What's your WHY?

I love to help my clients get in touch with their WHY. What does this mean? Your WHY is your reason for doing something, your curiosity, your purpose, your fire. Your WHY drives you, fuels you, gets you through the ups and downs involved with a creative (ad)venture, whether it's building a brand for your business or revising the manuscript for your memoir.
 
The creative process has lots of ups and downs. A symbol for this is a giant “U.” We start a project at the top of the U, full of excitement and energy. It's the honeymoon phase. We're in love, and there's no stopping us.

Then, as we continue working with our idea, we descend into the bowl of the U. This is where it gets dark. It’s uncharted territory. It takes courage to allow ourselves to go into the darkness where things are messy and unpredictable.
 
And this is when our WHY helps us the most. With our WHY in our back pocket, it can accompany us in the darkness. It’s like a flashlight, a connection to our calling, a beam that illuminates our next step. And that’s all we really need to see: our next step.
 
It takes a lot of faith, but if we stay with it, we begin to ascend up the other side of the U. And we take jewels with us from the darkness, jewels that crystallize as we ascend the right wall of the U. Eventually, we emerge at the other side. Our project has run full cycle and we feel a sense of completion.
 
So what is your WHY? You now see why it’s an important companion on the creative journey. Here are some ways to connect to your why.
 
Childhood dream. Do some detective work. What lit you up as a child? What were your dreams? Who did you pretend you were? What powers did you have?

Loss and setbacks. Often a tragedy gives us our why. When life brings us to our knees, a sense of purpose is activated in us to reach out to others, to offer something that can help those who experience what we did.

Loved ones. Those who depend on us give us a built in sense of why. Our family, children, animals, friends.
 
I'll be incorporating an exercise that leads us to our WHY in my upcoming workshop, The Branding Blueprint. We begin next Wednesday, and at this time there's one seat left! If you're in the Bloomington area and would like to learn more, click the button below to get all the details.

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