Know your Why?

Knowing why we do life the way we do it, is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves.

As someone who tries to simplify my life on a regular basis, I find that I often ask myself the why question.  Many days I ask myself ‘What  am I doing!?’  Sometimes daily, sometimes multiple times a day!!

To find that inner calm in our daily walk, we need to figure out how best to live our lives simply.   This is an ongoing process or adventure for me.

What I know to be true is this.   Good advice is not helpful when you don’t know what your personal mission or purpose is.   We need to know our why?   When we are not clear on what our personal mission is – it is difficult to conduct a personal life audit.  To do a life audit, we need to start by writing down our goals on paper.

Writing down our personal mission statement will help us articulate our values and beliefs, as well as  determine our personal definitions of success, and share our talents with the world!

Here are some brilliant questions to ask ourselves.

* What’s currently on my plate?

First up, write a list of everything in your life that takes up time.

Examples to write down are parenting, home making, homeschooling requirements, church commitments, writing, side hustle ideas, family commitments, relationships with extended family and friends, sport, writing, social media, and whatever else we spend time doing.

Now the fun part.   Once the list is finished, compare the list to your mission statement, and identify which items on your list match your mission statement, and circle those that don’t.     Don’t allow Analyze paralysis to get the better of you, eliminate those items on the list that don’t fit in with your mission statement.

Unfortunately sometimes this can feel a little brutal.

Other Brilliant Questions to Ask yourself:

• How is this helping me achieve my goal?
•  Do I enjoy it?
•  What am I gaining by having this particular thing on my plate? Could I achieve the same benefits another way?
•  What would I lose by taking this particular thing off my plate? Do those things play a large role in achieving my mission?
•  Am I using up other resources (money/time/energy) that could be useful in helping me accomplish my why?
• If I weren’t already involved with ‘this, would I sign up for it now? (If the answer is no, then that’s an easy thing to cross off your list.)
• Is this helping me to fulfill the basic needs of life? (For instance, my gym membership is expensive, but my health is really important.  Maybe I can do something else as a less expensive option. Exercise is important).

What’s left?

Once I’ve crossed items off the list, and reworked the priorities, it’s time to take another look at what’s left on the list.   If my new list seems more manageable and the to-do list helps lead me to my mission statement, then i’ve successfully done my life audit. If not, rinse and repeat.

Your personal mission statement allows you to focus.

As new opportunities come our way, it’s important to run them through our mission filter’s, schedule recurring times to conduct a Life Audit. It is vital that we all re-examine our lives from time to time, and rework our mission as needed.   Knowing that we are on the right track is important, and now we understand why it’s important to know our why!  I recently went through this process and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed crossing off