Our Founder’s Deepest Why, and How to Discover Yours With 1 Easy Exercise

Find your deepest why: take a moment to stop working, and remember why you started.

By Haley Davis

Pause and reflect

We go through the motions of doing the work we need to do, the tasks we need to check off, day after day, and suddenly we realize we no longer have that feeling of passion and drive that it all started with. It happens to us all, even if momentary.

A year ago, I sat in a cafe to do work as many people do. But instead of doing the work itself, I stopped to dig deeper. I needed a greater, more electrifying boost of energy than my coffee could give me.

Purpose as your driving force

I had stumbled upon this exercise in which you find your deepest why. You basically interview yourself, but instead of asking yourself various questions, you ask yourself one thing, over and over. I’ll explain. For me, I needed to know “Why is Makeplease important to you?”. So I ask myself this question, and then from that answer, I ask what about that is important to me, and then what about that is important to me, so on and so on until I come to the deepest, simplest, most paired-down reason for why I do what I do. Watch this:

• What about Makeplease is important to me?
  • bringing together artists and people who need them
• What about bringing together artists and people who need them is important to me?
  • giving artists jobs and creating a reliable resource for custom art and design
• What about giving artists jobs and creating a reliable resource for custom art and design is important to me?
  • helping artists make a living doing what they love and bringing people’s ideas to life
• What about helping artists make a living doing what they love and bringing people’s ideas to life is important to me?
  • making it easier for artists to be successful, and giving non-artists the ability to create
• What about making it easier for artists to be successful and giving non-artists the ability to create is important to you?
  • it empowers them

I am doing Makeplease to empower others.

That is my deepest why.

Operate from your heart, not your head

Now when I operate from THIS LEVEL, when every action I make comes with the intention of my deepest why, I go back to that feeling I had when I first came up with the idea of Makeplease. There is purpose that makes my face light up. There is passion that fuels me. I can feel my persistence increase.

I’m interacting more with our Makeplease Makers and our followers. I’m openly showing my love for what they make and sharing with them what I make. I’m receiving more support and building meaningful relationships. I’m focusing on empowering our Makers by giving them more attention, but by doing so, they see me as well.

I’m an artist too. I know what we want- more commissions, jobs, the ability to support ourselves with our boundless talent that more people need to see. That’s the driving force. When I’m operating from my deepest why, I’m operating from my heart, not my head. And in turn, my work becomes more thoughtful, more impactful, more genuine, and more powerful.

What’s your deepest why?

It feels good to share with you this somewhat vulnerable page in my notebook– why I have created and operated Makeplease for free for so long, what keeps me going, and what keeps me happy and fulfilled.

I encourage you to find your deepest why. We’d love to hear it as well and have the honor of reading your intensive self-interview that led you to it.

You can share it with us, and we might share it to our blog and continue the cycle of inspiring one another by finding and holding onto purpose in the work that we do.