Gimme one reason...

One of the things I used to do to annoy my parents was to ask, “Why?”  I’m not talking about when I was a little kid learning about the world, but when I was older and doing it out of boredom.  My mom might ask me to pick up my room and I would ask why.  She would tell me her reason and I would ask why that was the reason and then query the reply until we got to the point where she would, understandably, snap.  I always ended up having to do it, but consciously or not I decided to spread the pain around.  I do not recommend this course of action.

However, I do think it can be very useful to annoy ourselves the same way.  When we set goals, we can spend some time asking why we want to accomplish that particular goal, which can give insight in times when it is hard to remain motivated.  For example, I, like many people, would like to lose some weight.  Why?  One reason would be for my health.  Why do I want to be healthy?  Because I want to be able to do fun things no matter how old I get.  Because I might someday have grandchildren to play with.  Because I might decide to take up mountaineering. 

That batch of reasons is pretty easy to deal with.  There is nothing awkward or weird about any of those things.  It does get harder, though, when I explore another reason:  because I want to look cute.  When I ask myself why I want to look cute, I have to confront stuff like insecurity, societal bias, personal shallowness, and the like.  It is uncomfortable.  And it is useful to have told the truth to myself about those reasons when I am feeling like skipping a workout.  I may not be motivated by my health reasons at that point, but I might do it to look good at the next fancy event I attend.

The more reasons we analyze for why we want to do something, the more likely we are to find one to light a fire underneath ourselves to get to it.