“When you get clear on the WHY, the HOW is easy” is a phrase I have used for many years, including in this post nearly two years ago, which also anchored on the phrase in the image above from the amazing “St Ex”.
I moved into my new house nearly five months ago today. A modest and simple fifty year old house, it is great for my needs and didn’t need any updates to it, yet I felt a strong need to modernise it. I also was aware that my “Why” was that I knew that until it felt “updated” in that way, I wouldn’t feel I had “nested” and settled in to it as a home. So, with a context of “Update/Modernise” and a stronger why of “settled”, that why has powered me through design, planning and execution of the process since that point.
Whilst this has not involved a massive renovation or huge budget, there were many, many small and specialist touches needed throughout. The other day I counted them all up, listing the number of separate skilled trades I had to bring in to execute this, the “HOW” that followed my “WHY”. That list, once I do the final finishing pieces in the next month or so, will run to SEVENTEEN trades in a total of six months, all fitted in around regular life and work.
In hindsight then, this would have felt exhausting and I may not have felt energised to do all of this planning and co-ordination, yet with a strong sense of WHY, the HOW has felt easy.
I close with my favourite St-Ex quote, one I also featured in the post “Are you ready for #OpenLeadership?” :
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, adventurer and author of The Little Prince