Compelling Reason to Change – The Big Why

With the Change Process as described in a previous blog, this is the step that make the other steps make sense accomplishing. Without a compelling reason to do anything, we will not endure the process of change. This compelling reason – the Big Why – is what will get us up each morning and have us push through the “wall of fire.” This is the reward for the change journey.

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong.” N. R. Narayana Murthy

In accepting our need to change – having looked at our life (relationships, family, health, and/or career) and honestly found the possibility for improvement – we now need to find the purpose for our living. Yes, we see room for improvement, but why improve, why change?

Staying where we are at is easy, comfortable, and non-confrontational; change is anything but that. The funny thing about change, we all want the result, but few ever put in the effort. People do not change and grow because they have not discovered their Compelling Reason to Change – their Big Why. It is the motivation that will get them beyond any of the difficult reasons to not change.

In addition to the seven years it took to write Only Human, at the same time I had a career challenge. Waking up each morning without the purpose I had had for the last 35 years presented motivational challenges. Each day I needed to remind myself who or what I was living for – my loving wife and my wonderful, successful children, and the example I needed to set for them and my readers to follow. Loving husband and father are my compelling reasons; my Big Why.

Your compelling reason to change is found in your life’s purpose – that is where your Big Why is hiding. As I said in Only Human – “…you need to decide which is more important to you: who you are now or who you want to be…In the end, the ultimate and purest form of happiness comes from a life that is directed by a purpose and filled with meaning, not a collection of things and stuff.”

NORBERT SOSKI