Start With Your Why

by Jessica Leigh Lyons

startwithyourwhy_imageI met someone.

I’m smitten. Total super crush. So much so, that I said so right in our first meeting, which is a HUGE date #1 no-no.

I had been stalking this one for months, via Instagram, just like every good love story unfolds.

One day, months prior to our in-person meet-up, I was hurrying to the metro for work. I was having an amazing in-my-head tornado session. The kind where thoughts of finances, passions, and purpose get all swirled into one and leave a huge gaping nothingness. I was thinking perhaps I had made a mistake in my work and it was time to throw in the towel. Then I saw the message in this photo.

“LOVE COURAGEOUSLY!”

You should know that I have two secret dreams in this world:

  1. To find chalk messages on sidewalks because obviously they are FOR ME from some higher power, and I am just MEANT TO SEE THEM. THANK YOU, UNIVERSE.
  1. To come across a flash mob IN REAL LIFE.

I immediately started stalking @ChalkforThought on Instagram in an effort to woo them into my world. I wrote with lots of emojis. I offered to buy tea. I even told them I loved them. I tried to play it cool and be coy, but I’m really terrible at coy. I’m all laughter and too many hugs.

I’m also persistent. She finally agreed to meet with me, and she shared what caused her to start these messages of love in our neighborhood. That is her story to share, so I’ll hold it, but I will say that the story is deep. And so too are the stories that she now holds and the people who have come across her messages. The people who have seen her and been brought to tears because they haven’t heard they were loved recently. The people who speak of forgiveness, of loss, of soul connection, of dreams.

She’s got me thinking about WHY we do the things we do.

Without having a clear path of what she was doing, she started something. She shared her vulnerability. She needed these messages of love and thought perhaps others did, too.

I think some things we are just called to do. There’s an inexplicable drive. We do what we are called to do. Other times, we very clearly know WHY we are doing what we are doing.

Mark Nepo says that “writers write about what they most need to learn.”

Being grounded in WHY we do things helps us keep our motivation and our inspiration in a world with many things vying for our attention.

Why are you writing right now? It could be simple. It could be to make yourself feel better. It might be because this current piece needs to pour from you. It might be to pay the bills, feed the kids, care for the farm.

It might be that you can’t pinpoint a specific, but you know from somewhere deep… you just.. have to.

Whatever your WHY is, it matters most to you—that you do it and that you see + remember your why.

Jessica Leigh Lyons is a life coach who works with women to help them create a life of joy. She is also a Desire Map facilitator helping women (and some awesome dudes) discover their Core Desired Feelings. Find out more at www.jessicaleighlyons.com.