Discovering your Drivers: Three Top Tips for Finding your Why
Even the newest person to network marketing knows that finding
their 'why' is the first, most important step to succeeding.
They're not always so clear on why this is.
Ned Rae, Founding Member and Executive Director of the
incredibly successful MLM Success University describes this kind
of 'why' as "...something personal to you and bigger than you.
It's the driving force that keeps you going when everything
seems to fall apart - the force that makes you stand up brush
yourself off, put your head down and charge!" Find a compelling
reason why you simply must achieve your goals - why failure is
just not an option - and it'll drive you to get up early, go to
bed late, and keep working all the hours in between.
Unless we have this kind of 'why', the inevitable setbacks and
disappointments of building a business will almost always
overwhelm us. It's clear that if we don't already know our
'why', we need to discover it fairly quickly. Unfortunately,
information on how to do this isn't always easy to find.
HOW DO WE FIND OUR 'WHY'?
For some people, learning how to find a 'why' isn't necessary.
Some of us come from challenging enough backgrounds that the
chance to escape and/or overcome them provides all the 'why' we
could ever need. Others have families they'd do *anything* to
provide for and protect. Still others have a passion burning
brightly enough inside them it verges on a 'calling'. For many,
though, it's not quite so clear.
If, for example, your life has been mostly comfortable and most
of your needs are met, coming up with a big enough 'why' can be
difficult. But does that mean you can't succeed? Absolutely not!
You'll just need to put a little more effort into finding
something that works as a 'why' for you. And although it can be
difficult to find experts to tell you how to find that 'why',
they do exist.
TIP 1: WHAT IF FINANCES WERE NO OBJECT?
In his article 'Goals are Damaging', network marketing and
personal development guru John Di Lemme suggests sitting down
and asking yourself what you'd do if money was no object. If you
didn't have to worry about finances - if you had so much wealth
that you *had* to give it away - what would you do with that
money? For those of us raised in an average family -
comfortable, but not especially wealthy - this can be a
difficult scene to imagine. Try to imagine it nonetheless, and
see what your mind throws out to you.
TIP 2: WHAT IF YOUR DAYS WERE NUMBERED?
Personal Development Trainer, Andrew Drapper asks his clients to
imagine what they'd do if they suddenly discovered they only had
six months to live. In reality, all our lives *are* finite. None
of us know how long we've got - yet we live our lives as though
they'll go on forever. If you knew you only had months to live
(and money was no object), what things would you ensure you
accomplished before you died? What would you regret on your
deathbed not having done? While this exercise may see a little
morbid, it's an excellent way to help sort out your own
priorities.
TIP 3: CREATE YOUR PASSION
In 'How to Become Rich and Retire Young', Robert Kiyosaki
(author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad) talks about how to create your
'why' when you can't uncover anything strong enough already
within you. His Rich Dad taught him that passion was a mixture
of love and hate. So for anything he wanted to have in his life,
Kiyosaki would write two lists - one containing all the reasons
he'd love to achieve what he wanted - the other containing all
the reasons he hated not having that thing right now. Try
writing one list of each kind yourself for your business.
WHERE NEXT?
Try whichever of these exercises most appeals to you - or try
them all at different times, and write down your results. For
each exercise, come up with twenty scenarios - fifty - a hundred
- and see which of them causes the most intense emotional
reaction inside you. The stronger your reaction to an image, the
more power it will have.
Then, once you've found your own powerful 'why', use it! Write
it somewhere you see it regularly. Read it every morning.
Imagine achieving it in technicolor surround sound in your mind,
and you'll find it starts pulling you toward it. As Jim Rohn
says, the stronger your why, the easier your how. Don't make
building your business any harder than it has to be!