The Power of WHY
It's our first anniversary! On October 25th, 2016, we launched our first blog post and a lot has happened since then!
Coming up to our birthday, we took the time to reconnect with our WHY and to review our achievements and we think this is a useful exercise for you to do wherever you are with your projects and passions.
It will undoubtedly reconnect you with your passion, give you clarity and propel you forward in your pursuits...it most certainly did for us.
The First Year of Mavericks Unlimited
Wow, what a ride and we have absolutely loved it! We have published several dozen posts. We launched our podcast and had interviewed some amazing people including:
- Supercoach Michael Bungay Stanier
- Jo Berry - the conflict transformation advocate who not only forgave but befriended and worked with the IRA bomber who was responsible for her father's death
- Mike Martin - the man behind World Earth Day and the sustainability advisor for U2, Madonna and Bon Iver
We had our first guests write for us. We are busy creating our first product.
And, most of all, we have the privilege of building an audience of several thousand people like you - people with incredible stories and superpowers who inspire us every day!
Time To Review
As we were coming up to our anniversary, we knew that was a good time to sit down and review where we have got to and where we want to go.
In particular, because we are so purpose driven, we wanted to intentionally review our WHY - the reasons why Mavericks Unlimited exists and why we do what we do. We wanted to make sure it still connected with us in the same way that it did when we created MU.
The Exercise
The exercise that we went through focused explicitly on three questions:
- Why do we do what we do?
- What is the why behind our first product?
- What is the impact that we want to have?
Rather than just review what we wrote last year, we decided to answer these questions fresh and see what we came up with.
The Mavericks Unlimited WHY
Doing this exercise was great! Motivational, energising and focusing. It didn't take long for the juices to start flowing and this is what we came up with:
- We want to and love creating transformation for others
- We want to help people realise their agency and their power
- MU is all about helping people create better futures for themselves and their loved ones
- We want to create a world that works for all
- MU is all about growing resilience and helping people respond to social change
- MU is a way to meet and create a community of people doing amazing things in the world
- MU allows us to create wonderful, creative solutions to problems that people have
- MU allows us to grow and realise our potential
- MU helps us stay connected with our personal purpose and enables us to have fun and freedom living our purpose
- MU allows us to champion the fantastic people we connect with to help them unleash their superpowers
Now, we hope that you find this list inspiring...but as with any WHY, it is highly unique and personal to the organisation. It certainly did the job for us!
The Impact Of The Exercise
There were a whole bunch of things that we got from doing this exercise that made it worthwhile.
- The Drift - along the way, we realised that we had drifted and strayed a bit from our why. We had gotten busy being busy and had lost our way a little bit. This had led to some frustration, some loss of focus and some delays to some of our milestones.
- Resonance - while we had lost some focus, the why's that we came up with still very much resonated with us. When presenced again, our WHY still gives us that deep down gut feel of feeling right that goes way beyond intellectual thought.
- Re-commitment - getting back in touch with our why in such a strong and powerful way has allowed us to re-commit to our purpose with real integrity, and to the steps, plans and actions that will help us live our WHY. It has also given us a strong sense again of what is essential and what we can let go of.
- Re-energise and re-focus - presencing our why has given a sense of motivation, energy and focus greater than we have had for a while. Doing this exercise essentially breathed new life into what we are doing.
To Conclude
It is SO important to stay connected to your WHY on a daily, weekly and monthly basis - even and especially for a bunch of passionate, purpose-driven people like us. The why is the thing that will inspire you but also keeps you going when things get busy, crazy or frustrating.
It is not like we didn't have some sense of our WHY, but bringing to front and centre again has created clarity, confidence and courage. Just the thing to drive us forward for years to come!