My Why
I loveeeee thinking about my why.
I have always been obsessed with self-help books, podcasts, courses, you name it! And a popular exercise to do is your What + Why.
What do you want?
Why do you want it?
These two questions are, I believe, the starting point to any transformation. Getting super duper clear on what you want is the first step because you have to know exactly what serves your heart.
Initially I found that answering this question can be a bit overwhelming. We aren’t typically asked in day-to-day life, what do you want? Or, we might be asked but our response has become a default response vs. taking a second to listen inwards.
I got a hack for this. We all mostly know what we don’t want. So, when you know what you don’t want, you know what you do want.
For example: if I am trying to figure out where I want to live, my mind might jump right to not wanting to live in a place that gets cold. That helps you cut down your options in half.
Once you get specific on the What you want, now it is time to get to the Why.
The Why is the juice. It’s the reason for your being. It is what adds color to life.
But, the trick is to also drill down to a specific sentence, word, or even sensation!
When I knew I wanted to be an online business owner with digital services, I slowly drilled down to a word for my why: freedom. This word holds a whole lotta juice for me when it comes to my career. When something gets hard in my business and I start wondering why the heck I am doing this, I just have to go back to my why. It’s not always a pretty process, but most times than not, I get back to feeling inspired and motivated. Inspired + motivated = Nishi taking action.
My Why for publishing A Friendship Story: Heart & Mind and for creating Joy Parade comes down to me really really really (really!) wanting to teach everyone in the world (kids + adults) that…
YOU are not your mind.
When you start to identify with the mind as being us (aka ego), we find ourselves getting sucked into a ton of mental stories. We can only see the world through our mind glasses.
Our minds are wired for safety, not excellence. This isn’t a bad thing since we do want to ensure our survival. But, we also want to thrive. And if we only identify ourselves as a mind full of fears and limitations, it will become an uphill battle to try to do anything more than survive our day-to-day.
The other thing I feel super jazzed about teaching is even if you have never ever meditated in your life, you can still bring yourself back to the present moment at any moment.
You don’t have to spend years in meditation to feel your wellbeing within. It’s available to anyone right now. You just need a little support to allow yourself to feel it.
For me, these two ideas have felt like the most productive lessons to integrate into my own life.
I have replaced overthinking, anxious thoughts, and controlling behaviors with either taking action on an idea or if I can’t take action on anything then I move away from any thinking and simply live in the present moment.
Let me pause here and say, this is not easy stuff. I don’t want to put out a story that it is hard, but it is pretty different from how we function in society.
But it’s okay. We are here in this together, moving away from living in stress to living back in our joy - notice I say “back” because I truly believe we are going back to our original state.
I invite you to ask yourself these questions: What do you want? Why do you want it? And maybe you will be inspired to take some action on your joy.
Much love,
Nishi
