Do You Have A Big Enough “Why”?

Do you have a big dream or goal you want to achieve? Is there something you know you should be doing to move you closer to that goal or dream but you avoid doing it or keep putting it off?

If you're struggling to motivate yourself to do those things, it's usually because they make you feel uncomfortable. You imagine doing them will cause you some amount of pain, discomfort, or inconvenience. Then you might think that you need to be more disciplined or you need more willpower.

Relying on willpower and discipline alone doesn't work, and won't get you to do those things consistently.

This is where we come unstuck on working towards our goals and dreams: with the “how.” We think about the how and it seems hard or painful, and so we don't do it.

But the “how” isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is the “why.” I want to tell you a bit about my story over the last few years to illustrate.

Since January 2016 I've been dealing with an autoimmune disease called psoriatic arthritis. This has primarily affected my hands by severely limiting their mobility. As a piano player, this was utterly devastating. Because I could no longer play piano, it's meant that I've had to abandon my music career.

The conventional western medical establishment says that autoimmune diseases are incurable. So the best that they could offer me was to take immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of my life. These drugs have potential side effects that can be worse than the symptoms of the disease, and potentially fatal. And they only treat the symptoms, they don't address the root cause of the condition. So understandably, I was reluctant to go down that path. Most people would just accept that that was their only option and resign themselves to taking the pills.

But that wasn't acceptable to me. Nothing less than full recovery is acceptable to me. And there are countless people whose stories I've encountered on my journey who have completely healed from autoimmune conditions, so it is possible.

These are some of the things I've done over the last 3.5+ years on my journey to heal:

• Initially, I tried things like ultrasound therapy, acupuncture, and extensive physiotherapy.

• I ended up having surgery on my right index finger. I went through the private health system because I wanted the best medical care money could buy. That cost me $6000. The surgery didn’t work. At that point, I started having problems in my other hand. That’s when I was finally diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis.

• From that point onward, I've spent hundreds if not thousands of hours researching autoimmune conditions, the immune system, nutrition, health, supplementation, different healing modalities and protocols.

• I've invested hundreds of dollars in online programs and courses to educate myself.

• More recently, I've been taking cold showers and doing ice baths in the middle of winter to reboot my immune system.

• I've just done a 12-day fast. Before that, I was doing intermittent fasting twice a week for the last 10 months.

• I've invested at this stage in over $7000 of high-quality, cutting edge supplements to support my body.

• I've completely overhauled my diet so that I only eat organic, non-GMO plant-based whole foods, which has basically doubled my grocery bill.

• I’ve overhauled and completely swapped out all of my household cleaning products so that there’s nothing with any toxic ingredients which can cause inflammatory processes in the body. I’ve done the same with my personal hygiene products like toothpaste, shampoo, and body wash.

• I exercise 6 times a week. I meditate for an hour every day.

• I've tried some pretty woo-woo stuff like sound healing and quantum healing hypnosis therapy, which involves past life regression... apparently, I was a pirate.

Most people would not be willing to do even a fraction of what I've just told you. They'd call me extreme or even crazy, or they think I'm superhuman for my dedication, consistency, and discipline.

But I don't think the reason I've gone to these extremes is because of dedication or discipline or willpower. It's because I've got a big enough why. Nietzsche said that if you've got a big enough why, you can bear any how.

You need to have a “why” that's so monumentally important that failure is not an option. In other words, the pain of not achieving your why needs to be greater than the pain of the how that you go through to achieve your why.

What is my why? I want to be able to play piano again. That was my life for the last 20 years. I want to be an even better piano player than I already was. I want to create music that touches and inspires and transforms people. I want to have a music career. I want to regain my independence. I want to be able to cut up my own food, do my own housework. I want to be able to work out. I want to be able to hold the hand of the woman I love and intertwine my fingers with hers. Do those things sound like a big enough why that I could endure the discomfort or pain or expense or inconvenience of all the things I listed above?

I'll give you another example. Since I haven't been able to play piano, I've had to find other ways to occupy my time and supplement my income, so I've transitioned into coaching. So what have I done in order to become a coach?

• I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on training and education.

• I've spent thousands of hours studying.

• I've had to learn about things that most musicians and creatives would find uncomfortable and completely counter-intuitive, like business, entrepreneurship, marketing, copywriting, and social media.

• One of the biggest things I've had to do is public speaking, whether that's presenting workshops in person or doing live videos. I'm just about the shyest most introverted person you'll ever meet. And yet here I am.

Now the big question... why am I willing to go through all of those things which are way outside of my comfort zone?

Because I want to help people eliminate their suffering and overcome their limitations and create the lives they dream of. I want to build a successful coaching practice. I want to become financially independent and to have the security that brings, and the freedom to be able to buy a kick-ass home theatre system, and collect music and artist memorabilia, and go to concerts without worrying about whether I can afford it. I want to have the flexibility of working anywhere so that I can travel extensively and see the world and immerse myself in different cultures. Are those a big enough why that I can deal with the hows? Yeah!

So if there's something you know you need to do to move you closer to realising your goal or dream that you've been avoiding or procrastinating on, you probably haven't found a big enough why yet. So this week I want you to think about what your big why is. Like I said, the pain of not achieving your why needs to be greater than the pain, discomfort, expense, or inconvenience of the how.

When you have a big enough why, you become relentless. You become unstoppable. You have a big enough reason to do the things you need to do, instead of excuses for not doing them. Nothing can stand in your way and success becomes inevitable.