Finding Your Why: A Simple 20-Minute Exercise to Unlock Clarity

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The clarity you’re missing starts with this one question.

How often do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, doing everything you can to move forward? But still doubt whether or not you’re moving in the right direction.

If you’ve ever felt like this, you are not alone.

One of the biggest culprits around that stuck feeling is lack of clarity. Not just knowing what it is you want, but why you want it.

Without it achieving even the most ambitious goals can once achieved, feel empty. 

In this episode, we’ll explore how understanding your, why can unlock clarity and direction. 

And I’ll also share some practical tips so you can discover it for yourself.

You’re listening to The Next Step with Cori Lowe, where we transform overwhelm into confident action. I’m Corrie LoGiudice, keynote speaker, coach, and working mama for here to help ambitious women just like you take the next step, whether that be leadership at work, at home, or in your community. Let’s get started. 

For years, I thought success was all about checking off the right boxes. And I had a lot of boxes [00:01:00] that I had set up to check off for myself. 

In addition to promotions, pay raises accolades in my career. I also knew that I wanted to be a mom and I wanted to own a house and have the white picket fence. And. Basically, live the American dream. 

And at that point in my life, I achieved all of that. I was doing it yet. I still felt restless.

It wasn’t until I reached a pivotal life moment, which for me was losing a loved one to suicide where I realized time was finite. And I was losing time that I could be spending with my son each and every day.

And it was through that, that I really understood my why.

For me checking off all those boxes. Wasn’t about the title that it would give me. 

It was about creating the freedom, flexibility, and connection to be with the people I truly care about, which for me was my family. Or I should say still is my family.

Without a clear why you risk climbing up a ladder that’s put up against the wrong wall. 

And when you know your own, [00:02:00] why each decision and action that you take becomes more purposeful you move forward with intention instead of just spinning your wheels.

Some common signs that you might be lacking a why include. 

Feeling aimless or dissatisfied despite your outward success. I know this is one that I personally relate to. I’ve been there. 

Constantly chasing goals, but when you achieve them, you never feel truly fulfilled.

Feeling isolated. That’s one that I definitely felt during this point in my life, I felt like I was on an island all by myself and no one really understood. You know what it was I was going through or what I was experiencing. 

Feeling bored. This is a big one. If you’re constantly feeling like you’re just going through the motions each and every day, because you’re not really truly being challenged. That could be a really tough spot to be in and can make you feel stuck.

And lastly, you find yourself ruminating all the time. 

Like, why am I even bothering doing this? Why do I show up? What purpose does this even have? That’s a big red flag that you’re taking action that’s [00:03:00] in misalignment. With your why and what you truly value. 

Now that brings us to all right. How exactly do you go about discovering your why? 

And the very first step is getting clear on your values.

So when you think about it, your values are set the entire foundation for your why and what you do and values tend to change. As life moves on the values that you hold today at this current age can very well be very different than the values that you held for yourself five or 10 years ago. 

You’re a very different person now than you were then. So it makes sense that values are something that you should revisit on a regular basis. If it’s something that you haven’t thought about in awhile.

And the reason why they set the foundation for your why is because they represent what is truly most important to you when you find yourself taking action and it’s misaligned with your values. 

That’s when all of these really negative thoughts and feelings pop up, because you’re moving towards something that, [00:04:00] intuitively you really want to run away from. It creates that really uncomfortable feeling.

So the very first thing I recommend that you do is identify your top values. I usually recommend my clients and audiences. I speak to that you start with for, for myself when I first started this, I know. And honestly, mine really haven’t changed a whole lot in that timeframe. But my core values include my family, my career, my health and wellbeing and security, for me. But it could be different for some people, it might be travel at one point in time, travel was more important for me than security was right. 

That was before I had as many kids as I do now. I wanted to travel and see the world, but it’s really a very unique prospect to you. And you’re the only one that can choose these values. No one else can do it. So I recommend that you start off. I have a great resource that you can download in the show notes. For today’s episode, [00:05:00] that’s a list of over a hundred values that you can look at. 

And I want you to pick it just for, and the important part about this too, is you want to pick the ones that. Means something to you, not necessarily the ones that mean something to other people surrounding you, you have the right one when you can feel in your gut when you read it that you have some kind of like a physical reaction to it. So you start with that pick four.

The second thing that you could do that I find really helps with discovering your why and figuring out clarity is to envision your future. 

One of my favorite exercises that I share with clients and coaching audiences is called the five-year vision. And it’s really as simple as taking those four specific values that we just talked about and brainstorming five years from now, if you were to run into somebody at an airport that you haven’t seen in a long time that they asked “Hey, Corrie, what’s up, I’m seeing you in a while. 

What have you been up to” that you list out all the [00:06:00] amazing things in your life that’s happened in those five years aligned with those specific values. The thing that’s beautiful about this exercise and this process is it really gives you a point of reference. It gives you a destination that you then can. I call it your GPS, your goal positioning system, that you can then give it to actually have a destination to get there. 

Every route we get there might be different. There might be traffic on the road. You might be rerouted, but ultimately 

you really want to have a set destination to guide your decisions and actions along the way. 

So I want you to really explore this think, where are you five years from now? What does the day look like? Who are you spending time with? What are the things that you enjoy? What are some of the things that you’re feeling.

Now from there, you just simply connect the dots. Where within your current life, right? How does your values and your vision differ from the decisions that you’re making today? All right. And this really [00:07:00] gives you a very simple, easy, next step. To figure out what you need to be doing differently in order to have a different result and ultimately feel unstuck, feel fulfilled at. Be moving in a direction that’s more aligned to your personal, why.

So here’s a great example of this in action. 

So for me, all those years ago, when I went through this. I knew that I wanted to one day be a successful business owner, but my wife was off. So I was showing up every single day in my career, helping run my family’s business, which checked off the box. On my, life checklist. Now it didn’t come into clear focus for me until I lost my loved one to suicide. 

That the reason why I wanted to do it was because I grew up in an entrepreneurial household and I saw the freedom and flexibility that my family’s business allowed my parents to be with us. On a regular basis. And that was something that I really wanted to create with my kids. But [00:08:00] I kept showing up every single day in the family business, because family was still a very important value for me. But what the pivotal life moment really helped me see was by prioritizing my time, spending it with them. 

I was missing out on time with the newest addition to my family, which was my son, my brand new five month old son. So this very quick, like we said, we’re looking at four simple values and then creating that life vision from there. It really helped me see where I had been misdirecting my time and attention. 

So I made some very difficult decisions at that point in time, I decided to step down from my role. I started my own business. I tried a more flexible work arrangements, tried out a bunch of different things, but ultimately felt more fulfilled and more in alignment. With what I’m currently here to do and who I’m meant to serve, which at that time was definitely to be fully present with my son.

So today we explored how knowing your why can bring [00:09:00] clarity and direction to every area of your life. So your next step is going to be take 20 minutes. Out of your day, determine your four core values. And from there create a five-year vision that you actually get excited about after just connect the dots on what you’re actually doing now that aligns with that future vision.

Need some help getting started? You could download my free worksheet in the show notes. It’s the same exact worksheet that I use with my coaching clients, as well as with speaking audiences on a regular basis. 

Thank you so much for taking time with me today. I truly hope this helped you feel clear and inspired to take action.

Next week, we’re going to talk about creating a vision that helps you continue to take action without feeling overwhelmed. So if you’ve ever struggled with perfectionism or feeling anxiety surrounding big goals, it’s going to be for you. So don’t miss out. 

Thanks for checking out the next step with Corrie Lo. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review. Together, we’ll transform overwhelm into action, and we’ll keep [00:10:00] taking the next step towards competent leadership. See you next time.