Importance of 'WHY'

To do any task or to make any decision, one should always ask ‘WHY’. Why I am doing this; why to do this; what are the benefits or pros/cons involved with this. Is it really worth doing this or not. One must always be clear about the ‘Purpose’ behind any work he/she wants to do. So, it is always important to ask this question as if you will know the purpose behind any work you are doing or any decision you are making, then you will do it with more efforts and chances of success are more. When you are clear regarding your work, then chances of getting success are more and you will try to do it in all possible manners.

After ‘why’, second question comes is ‘HOW’, how also plays an important role in accomplishing any task. But WHY is having more significance than HOW as it makes you clear of the goal you want to accomplish. Then you can think of how to achieve that task after knowing the importance.

80% of any SUCCESS is WHY and 20% is HOW.

Why can be there in any situation even you can ask this for why I am doing this job?

There can be different answers to this question. It depends on the individual’s perception, like most will say to earn money or to eat. But is this the only purpose behind your job, if it is then it will be quite difficult for those persons to be really successful in their career. They can earn handsome amount of money but they cannot make their image in society, they cannot do any constructive thing for society, hence their life will be no more than personal life. No one can remember them for long.

If somebody says to achieve my goals and for the welfare of society, they will always focus on higher goals and achievements. Everyone who is successful today had higher goals in mind and wish to do something good for the society, for nation.

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

Another example is if you want to wake up early, then first you should ask why I need to wake up early. One may say to keep myself fit, I will do exercise, go for a walk or jog, so there will be a purpose behind this. But if one would say I want to wake up early so that I can get enough time to get prepared, to read the newspaper, or to have a cup of tea. Now purpose behind this is quite weak, so there are less chances of getting awake early.

To know the answer of WHY and to judge whether what you have think, the purpose involved is correct or not, it involves two things that one should take care of. These are PAIN and PLEASURE involved.

It means how much Pain is there if you will not do that task and how much Pleasure you will get after doing that task. So you have to analyze this whether Pain is more or Pleasure is more.

Now if you take above question of waking-up early, one who wants to keep himself/herself fit, will see more pleasure as he/she will be active for the whole day and will feel fresh. But another person will see more pain as that person has to wake-up early and will feel he/she is compromising with sleep. So purpose needs to be strong to do any work.

“Winners are people with definite purpose in life.”

Lets take another example, when you need to catch a flight/train early in the morning, you will definitely wake-up early as you know if you will miss it there will be a lot of ‘pain’ instead of some minutes pleasure of more sleep. Here purpose is very strong, so you get up early even if you have slept late in the night.

Sometimes you may have to look for the Pain and Pleasure of other persons also. If you will do some thing, whether it will create pain to other person or it will be a pleasure for him/her. Always think of others also if situation demands.

So always have a strong and constructive purpose while doing any task.

"Purpose is what gives life a meaning."