If you don’t know your why, you won’t have 100% passion or motivation to do the how to reach your what. In the early stages, businesses rarely make enough money to inspire motivation and the urge to go to work every day, all day. In fact, it sometimes feels hardly worth the effort. So, instead, inspire motivation by knowing your why.

Simon Sinek gave a great TED talk about Finding Your Why. He found that by knowing the “Why? How? What?”, that’s what sets apart those leaders and organisations that can inspire and motivate from the rest. Many think the answer to their “Why” in business is “to make a profit”. This isn’t true; this is the desired outcome, or result, but not the reason why you are in business. The why can be answered by questions such as “What’s your cause?”, “What’s your purpose?”, “What’s your belief?”, and “Why does your organisation exist?”.

In knowing your why, you then think, act and communicate from the inside out, and this is how the good are separated from the great. I recommend you watch Simon’s talk to get the full extent of his message and really grasp how to find your why so you can transform from good to great, too. You can view his talk here.

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Procrastination

It’s easy to lose track of time, especially with media in our pockets 24/7. You might think, “I’ll take a quick break and catch up on the latest news”, or your phone might ping with a notification from social media, “I’ll just quickly check it” you think and next thing you know you’ve been on your phone for an hour watching video after video of which none relate to your main task of the day! So, why do we procrastinate?

We all know the negatives of procrastination – stress, consequences due to missing deadlines, anxiety, and so on. So, if procrastination is associated with so many negative outcomes, why do we do it? Well, it’s innate in us all, because who would choose a difficult, mundane, time-consuming task over watching funny videos or another activity that fills us with joy. In saying this, we all have a different why of why we’re procrastinating on a certain task. Is it because it’s boring? Is it because it is too difficult? Once you find your why, you can make it less likely for you to procrastinate on the task. For example, if it’s too difficult, break the task down into smaller tasks over a number of days or weeks before deadline. It’s not going to get easier by leaving it til the last minute!

Tim Urban discusses procrastination in a TED talk in a humourous, easy to understand way. He talks of “the Instant Gratification Monkey” and “the Rational Decision Maker” within our brains. The Instant Gratification Monkey takes the wheel of the brain from the Rational Decision Maker and steers us towards tasks which will fill us with Instant Gratification, rather than towards the tasks we have deadlines for which won’t give us Instant Gratification which the Rational Decision Maker is trying to steer us towards. It’s not until “the Panic Monster” arrives close to, or on, deadline that the Instant Gratification Monkey lets go of the wheel (because the Panic Monster is all he’s afraid of) that we’re able to regain focus and complete the task we’re meant to be completing. It’s a great analogy, so I recommend you have a look at the video here – there’s excellent illustrations and Tim’s explanation of procrastination is one you won’t forget, and will probably hit close to home for many of you.

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