Discovering Your Why

Are you feeling lost looking for more meaning in your life? Let's talk about it this time on Wife's Thoughts. It's time for a virtual campfire sit down with Terry Weiss. Welcome to Weiss Thoughts. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Welcome to Wife's Thoughts. I am Terry Weiss and this is our weekly virtual campfire sit down and I'm so glad you decided to join us around the virtual campfire today. And if you want to get more episodes of Wife's Thoughts, just visit my website, Weis'sthoughts dot com. Just make sure you spell my name right wy Ce Weis's Thoughts dot com. There you can listen to each and every episode of the podcast, as well as leave feedback on the podcast comments, and you can email me directly through the website or Terry to r Y at Weis's Thought. If you want to check me out on x which was formerly Twitter, It's at Terry Weiss. And also you can find me on the YouTube channel. Just look for Wife's Thoughts on YouTube and you'll check that out. That has music lessons, my rumination on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and all that fun stuff that's all waiting for you at the YouTube channel Wis's Thoughts as well. Great, you're ready, I'm ready. Before we get in to today's topic on the podcast, it's that time again. It's that time again. It's time for the wordsmith word of the episode. Yes, indeedy do it is. It's time to impress your friends, let them know how your big brain is going to work and increase your vernacular vocabulary with this episode's wordsmith word of the episode, which is clink and say that again. Oh, Virtual AI assisted voice clinkin clink and c l I n q u A n t. It's a noun. If you use it in the noun form, it's an imitation gold leaf or literary or artistic tinsel false glitter in an adjective, it's glittering with gold and silver and tinseled. So that word of the episode for this week's wordsmith word of the episode one more time, artificial intelligent voice clink and clink and c l I n que you A n t. Impress your friends with your big brain, letting them know all the vocabulary words you are learning on each episode of the Wife's Thoughts Podcast. All right, let's get into the meat and potatoes of the podcast. Shall we as I talked about on the teaser, are you looking for more meaning in your life? Well, what we need to do. We're going to dive into the concept of discovering your why in quotation marks why, your why, the core purpose that drives you. And that's what I want to talk to you today on the podcast here in Whyte's thoughts. You know, a lot of us run around and yours. Truly, I still have this. This is a challenge in my day to day life as well, that you get those those periods in your life where you're just you know, you're kind of wondering, man, what is it all about? Sorry, if you heard a little bump there on the desk here, I'm moving the microphone. Sometimes you sit there and you wonder, man, why am I here? What is the meaning of all this? As all of us travel on this blue orb and we go through this wonderful journey called life, because you know, the alternative after it is death, and I want to try and soak up and enjoy as much of it as I can. And I'll admit it. Okay, I'm going to admit something to you right now and I have probably said this on past episodes of the Why Whites Thoughts podcast. I can speak you know what it is. It's that mandarin orange and spiced tea I'm drinking today. That's what. It's so good. If you ever get a chance to try mandarin orange and spiced herbal tea, h oh, it's the bomb. Where was I? Oh? Yes, you know, I've had these points in my life where I just you know, I want to enjoy as much as I can while I'm here, and a lot of times I feel like I've wasted a lot of time with procrastination, disillusionment, confusion, being a follower instead of more intuitive with myself and in tune with my inner self. And it's for me. I don't know about you, but for myself, it is an ongoing journey. Man. This is something I am doing every dog gone day. And it's a process. You know, it's process. You know, there was a movie I think called Analyze This or Analyze that. It's process. I'm just going through it. So I'm not again up on some virtual soapbox here preaching down to you saying, hey, man, I got all my shit together, and I got all the answers absolutely not. I am here in the thick of it with you all. I just figured I've been thinking about this and I thought, you know, this would be a good topic of discussion for the Wife's Thoughts podcast, because we all want to, you know, find out what our why is in life, what gets us out of bed in the morning, what we're passionate about, our values, our goals, what are we working towards, you know, and a lot of us. And I still feel like this sometimes I have episodes and periods in my life still that I have to work through where I feel like, sometimes, man, all I'm doing is I'm getting up, I'm punching that virtual time clock, punching in and out working, you know, eating, sleeping, you know, maybe spending some time with friends, sometimes working on music or working on you know, agenda and media and things like that, and then you know, hitting the rack. And it's just it can be repetitive and what you get, and it's good, don't get me wrong. It's good to have repetition and some flow and some structure to your days. However, there's times where you just man, you know, you do some reflective contemplation and you think, is man, is this all there is, What is my purpose? Why am I really here with? How can I help people? What do I have to do? It's about fulfillment. You know a lot of people walk around say I want to be happy in life, I want to be peaceful and happy, and I get that, and I've said those things myself, but I think it's more as I contemplate it, it's more about having a sense of fulfillment with your life. Hey, I'm making a contribution, maybe a big one, maybe a small one. Media, maybe a medium ocre, a medium oker, a mediocre want medium oocre? I just invet in a new word, a medium one. And well that's good, teep. I can't recommend that enough. Look that one more time. Mandarin orange spice, Oh, good stuff, but it's herbal Anyhow am I making a mediocre contribution in life? Am I touching you know? Others in ways that are having positive impacts on them? Because then that gives you, you know, positive fulfillment in your life. And so when you close your eyes at night, you feel, hey, I've accomplished things. I've done a lot, and I know a lot of people, a lot of people. I talk with a lot of people, friends, family, colleagues, and I hear and I listen, I kind of eavesdrop here and there in conversations and that a lot of people are just going through the motions. And I've been there, and sometimes I still feel that way, or I'm just you know, you hear that expression, it's you're in the rat race. You know you're in the rat race. I understand that because you just feel like, oh, I'm just doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. And it's about fulfillment. You want to feel that what you're doing matters, you know. So I think the first step into discovering our why is to identify your passion, what what really gets you going, What gets the juices going, the creative juices, the happy juice is going. You know, hey, I'm going to get up and I'm going to, you know, work towards my goal of losing weight and getting healthier. I'm going to get up and I'm going to work towards my goal of starting a new business or bettering my business. I'm going to work through you know, I'm going to get up and I'm really looking forward to seeing what impacts I can make today on my relationships with my spouse, and my friends and my family, you know, my my coworkers. I'm going to work on, you know, my goal towards, you know, wanting to save money for retirement, or if I'm in a job right now and I don't want to start a business, I'm going to work towards my goal of making myself the most valuable employee I can be, to maybe move forward in this company or start looking for another job in an area that I feel passionate about and fulfilled in. The Other thing you want we want to identify, is we want to identify what are our values, our core values? You know, what are the non negotiables with us? Some people say, you know, X, Y and Z are non negotiable with me. I if this person does X, Y or Z, I can't have them in my life. I will still be polite to them. I will be, but I'm going to distance myself. You know, what are my core values? Is it, you know, to be more impactful in my community? Is it to become more spiritual and closer to my God or deity whatever you may believe. Is it to be healthier, you know, being a kinder person. Maybe if you have anger issues or something or be a better listener, what are some of my values? And then lastly, I think we want to identify what are our goals, not only short term but long term goals, and what do we feel we need to do to obtain these goals. And a good idea is just you know. And you don't have to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars hiring a guru to do this. There's lots of resources on YouTube and on the internet. Just start with a with a loose leaf notebook and a pencil or a pen write down maybe three long term goals for the year twenty twenty five or even better yet here I'll give you. I'll give you an outline, just as a fictional outline. I have five life goals that before I leave this planet, I want to achieve these five things. These are the big ones. These are you know. I want to travel to five foreign countries. I want to write a book. I want to write a screenplay. I want to write and produce a song and release it on the on the internet. I want to learn an instrument whatever. I want to start a charitable foundation, I want to run a marathon. Whatever. Put what your five biggest goals are and I and call them. We'll call them EOL end of life goals, and that that means you want to accomplish these before the end of your life. Now, from those goals, take and let's break down where you want. You know, you know that question you get when you go in for a job interview, where do you say yourself in five years? You know, it's like hell if I know, No, that's not a good answer. You should have some kind of an idea of where you'd like to be. So put down, like, let's say a five year goal. That'll be your second set of goals. Put down five five year goals that you want to reach. So by the year twenty thirty, what are five things you want to accomplish? And they can be they can be derivatives of the five EOL and life goals, or they can be something totally different. You know, in five years, I want to have fifty thousand dollars in the bank. I want to have, you know, one hundred thousand dollars save for retirement, or I want to have ten thousand dollars save for retirement, or if I want to pay off my student loan, or I want to pay off my house in five years whatever. Five five. Put down five five year goals that you want to accomplish, and these are goals I want to accomplish in five years. Then take it down one more level. What do I want to accomplish in three years? And again these can be derivatives of the five year goals or the EOL end of life goals. You know, I want to be halfway to my goal of you know, fifty thousand dollars in the bank within three years, or I want to you know, be making forty thousand dollars a year in my business, or whatever derivatives or something totally different. Then after the three year goal, let's take it down one more notch to twenty twenty five this year one year goals. By the end of this year, I want to accomplish these five five things and put them down boom. So now this gives you goals to obtain. You've got an outline. Now the next thing is you want to hold yourself accountable. Now, I know a lot of you saying and again I'm not preaching from a soapbox. I'm preaching to the choir. I'm here with it in you. These are things that I am doing and constantly refining because by holding yourself accountable, and this can come in many forms, okay many forms. This could having a friend and texting them and say, hey, by the end of this year, I want to do X, I want to do ABC. I want to do one, two, three, four, five these five things by the end of the year. May I ask you a favor? Would you mind holding me accountable? Checking in every so often and say, hey, how you doing on this? And how you doing on that? How you doing on your yearly goal for this? Have if you can, if you can, have a family member or a friend that you can confide in and trust and say, I want you to be my accountability partner in this venture. Can you do that? Great? And then while we're under the accountability for these one year goals, set yourself a reward. Hey, if I accomplished these five things honestly, honestly, you know, buy December thirty first, twenty twenty five. If I accomplish all five of these honestly, no cheating, no no skipping steps, you know, no half assing it. By honestly accomplish these five goals, We're going to go out to it. The most expensive restaurant in town. You can say your accountability partner or your family or whoever, Hey, I'm going to take everybody out for dinner blah blah boham. Or I'm going to allow myself to buy that motorcycle I wanted, or I'm gonna allow myself to buy that new musical instrument, or I'm going to go, you know, to the casino and spend a weekend and spend you know, two thousand or thousand dollars just as a reward, all right. By the same token, if you do not accomplish those goals, have a penalty, have a penalty that you must be accountable for. In other words, if you don't accomplish the five goals, then your accountability partner you're going to you know, take them out to dinner. You're going to make their car payment that month or something, have something that you is realistic between you and your accountability partner. That will be a penalty if you don't accomplish your your five goals for the year twenty twenty five, and you know, make sure your accountability partner won't sabotage you. But be honest, honest, open communication on it is what it's all about all right now. If you don't have an accountability partner, friend, relative, family member, what have you neighbor? Hold yourself accountable though the same way. Check in with yourself. Let's say, every once a month, how am I doing on my accountability goal? You know, I'm there there, and still have a reward and a penalty if you don't accomplish it. Okay for yourself. If you can reward yourself and say, hey, I'm going to treat myself out to a night on the town, don't worry about, you know, spending money. It'll be just one night. Blah blah blah boam. And the penalty phase might be I'm going to you know, not buy that new guitar or whatever I'm going to have to put next time, you know, fifty percent of my paycheck in the bank as a penalty or whatever, or give so much charity as a penalty however you want to do your penalty. I don't know. I'm just throwing stuff at the wall here to see what sticks. But if you don't have an accountability partner, do that. These things will help. It will inspire you to uncover deeper motivations that can lead to a more fulfilled and intentional life. And by doing these things and holding yourself accountable, you're going to have motivation to move you ahead, not only this week, this month, next month, this year, next year. It's going to give you a clear plan. So next time sitting around and saying, man, what is this all for? What it's all? Well, you already have your why. This is why I'm here, This is things I want to accomplish, This is how I want to live my life. It gives you something to reframe and refocus on and come back to, okay, so that we're not lost in a drift at sea. And I think, and again this is just my opinion. I think the reason that a lot of us here, especially in the good old United States of America, we're seeing such an increase in anxiety and depression in that is I think a lot of us have lost our why and in the interim we've lost our way. Hey, thanks for listening to the program today. I truly appreciate each and every one of you out there, and remember, to see a change in the world, you have to be the change in the world you want to see. It all starts with you. And looking back at you in the mirror every morning. Remember to be kind to yourself, be kind to others. If you want to tweet at me on Twitter, it's at Terry Weiss. Stop by the website Wis's Thoughts dot com just to make sure you spell my name right Wye Wiss Thoughts dot com, and hey, leave us a positive rating and review on your favorite podcast provider. Won't you tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets about wife's thoughts? And I look forward to gathering yet again around the virtual campfire with you real soon. Take care, pot