[IOTD][#4] Start with WHY NOT

Kent Nguyen
Sep 4, 2018 · 2 min read

If you find it hard to define you WHY, try WHY-NOTs

Simon Sinek’ famous Golden Circle offer an approach to help figuring out everything you want to do: start with why.

Most of the time it worked, not everytime. So instead of blaming oneself for not being able to know what you want, try the other side of the coin: ask yourself what you don’t like.

It might be a lot easier to answer this question. You know exactly why you didn’t do or didn’t want to do something. Because we are very good at comforting ourselves with excuses: reasons for being late, missed deadline, failed projects, sometimes due to external factors as well.

rain drop is a great source of ideas

The other day I was stuck in the rain, looking out to the traffic I asked myself “Why don’t I like rain today?”, simple: because I couldn’t get to where I want to go. The train of thoughts followed up like a Pandora box being opened: Why don’t I take another form of transport? Why don’t I get a proper rain coat? Why don’t I hate the rain?... It didn’t stop at that, the next train of thoughts became more Whys: Why do I like the smell of rain? Why do I like to sit and look out at the street on another day? Why do I like to ride when it drizzling?…

Of course I’m not going to bore you with all the answers. The point here is figuring out why I did not do certain things helped greatly in eliminating the possibilities among the vast choices life has to offer and understand more about the specific conditions of the mind. Once I asked myself enough, it became a habit, I found it almost a nature to have my WHY answer followed immediately after a WHY NOT.

As usual, here’s just a my IOTD, not right not wrong, keep on reading.

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