Whyse: How-To Guide Return

Whyse: How-To Guide

Intro

Long term happiness is deeply tied to a satisfaction with how we're living our lives. To be satisfied with how we're living, we need clarity about why we're living that way. The higher level that these reasons are, the more direction and motivation we feel on a regular basis.

Ultimately we can't know what to do until we know why. The deeper we go with why the more clarity we'll have about what. This is a scary process. We might discover that the way we're living our lives is at odds with what we truly want. We might feel that we've wasted time. This is a depressing, terrifying proposition. But it doesn't have to be. What's the alternative? Ignore the signs of unhappiness and keep living with the tension of misalignment between what we want and what we do? For me, there's no question - face our uncertainties head on, as deeply as we can, despite the pain, and come out on the other side with immense clarity about how we should live our lives and why. This is a personal journey. That's the beautiful part - each person goes through this process and has a completely different outcome. We're all different, and the goal is to find what is truly meaningful to us. The other beautiful part is that a lot of the outcomes are shared. There are common themes across humanity which bind us.

There are 3 core phases to the Whyse Process:
  1. First is the Reflection phase - where we dive into our core values, our past decisions, their outcomes compared to our goals, and how they made us feel. Reflection on the past is essential for helping us set ourselves up for the future - it helps us calibrate realistic goals based on what has worked and what has not. So much of our present occurs subconsciously, and unless we take a conscious look at each of these moments, we lose out on valuable insights about ourselves and the world.
  2. Phase 2 is Wants - we ask ourselves what we want and why we want it. This is the bottom up process that allows us to sync our present self with our future self
  3. Phase 3 is Actions - this is where we transform our desires into goals and actions
So - are you ready to cliff jump into the sea of uncertainty and emerge with clarity? If so, let's jump into the 3 phases of Whyse.

Phase 1: Reflection

[insert your preferred method of Reflection]

Phase 2: Wants

  1. Braindump everything that you Want
  2. Find patterns and group the items into categories
  3. Once grouped, go line by line and add bullet points answering the question, “Why do I want this?”
  4. Answer should take the form of another Want (e.g. I want to be famous -> I want to be validated by people who don’t already know me -> I want a strong sense of self-confidence -> I want…, etc.)
  5. Create a new list of Wants using only the sub bullet points. Eliminate any repeated items
  6. Follow steps 2 - 4 until only 1 - 3 core items remain. These are your “Core Desires”
Part of the reason it’s valuable to break these phases up like this, is that our default mode is to keep doing what we’re doing. There is a lot of inertia to alter course. But we have to be comfortable with sunk costs, and be willing to completely transform our lives IF that transformation will help us reach our higher level goals more effectively. So by first identifying our core desires, we can then more objectively answer the question of how to accomplish that goal

Phase 3: Actions

  1. Go line by line on each core desire and braindump every Action you could take to fulfill these Core Desires.
  2. Find patterns and group the items into categories. Each category should still take the form of an Action
  3. Once grouped, go line by line and add bullet points answering the question, “What is the best way to accomplish this goal?” Answer should take the form of an Action
  4. Repeat steps 7 - 8
  5. Prioritize using your preferred Goal Setting framework [OKRs, etc.]

Conclusion

Ultimately, the Whyse process is about calibrating Future Self with your Present Self. You can do this process as often as you'd like - for me, it takes roughly 8 hours and I allocate a full weekend day to the exercise every 6 months. I recommend at least once per year, since the longer you go without it the less calibrated your Future and Present selves will be, and the more work will be required to sync.

The first session will be the most intense and difficult. Once you go through this process, parts of it will remain top of mind for you throughout your day to day life experience.

I slightly tweak my own approach to the process each session. I personally find that if my goals stay the same each session, it means that I'm not growing enough during the intervals.

I hope this was valuable. Please share any feedback and results in the comments.