Here’s an example of the 7 Whys in action:
You have a goal of “I want to lose weight.”
I want to lose weight
1. Why?
I want to be more healthy
2. Why?
I want to be able to play with my kids
3. Why?
I want my kids to know me
4. Why?
I didn’t get to know my parent and I don’t want my kids to miss out on that
That sounds pretty deep and more important to you than just looking good in a swim suit. However, we are going to keep going just a bit deeper.
5. Why don’t you want your kids to miss out?
It’s important for kids to know their parents and where they came from.
6. Why?
When you know where you came from you can understand yourself better
7. Why is that a good thing?
Understanding yourself is important because when you don’t know yourself well, you can be careless with your actions and hurt those around you like my parent did.
Ah ha! Now we are getting to the meat of the issue.
You want to lose weight so you can be thoughtful about who and how you spend time with people. That is very different and much more motivating than wanting to look good in a swim suit. You want positive relationships. WOW!
I want positive relationships – does this doughnut get me closer to that? You know you will not feel great about yourself after eating the doughnut and when you get down on yourself you can’t really be there for those you love. So, in essence, that doughnut takes you away from positive relationships because of how you will feel about yourself after eating it.
7 Whys
The second resolution-sticker-to-it tool is the 7 whys. So simple, just ask ‘Why’ 7 times after you state a goal. Here’s how it works:
State a goal – single goal not compound i.e. I want to lose weight (single) I want to be thinner so the cute person will notice me and we fall in love, etc (compound goal)
It can be anything like get in shape, eat more healthily, finish that book, start that book, etc. Whatever it is, we want to find out what it actually represent to you?
The 7 Whys can help answer that question.
Having answered the 7 Whys you now have a very emotionally driven Why for losing weight. That deep connection can make it easier to stick with a plan.
Crazy how that works isn’t it? It is the 7 Whys method and it is based on the 5 whys which was created by Toyota – yes the car manufacturer. They ask Why 5 times to get to the root of a problem. The 7 Whys takes you that much deeper and can be profoundly impactful when creating motivation to stick with a goal.
When you have a deeply meaningful Why it is easier to stick with it.
I hope that helps when crafting the messages and goals as you look ahead.
You can do it.
Take it slow and find a deep Why to help you stay motivated, AND be kind to yourself when you misstep. We all misstep, it’s ok. It isn’t how many times you get knocked down it is how many times you get back up
Success formula: get back up = knocked down +1