(why: I want to inspire and help people who need my help and can inspire themselves to help and inspire others to lead a balanced, happy and fulfilled life )
I got inspired to write this blog after reading a book- start with why – by Simon Sinek one of my favorite ted speakers. The summary of the book is that there are three parameters – What, How, and Why. We normally start doing anything because of our why and as long as we remember our why we are inspired to work and feel fulfilled after we finish the days work. Every day we leave the bed excited with some goal for the day and feel happy and fulfilled to achieve the same. This means if we keep remembering our why ( and of course what also) we will never be bored with the work we do. But this generally does not happen for a very long period and there comes a point after achieving a reasonable growth where there is a split between our why and what. We forget why and just remember what and how only.
This is the point where our future growth is because of what we do and normally it is not the same as it was when we work for our why. And more important than growth is now we start manipulation and don’t enjoy what we are doing the way we used to enjoy before the split point. The main reason for not being able to explain why is because why is always on gut feeling and not on the basis of some calculation hence very difficult to explain while what and how are very easy to explain in a language. This is not according to psychology but according to biology. What and how come from the part of the brain which can convert it into language while why comes from the part of the brain which doesn’t calculate things. It’s like if you ask a friend of yours why are you my friend? It will be very difficult for him to answer. But if you ask him what is that one thing in me which makes me your friend then he will feel comfortable and will find a language.
Now human behavior can be influenced by two things either by manipulation or inspiration. Manipulation comes from what and the inspiration comes from why. If you follow your why people will follow you. It’s like if you want a friend of yours to quit smoking by telling him what will happen if he doesn’t quit smoking. He may get some disease, he may become weak then even if he tries to quit smoking he will not feel fulfilled and will not feel a sense of accomplishment even if he is able to quit. All those reasons are for creating fear and fear is a manipulation. But if he is inspired to quit smoking for some bigger reasons which may be helpful to him in the achievement of some bigger goals in life then he will quit smoking for a WHY and will feel fulfilled. In the language of NLP, this is called away or towards the model. In the first case, he wants to go away from something or some situation while in the later case he is going towards some big achievement through quitting smoking. One more example I would like to share here which shows that since the beginning we teach manipulation to our kids also like if we want to convince him for studies we say please study otherwise you will fail. Have this milk otherwise, something will happen. All of these are examples of manipulation. It’s not that that manipulation doesn’t work. But it’s not long term and inspiration is long term.
#Inspiration #Motivation #PersonalGrowth #Fulfillment #Mindset #SimonSinek #LifeGoals