If You Don't Remember Why You Started, You'll Never Finish

What motivates you when you start something new?

People will have lots of different answers depending on what their goal is, whether a new business, a project or even a personal aspiration. Whatever the answer, the common root is the why.

When you start something, it's easy to remember why you wanted to. What are you trying to fix? What are you hoping to achieve? The clearer the situation, the greater your buy-in.

The problem is: when you forget this, it all starts to unravel. You lose your drive when you forget what got you going. This is the reason so many goals are abandoned half-way through. Studies show 80% of people abandon their goals in the New Year within a month and a half.

So what do you do?

Reminding everyone (and yourself!) of the real problems you set out to fix can be simple to do, but often, it's just not done robustly.

Most of the time in business, it's simply buried underneath everything that followed. All the to-do lists, tasks to complete, endless meetings. It's easy to go through the motions. Unfortunately, it's not enough to keep you on track.

Instead, adapt your communication. Your conversations about the progress of your goal should be centred around the why. Don't just list off the actions as tasks to tick off. Keep focused on how each action takes you a step closer to achieving your goals.

This is particularly important if new people come on board midway through to help. If your focus on the goal only lasted the initial stages, they'll never stand a chance. Get everyone invested by always keeping the why at the forefront.

Simon Sinek's TED Talk explains how Apple go from Why to How to What to motivate us to buy from them. The same principles apply to motivate yourself and your team.

Simon explains that the What & Who are quite flat and can be the same for all. It's the Why that really makes the difference.

Stand out from the crowd by making sure your Why is strong and always on your mind.

What's your Why, How, What?

Feel like you've lost your way? We can help.

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