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Why Naming Your "Why" Can Be So Hard — and How to Start Figuring It Out
How I got to mine, and how it has changed over time
If you've ever been in a coaching session, read a self-help book, or listened to roughly any podcast in the last decade, someone has probably told you to "find your Why."
And if you're anything like most people I work with, your reaction was something like: Sure. Great. But... what does that actually mean?
It's one of those concepts that sounds profound until you sit down to do it — and then it just feels abstract. Slippery. Like you're supposed to have a TED Talk answer ready and you can't even find the question.
I've sat with that frustration myself. And I've watched smart, accomplished, deeply self-aware women tie themselves in knots trying to answer it. So I want to offer something a little more concrete: why naming your Why is so hard, what actually makes it easier, and how mine has changed across three very different seasons of my life.
Why It's So Hard
The biggest trap is treating your Why as a fixed, permanent, capital-P Purpose — one true north you're either aligned with or failing to find. That framing almost guarantees you'll get stuck.
Your Why isn't a destination. It's more like a compass setting for this season of your life. And it shifts as you shift — as you age, as your kids grow, as your career evolves, as the things that once drove you quietly stop being enough.
The second trap is trying to name it in the abstract. "What is my purpose?" is almost impossible to answer staring at a blank page. It's much easier to find your Why when you attach it to something specific — a decision you're facing, a project you care about, a goal that either excites or terrifies you. Ask not "what is my Why" but "why does this particular thing matter to me?" That's usually where the real answer lives.
Your Why Lives at the Intersection of Values and What Lights You Up
A Why almost always traces back to two things: what you value most, and what genuinely feeds your soul.
Here's a distinction worth sitting with: your values and your strengths aren't always the same thing. You might be excellent at kindness — it might be your greatest gift to the people around you — while freedom is actually the core value driving you in this particular season. Knowing the difference matters, because most of us have a habit of over-relying on our top strengths in ways that quietly cost us. Generosity can become self-erasure. Competence can become perfectionism. Kindness can become people-pleasing.
Your Why isn't about what you're good at. It's about what makes you feel most alive, most like yourself, most connected to something bigger than your to-do list.
My Why, Across Three Seasons
I want to walk you through mine — not as a template, but as proof that this doesn't have to be a polished answer. Mine has changed completely three times, and I suspect it will again.
Season One: Climbing
In my twenties, I was building a PR career in New York City — traveling the world, climbing the ladder, hustling hard. My Why back then was pretty simple: to prove I could do it. Succeed. Achieve. Advance. Get somewhere. Did I know where? Nope.
Back then, it was just go. Which worked, until it didn't.
Season Two: Building on My Own Terms
When I became a mom, everything shifted. I left corporate life and built my own PR business — on my terms, not answering to a boss, not making someone else richer while my own growth crawled forward at a fraction of the pace. My why became all about raising these humans that I adored while also holding onto what I had started to build in Season One.
My values became much clearer. I wanted to work with people I actually liked, set my own schedule, and stop letting other people tell me what I "should" be doing — the late nights, the constant availability, the arbitrary demands designed to meet someone else's goals, not mine.
That Why was about autonomy. Boundaries. Doing meaningful work and being present for my young family — instead of feeling like I had to choose.
Season Three: Right Now
These days, my Why looks different again. My kids are grown and don't need me the way they used to — which means I need somewhere else to point my attention, so I don't hover over their lives instead of building my own.
When I trace my Why now, it comes down to lived experience and values. My PR business lost its importance to me when my Dad got sick and quickly succumbed to cancer.
Parenting got harder. The famous saying about "little kids: little problems; big kids: big problems" turned out to be very true. I went through a stretch of feeling genuinely alone, isolated, stuck, even ashamed of where I was.
My coaching business was born from this experience. Wanting a purpose that helped me help others who felt the same way I did-- to building the kind of community I was desperately craving and couldn't find-- one that shows up authentically, vulnerably, and talks about the hard things. Supports one another through connection and, together, grows in self awarness and power and redefines their Why on their terms.
Some of my core values in this season: connection, service, authenticity.
Building communities, connecting women to each other and to themselves, being real about my own story — that's not just what I do. It is my Why, in action.
I also get to write now, through my blog, inspired constantly by the women I work with. I value being able to to contribute financially to my family and to feel genuinely fulfilled by what I do. And honestly? I find building something — seeing what sticks, learning as I go — fun in a way I didn't expect. All values in action. My Why.
How You Know It's a Real Why (and Not a Should)
Here's the test I keep coming back to: a real Why asks something of you. It pulls you toward something that matters more than your comfort zone.
Following mine has made me question limiting beliefs I didn't know I was holding. It's pushed me to dream bigger when it would have been much easier to stop. It's asked me to be vulnerable and brave and put myself out there in a way that does not come naturally.
A should, on the other hand, tends to feel like obligation. Like something you're performing for someone else's approval — a parent, a partner, a version of yourself you outgrew years ago. When "should" shows up as you're trying to name your Why, pay attention. It might be pointing you away from your answer, not toward it.
Where to Start
You don't need a polished mission statement. You need this season's honest answer.
Try coming at it sideways:
Think of a moment in the last year when you felt most like yourself. What was happening?
Think of a time you felt depleted or resentful. What was being violated?
Where do you spend time or energy that feels hollow? Where does it feel alive?
If you had to name one thing that matters more to you than anything else right now — not five years ago, not what you imagined at 25 — what would it be?
That last question is the one worth sitting with. Not the grand, lifetime answer. Just: right now, in this season, what's pulling at you?
That's enough to start. And starting is the whole point.
If this resonates and you want to explore it with other women who are asking the same questions, I'd love to have you in our next Manifestation & Momentum group. We go deep on this work — in community, with a lot of honesty and a little humor. [Learn more here.]
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