levels of your why.

#1: Survival

You first level of why is survival. Let me explain what I mean by survival. Everybody who has a job that makes money makes money why? To survive and pay bills. Some people stop there.

#2: Status

The second level of why is all about status. You’ll hear people say things like, “You know, I want to make six figures.” Why? Status. Or they may want a nice car, house, go to a good school or send their children to a good school. They want to be able to talk about having this or that. This is all about keeping up with the Joneses.

Status is still lightweight, but it’s better than survival.

#3: Freedom

The third one is freedom. People may say, “You know what? I’m so sick and tired of six figures. Man, I want to be free. I want to make money. I’m not worried about working hard, I want to make money and I want to have freedom. I want to have breathing room. What do I need to do to have breathing room?”

They may want to live in a particular community because they want their kids to be able to play outside and not worry about them. Or they may want to have a big back yard so their kids can run around and play safely.

So freedom as a why is somewhat selfish. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the highest level.

#4: Purpose

The highest level is purpose. Now what are we talking about with purpose?

Some people I talk to say, “My why is to one day own a football team.” That’s still empty.

People sometimes even ask me if I’m going to own a sports team. Of course. That’s in the plans. If the opportunity comes, I think I’d make a very good sports owner. I’m fascinated by stats, sports, improvement, competition. It’s fascinating. But is that really the purpose of making billions of dollars and making money? No. There’s got to be a bigger purpose.

So how does one go from survival, status, freedom, to purpose? What is truly your purpose? People ask, “Pat, what’s your purpose? What is the bigger picture?”

I could talk for a long time about that. But I’m driven by history. But that didn’t happen overnight. As the saying goes, sometimes on the way to a dream, you get lost and find a bigger one. A bigger dream. You think it was all about the car. You think it was all about the recognition. You think it was all about the fame. You think it was all about the status. You think it was all about landing that girl. You think it’s all about all these other things, but it’s much bigger than that.

Then all of a sudden, one day you have a conversation with somebody or watch a video or a movie, or you meet someone and boom; it just hits you in the face, and you realize what you were put on this planet to do. Now you’re talking purpose.

Why Very Few People Reach the Purpose Level

Very few people reach this level. Why? It’s very simple. They are too lazy to spend time thinking about it. They’re too afraid. And they don’t process the issue well. So they don’t take time out to ask themselves the question, “What do you really want to do with your life?”

Listen in here to hear about someone who inspired me tremendously.

If you want to make a big impact, it will only happen if you’re actually willing to sit down and ask yourself some important questions of life. And unfortunately, so many times people are just going, going, going, going, and they die, having never asked themselves the questions that matter most.

And by the way, your why may not be to start a company. You why may be to become a part of a company that someone else starts, and to have a huge impact on the company and one day own a piece of the company.

The Ultimate Self-Discovery Questionnaire

Don’t you think it’s time for you to have your why evolve? The only way this happens is to go through an inspection of yourself, and one of the things I’ve recommended to many people is to use The Ultimate Self-Discovery Questionnaire. Back in August 2003, answering these 83 questions completely changed the way I view life.

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The Ultimate Self-Discovery Questionnaire

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This article was originally published on PatrickBetDavid.com.