Posted on October 20, 2010

The WHY File

Many years ago, a friend of mine asked me how I keep myself moti­vated to coach each day. “How do you con­tinue to have a pos­i­tive atti­tude when faced with adver­sity? How do you com­pletely allow neg­a­tiv­ity to just pass you by?”

First, I won­dered if maybe she dialed the wrong num­ber. “You do real­ize you called your friend Kris­ten, right?”  I don’t always do any of the things she was ask­ing me about. But maybe, just maybe, I do it more than I realized.

I didn’t have an answer for her at that moment, so I asked if I could think about it and get back to her. She said yes of course, and then I believe she hung up and called the friend she was really try­ing to get in touch with.

I didn’t really give it much thought, to be hon­est. It wasn’t until a few days later that I sud­denly real­ized the answer to her ques­tions was sit­ting in my fil­ing cabinet.

It is a file sim­ply labeled “WHY.”

This file con­tains notes, cards, and words of appre­ci­a­tion I have received from clients through­out my years of coach­ing. There are also notes from fam­ily and friends full of encour­age­ment and affir­ma­tion. I started read­ing through the con­tents of that file, like I do every time I need a pick-me-up. It always reminds me of the impact I am hav­ing on those in my life.

Then it hit me — this is why I have a cheery dis­po­si­tion. Within these words lies the rea­son for my existence.

If you don’t have a WHY file, I encour­age you to set one up. All you need is a file folder (or even a shoe­box) with the word “WHY” writ­ten on it. It can – and should – be just that simple.

I also have cre­ated a WHY file in my email, because these days encour­age­ment doesn’t just come from the United States Postal Ser­vice. Set up an email folder, and start drag­ging those amaz­ing emails.

Con­nect­ing to your WHY is one of the great­est ways I know of to stay moti­vated when­ever you feel your­self turn­ing neg­a­tive. It’s much eas­ier to push through the chal­lenges and frus­tra­tions of today when you remem­ber the big picture.

What bet­ter way to val­i­date your life than by see­ing the pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence you are mak­ing in those around you?

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  • http://www.johngallagherblog.com John Gal­lagher

    Kris­ten,

    What a great idea — a ‘WHY’ file. I love to receive encour­ag­ing notes and emails. And, yes, they are pick­me­ups after long days when I feel like I haven’t had an impact. How­ever, I gen­er­ally come across them “on acci­dent”, when I am clean­ing out the desk… I think an elec­tronic AND man­ual WHY files are a great idea. Gotta go…Need a new folder in Out­look. I only have 3 others!

  • http://www.sentinelusa.com Daniel Colby

    Inter­est­ing con­cept Kris­ten! This idea reminds me of a have a sim­i­lar approach we have at our com­pany. For exam­ple, when we receive encour­ag­ing and pos­i­tive letters/emails or thanks from our clients, we put them up on our “Annual Wall of Recog­ni­tion” to remind us of why we do the things we do. Since 2003, and each year we have done this, our cur­rent yearly post num­bers always sur­pass that of the last, which lets us all know we are get­ting bet­ter at what we do year by year. It’s a lit­tle less per­sonal since it is done from a team per­spec­tive, but none the less it works great for team moti­va­tion. I like your idea of a per­sonal “WHY” box. If it works in team envi­ron­ment, then it would make sense to extend that to our per­sonal lives for every­day things too. Even if they are just per­sonal record­ings of pos­i­tive events we had a hand in that brought sat­is­fac­tion from doing some­thing that made us feel good. Your sug­ges­tion of a “WHY” box would only serve to strengthen our per­sonal lives and if each year we can sur­pass the num­bers of “WHY’s”, then it will only encour­age us to be com­pet­i­tive with our­selves and become bet­ter peo­ple. Great post as usual! Keep them com­ing.. and feel free to stick this com­ment in your “WHY” box too.. :)

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