Find Your Why: a practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team pdfdrive com

partner to weigh in on which of the themes seem more important, based on the
stories you’ve told. Together, choose one theme that feels like your unique
contribution and one theme that captures the impact. Now you’re ready to draft
your Why Statement.
Wait a second, you may be thinking. If those two themes are the only ones that
will be used in the Why Statement, then why does my partner have to bother
writing down all the other themes from my stories? And what if I really love
themes that didn’t end up in my Why Statement—do I have to just throw them
away? Don’t worry! There’s an important reason your partner writes down all of
your themes, and, no, they don’t get thrown away. As we’ll see in a later chapter,
those themes will become your HOWs.

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Draft Your WHY
Once you’ve identified your overarching themes, it’s time to
turn them into a draft of your Why Statement. As we noted
in the previous chapter, we recommend that your first draft follow this format:
This is the easiest way to ensure that your statement is simple, actionable and
focused on how you positively affect other people.
With your overarching themes in mind and this format in front of you, take a few
minutes and write a first draft of your Why Statement. Your partner, working
separately, should do the same. The value in writing independently at first is that
your partner may articulate your WHY differently than you do. Be it the perfect
word or catchy turn of phrase, we find that having two slightly different takes on
a Why Statement is actually very helpful. It’s the same principle as taking a
friend shopping with you. They might pick out a shirt that you wouldn’t have
looked at twice. But then you try it on and it’s the greatest shirt ever.
Spend about five minutes both working on your own statements. Only five
minutes because there is little value in overthinking at this stage. Then rejoin
your partner and share your respective drafts. After considering both Why
Statements, you may choose to go with one or the other or to combine them.

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Remember, the goal of this draft is not perfection. The goal is to get it in the
ballpark, to come up with something that feels right. The actual words can, and
likely will, change as you continue to spend time with your WHY, reflect on it
and, most important, put it into action. This is what the final step is all about.