FINDING YOUR WHY

Finding Your Personal Reason for Change

In order to ensure change lasts we need to understand where it comes from.  Reflecting on how you have got to where you are now enables us to explore the reasons why change is desired and needed and why it has surfaced now.  Understanding the reasons why is imperative for the longevity of the outcome and to ensure that the wish to change can transform itself into reality and become a newly developed part of your self.  Finding your why will not only reaffirm the need and want for change, allowing it to have a stronger chance of survival, but it also initiates other internal movements of change indirectly impacting on other aspects of your self.  Change relies on resilience, perseverance, and an ability to transition from endings to new beginnings (and vice a versa) smoothly.   How easy change is to a person depends on how strong these, and other attributes, necessary for development to occur, are, and how entrenched and entangled one’s behaviour or thinking is.

Finding the meaning behind your why can be a complex task which rarely presents itself in consciousness clearly and often requires analytical support to uncover.   Yet it is vital in finding out why change is necessary and not just an arbitrary creation of purpose to fill time.  You want change to be something that benefits you, which drives you forward to develop, not just to keep you moving in circles.  Your why directly relates to who you are and the meaning of life as you see it in your internal world.  The things you seek, what nourishes you, what stimulates you, your desires and your needs which make you feel whole, are all linked to your why.  It is often an unconscious drive built up from past experiences, tainted by one’s perceptions, expectations, and current situation.  The need may be a distorted desire which has been consciously misunderstood.  If the desire towards change dies you know that the meaning behind it has not been fully understood or you at some level you are not ready to do what is necessary to make the change. 

An obstacle to locate your why can be because the meaning behind the change is unconscious, distorted, or defended against being revealed.  We all have the ability to make change happen, we do it every day in the decisions we make.  It is the type of change and where it’s roots lie which makes certain thinking and behavioural patterns harder to instil.   

Change is about realigning your internal structure which has become distorted, unsettled, or stunted hindering your ability to grow.  A beginnings are more often about trying again rather than starting again.  It is our mistakes after all which allow us to develop and continue to learn from new experiences and relationships; rebuilding, rewiring, getting back up, rethinking, re-establishing your internal structure.  Change is about You, it will affect You.  It is your hard work that will make things happen, no one but you can do it.

Questions to Find Your Why

• Do you know what it is you want to change? Is it specific or is it something which covers many aspects of your life? 
• Is the change an internal desire or an external pressure? Is it something you want or has it been asked of you or even force upon you?
• Has there been a particular event, comment, or situation that as created a spark to initiate the change?
• Why do you want to change now? Is there a story behind this change or a process which has led to this moment?
• Why do you think you want this change? Is the change about stopping something which causes you pain or something which is detrimental to your physical and mental health, something which is not allowing you to develop further?  Perhaps it is something which will allow you to move forward and develop but in the direction which is unfamiliar.
• Is this something that has come up before? Have you tried to instil the same change previously?  If so why do you think the change hasn’t been able to be sustained?
• Reflect on what it means to integrate this change, noting down how you feel now and how you want to feel after the change has occurred.

These questions enable in-dept thinking about the desire to change and what it is related to, past, present, and future.  They aim to bring your focus to all aspects of your life finding links and associations.  This begins the process of addressing the difficulties faced, learning from our past, and focusing on how the change is affecting our present, and how it could impact our future. 

If change is hard to instil or difficult to pinpoint, yet you have a strong pull towards something different, then perhaps there is a more complex and unprocessed need for change which is tangled in past experiences, your expectations, and thinking patterns.  If there is an urgent need for change in order to suppress, hide or remove something which feels overwhelming and is reoccurring, then there is even more importance in finding the root cause of this anxiety and therapy can support you in this process. 

Get in touch to find out whether therapy could support you in your quest to change.