What makes some people more successful than others, even when they have come from the same backgrounds, attended the same schools and universities and even achieved the same grades? Darren Hardy, the Editor of Success Magazine, has an answer. He says that those people who have achieved great success have found their "Why" and that's what motivates their action, not money, or the desire for power or status. He tells this powerful story about finding our "Why".
He tells it like this to his audiences:
If I put a plank across the stage from one side to the other, about half a metre from the floor and offered you $20.00 to walk across it, who would do it?
Almost all the hands in the room go up.
If I put this plank between two buildings, ten storeys up and offered you $20.00, who would walk across?
No one puts up their hand.
If the building at the other end of the plank was on fire and one of your children was lying unconscious at the end of the plank with the flames about to reach her in a few minutes, would you walk across the plank?
Most people put up their hands.
So what's the difference?
The difference is the WHY.
WHY is a little word that poses a big challenge for us. It is what feeds our motivation.
When we don't achieve the success we want, it is often because we are not clear about WHY we want it. When it doesn't happen quickly enough we become depressed. We have nothing to motivate us at a deeper level.
When we give up on our goals a few weeks after we set them, it's often because we are not clear WHY we want to achieve them. When the going gets tough, we let go and take the easy road to nowhere.
When we fail to differentiate what we do from everyone else who does the same thing, it is usually because our WHY, which is our differentiator, is not clear.
When we have a big enough WHY, the HOW is never an issue. We just do it! We keep on doing it until we achieve what we want.
It's not easy to find our WHY. It means we have to stop and reflect. Unless we do find it, however, we will always live and work feeling we are not quite making it, feeling there is more to us than we are tapping into.
So find your WHY and let it motivate and drive your life.
How? Find a colleague to help you. Speaking it to someone who keeps coming back to you, asking questions to clarify it, until that colleague is inspired by your WHY and it resonates with you. You then know you have it.
No comments:
Post a Comment