“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
In the previous prompt from Five Minutes in the Morning we looked at recognizing problems. Today, we’re going to dig a little deeper to get to the why of the problem.
Before we get into that though, I want to encourage you to start seeing problems as challenges. Changing the way you define your situation is often the first step to changing the situation itself.
Anyway, back to the why of it all.
The book uses stress as an example. You may think stress is your problem, but stress is merely a symptom of something else, something bigger. If you’re going to find a solution to your stress, you must be able to identify what’s causing the stress in the first place.
To do that, you need to ask why.
Write down your problem. For this example, you’d write something like I am always stressed. Then, ask yourself why that is. Maybe you’re overwhelmed by the number of tasks you have to complete in a day. Ask yourself again why that seems to be true – is it because you have no one to help you, or because you don’t ask for help?
Keep asking why until you’ve done so five times.
Here’s what I wrote:
I’m never as early to work as I want.
Why?
Because I don’t leave early enough.
Why?
Because I do too much in the morning?
Why?
Because I like using my mornings as a time to center.
Why?
Because I believe that starting the morning the right way sets teh tone for the rest of the day.
Why?
Because I get to invite in calmness.
Happy Monday, dear reader! I hope you’re able to ask why a lot this week.
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