How to Reconnect with Your Why
We all know it’s important to connect with our why. Our big why, dreams, goals, visualizations...whatever you want to call it...keeps us on track and reminds us why we’re working in the first place. That “why” allows you to anchor into the feeling of having achieved those goals, whether you’re wishing to manifest a larger home, a dream partner, a career you adore, or whatever else you wish to create.
Yet every so often, it’s possible that we can lose sight of our why. Life gets busy, priorities shift, goals change. When that happens, our vision board becomes just another thing on our desk rather than a powerful, inspirational tool.
What happens when the why is lost? We must reconnect to our why in order to regain the focus on our guiding north star so we can resume making progress on the path that leads to our dreams.
Your Why Can Evolve
Just like you’re not the same person you were a few years ago, your why may change as well. In fact, it’s natural for your big guiding light to evolve as you do. However, if you haven’t updated your why to reflect your new feelings and direction, you can become disjointed from it and feel like it is more of a hassle than a bastion of strength and resiliency.
It’s also possible that your why is the same, it’s just that the expression of it changes. For example: you want to create a happy home for your kids. That’s your why. Then, as you decide to start a business, your why may change slightly to making yourself happy so you can be a role model for your kids. Same result (fostering an environment of happiness), different expression of how that comes to be.
Reconnecting with and rediscovering your why is necessary if you wish to continue to use it as your north star pointing you forward. When you reconnect to your why, your path will once again become clear in front of you.
What Happens When Your Why is Lost
I recently shared with a friend that I lost track of my why. It became fuzzy and hard for me to articulate what it is. I had allowed other things to claim my time and wasn’t using my Pillars of Strength (which includes daily meditation and connecting to my vision board!) as a touch point throughout the day to ensure I clearly know why I’m doing what I’m doing.
If that’s happened to you, too, know that it’s okay! It’s totally normal to lose track of your why, just like it’s normal for it to change and pivot as you do. As they say, having awareness of the problem is the first step. The key is knowing what you’ll do to course-correct.
How to Reconnect with Your Why
Losing your why is kind of like being unable to find your favorite pair of jeans in the laundry pile. You know they’re there, you simply can’t locate them and separate them from all the stuff surrounding them. Here are a few ways you can “find your jeans in the laundry pile,” so to speak.
#1 Acknowledge How you Feel
The absolute worst thing to do when you’re feeling directionless is to continue along pretending you know which way is north. While it may be painful in the moment, articulating how you feel will allow you to lay everything out. I promise, the pain and/or tough feelings you may have as you tap into where you lost your way are fleeting; it hurts much more, for much longer to keep them in.
#2 Shed Light on the Situation
As with digging through the laundry pile, it becomes infinitely easier if you turn on the light. Then, instead of feeling your way through with your hands until you hit that familiar fabric, you can engage more senses to help you make sense of what’s in front of you.
I’m a fan of journaling to allow me to see what’s going on. You may also want to make a formal engagement with a coach to guide you through these new feelings and make sense of what you want to do with your life to find your guiding light once more.
#3 Take Time to Claim a New Why or Reclaim Your Previous One
If you’ve changed drastically, you may have a new guiding light and a new why to create a new vision board around. Although, you may come out of your journaling or coaching session and realize that the why you connected to before is still true, you just need to recommit to it.
Either way, your why is going to do you no good if you continue to ignore it!
Create a refreshed vision board, place sticky notes all over with your why written on them to remind you what you’re doing, set reminders on your phone with what you want and what your why is, make your phone and computer background your vision board. In short: surround yourself with your why and your vision so you always have a touchpoint and an easy way to come back to your why throughout the day.
(And here are 3 more ways to make sure your vision board and your why are top of mind and clearly in focus!)
Remember, it’s normal for you to lose sight of your why. Yet, it’s mandatory to reconnect back to it as soon as you realize you’ve wandered off your path. The longer you live in that world of uncertainty and airiness, the harder it may be to come back to your guiding north star and anchor into your why.
As Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” First, reconnect to your why so you remember why you do it, then share that why with others!
Naturally, my favorite tool for self-discovery and goal-setting and -accomplishing is a vision board. My Vision Of You Vision Board in a Box Kit contains a guided visualization that allows you to feel your burning fire and use it as you boldly claim what you want to make with your one precious and wild life here on earth.
Your kit also comes with everything you need to create a visual representation of that vision so you can look at it and reconnect with that spark and know you are whole, you are worthy, and you are amazing. And you can do it!! Click here to order your kit! (And check out the options to attend a live workshop on the events page. The energy of those live workshops is amazing and they're just so much fun!)