We all have an underlying meaning behind why we care about exercise, the outdoors, our hobbies, everyday activities, and anything else we do in life. This is your Why.

Your Why can determine whether you dread doing something or seek it out. Understanding your motivation, your Why, can make you much more likely to embrace something and sustain it.

Having a Why that resonates deeply with you can be the difference between things feeling like a gift… or a chore.

Are you interested in activity and the outdoors to improve your health? To lose weight and get your doctor off your back? Because it’s good for you?

Or are you interested in getting outdoors because it’s fun? To feel free, alive, and unburdened by life? Because it makes you feel connected and whole again? 

You might already see how much of an impact your Why can have on your motivation and follow-through.

Finding The “Right Why”

Framing your Why in a way that makes it interesting to you can determine whether or not you achieve said goal. If your goal is about things that you hope to maybe do someday (if the stars align and everything is right in the world), you’ll likely never achieve it. If your goal is based on someone else’s desires, you’ll probably avoid “your” goal and feel like a failure if you don’t complete it.

So let’s replace the Wrong Whys with the Right Whys, ones that actually resonate in your very soul.

To do this, focus on the immediate benefits you enjoy from the habits you do to reach your goal.

Focus on The Immediate Benefits

For regular training, immediate benefits would be having more energy, better sleep, less stress, less depression, enhanced mood, improved memory, less anxiety, a better sex life, better mental health, improved self-esteem, and feeling capable of completing an adventure, just to name a few.

Regular, deliberate movement can also be your “me time”. It’s a time focused on yourself, for yourself. It’s okay to be a little selfish in your motivations. For busy people like entrepreneurs and parents, training might be the only time you have where you don’t have to make decisions and can just shut off your brain. It can be incredibly freeing.

For getting outdoors, the immediate benefits are often obvious: being outdoors reduces stress, boosts mood, improves sleep quality, increases focus, reduces symptoms of depression, generates creativity, improves learning, and imparts a greater appreciation of nature and our place in it.

Learning a skill like speaking another language can become something that gives you a greater appreciation and experience of places you travel to. It’s something where you begin with little to no knowledge of a community but by the end are able to connect with the culture to a greater degree. Being able to communicate with someone in their language is a great gift, and by doing so we can build an appreciation for their traditions and history. Greater understanding also leads to greater empathy and acceptance on both sides of the conversation.

Crafting Your Why

Don’t focus on the things that might happen eventually, like avoiding cardiovascular disease or living a long, healthy life. Don’t worry about going to see a major world landmark, traveling to a popular travel location, or taking part in some bucket list adventure.

While adventures and events can be motivating in the short-term, most people won’t always have The Next Thing looming on the horizon. Instead, focus on the things you can feel and experience now. Today. This is the secret to motivation. 

Make your Why personal. Make it emotional, visceral, and real. Avoid labeling goals and habits as things you “should” do. If you’re like me, you automatically resent any goal or task you feel obligated to get done. Instead, transform the meaning into something that is a gift to yourself.

Work on crafting your own meaning for your goals and habits. Let’s break down what this could look like.

“I have to run to get my miles in before my trip next month.”

While it may be true, this mindset can lead people to resent their habit once the trip is over. If you dread the thought of ever having to run again, you need to find a new Why.

Or consider, “I should go to the gym because lifting is good for me.”

This Why is unmotivating and impersonal. Dig deeper.

Your new Why can be as simple as “run today to feel good today.” Or you could hone in on something more specific, “I’m a more loving partner when I regularly go to the gym. It is my personal time, makes me feel good, and gives me an outlet to de-stress.”

Here’s a few more quick examples:
“I exercise because my mental health improves after a workout.”
“I am going to bike this Saturday because it gets me outside and I love the sense of peace that gives me.”
“I like to lift heavy because it makes me feel stronger and more capable.”

When crafting your Why, avoid using the words should, have to, or need to. These phrases indicate that your Why is not personal or real enough yet, that it’s still a chore. Use words like want or like and make it about yourself.

Focus on what you feel from doing the activity. Maybe you truly enjoy the feeling of success from achieving big hairy audacious goals. That’s great. You can keep that. But if you can also find a way to tie in what you’re doing with something you feel in the moment, you are much more likely to keep doing that thing, even if/when it sucks.

Finding your Why is not always simple, but can be extremely effective for long-term success and fulfillment. You might find that your meaning changes from day to day or in different circumstances. That’s fine. Just make sure whatever your Why may be that it is important to you today. Find joy in the journey, through the valleys and mud, not just in the peaks.

Love, 
Trey