Writing Your Why

At Next Page, it’s difficult for our team to write authentic content when clients don’t know their why. Your “why” is not what you do or how you do it; it’s the purpose and feeling you create for yourself and others. It’s a combination of pain you relieve for others and the reason you get out of bed in the morning.

Now, to be fair, you may get out of bed in the morning because you want to make money (totally valid), but when clients can’t get deeper than that, they’re not a good fit. Because even something as superficial as making money likely has a deeper meaning. Money = financial independence = security for your family… that’s a why.

Last month, I was honored to speak at the Women Who Serve forum presented by the Red Cross of the Carolinas. My presentation spoke to developing your personal why and creating your new “life mission” after the military. As I was putting together my thoughts, I realized that this was not that far off from developing your “why” for business and what we aim for our clients to develop.

Here’s the formula:

I {task} in order to [short term goal] so I can [future goal].

This is what that looks like:

I develop strategic processes for female writers in order to create an emotionally safe and sustainable business so that I can empower future female business owners.

As humans, we strive to make meaning out of our lives and the events that happen to us. I will raise my hand first as someone who does this constantly. Most of the time, it’s helpful. Other times… not so much. Because not every event, or failure, or business mistake is a story with meaning. Sometimes things just happen and we learn and move on (or not).

With The Great Resignation of 2021, many people seem to be unconsciously (or not) considering what their why is. Are they feeling passionate about why they get up in the morning? Is their why leading them to their end goals? If statistics tell us anything, it seems that’s not the case. According to a recent article by NPR, “UC Berkeley economist Ulrike Malmendier suggests there's something existential behind the Great Resignation: The pandemic and the rise of remote work have changed the way we view our lives and the world.”

So, where do you find yourself in this mix. What is your why? And is your why meeting your daily tasks - at work or at home? It seems that most of us are stumbling into these very questions, and as a marketer, I hope you hear it here first: without a strong why, you won’t know how to reach your end goals.

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If you want to read more on developing our why and marketing yourself for your next chapter, purchase This Won’t Be Pretty on Amazon today.