Why You Need To Know Your Why As a Writer
It’s Much More Important Than You Think
After Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why, was released in late 2011 people everywhere took a foothold to the directive and started to investigate themselves. The why revolution spilled over into our personal lives as many of us dug into the question of why we are here and why we are doing what we are doing.
But almost ten years later, creatives, in particular, are having more and more trouble identifying their why. The main reason is because being a creative has become so open-ended. As writing has become the new participation trophy, the multi-hyphenate life has become revered as a lifestyle choice and not a do-whatever-it-takes-to-put-food-on-the-table choice.
It’s no wonder writers can’t figure out their why when every day there are more and more writers trying to drink from the same trough. And writer as a job has been commodified with titles like content creator, copywriter, editor, blogger, and ghostwriter. But all of those titles have a different why.
If you don’t know your why as a writer, you are missing the big picture. Honestly, you are probably missing the small picture too, but the big one is more important. And I think I know why you forgot this step in your journey. With all the bells and whistles out there in the writing world, it’s easy to just open a screen, type something, and get some nominal reward.
“The big picture doesn’t just come from distance; it also comes from time.” — Simon Sinek
We don’t have the patience to wait to become something, we just want to be something. It’s why the Internet Writer is so entitled these days. In a deluge of metric lust, clap happiness, share celebration, and follower fanaticism, writers have lost their way and in so doing, lost their why.
The why is the purpose, cause, or belief that drives every one of us according to the lead-in to Simon Sinek’s WHY Discovery Course. But it’s hard keeping steady on our why as creatives because the majority of things we write or paint or document will never make us any money. And that’s what leads us astray.
We start to commingle the idea of getting a book deal with making $100 in a month writing on a website by rationalizing it’s a means to an end. But it’s not. Those two things have very different whys and your writing journey can only have one why destination at a time.
If you are purposefully writing for money on the Internet, I can assure you that the book deal is not coming. Read that again. It’s not that you can’t get a book deal from writing on the Internet, it’s just that you can’t get a book deal if you are purposefully writing for money on the Internet.
Of course, the question is why.
Because if you are trying to make money on the Internet, that in and of itself, corrupts how you write. You start reading articles about how to get curated even though you know that half of that is done by bots. You start following more people in the hopes that they will discover you and help you earn more money. And I can assure you, that why is not in line with your original vision as a writer.
By the way, not everyone wants to be a writer. Some people are completely fine being a content creator and are very, very good at it. Just like some people prefer doing graphic design to being a full-time artist. They’ve made a choice and we can’t fault them for that. They’re smart.
But within this context, there are the people who are trying to do both or more and to carry each label as a fanny pack when necessary. But that’s the symbol of a corrupted why and a sure sign you aren’t doing your best at either. And that's really the thing, you aren’t going to write the next great novel if you are spending your days writing to get curated.
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” — Simon Sinek
People may know your why before you do. Because while you are still sure that your why is to become the next great poet to inspire a generation, your online audience is judging you by your last story titled, How I Got My Hand Stuck in a Pickle Jar and it Changed My Life, Backed by Science.
We see you. We see your why.
You can’t achieve any of your goals as a writer if you are writing your novel in your bathroom for 30 minutes a day, writing copy for a lawnmower company for one hour in the morning, answering questions on Quora for an hour a day, and spending more time researching how to get curated on Medium than actually writing here. I’m sorry, you can’t.
If you want to make money at writing and are not concerned with the reputational liability it could cause in the future, write the best listicles out there. Respect. If you want to get 20,000 followers as a writer on Twitter, spam the hell out of the Writing Community on there. Respect. But don’t think there aren’t consequences to those choices.
If you write too many listicles, it may make it harder for people to take your “real writing” seriously. Seriously. If you spend more time on Twitter hashtagging every writing tag, it may make it harder for people to think of you as a “real writer.” Do you ever see Ottessa Moshfegh listicles from her past? No, because she was dedicated to her why.
Why is it so hard for us to admit when we’ve lost ourselves? I recently admitted that I had lost myself, again. And it’s always about the why. When we lose our why, our true writing becomes distorted and tangential to who we really want to be.
So, stop spending your time trying to explain why your story, How I Became a Top Writer in Ten Categories, is part of your writing journey and start asking yourself why you wrote that and if it serves your why as a writer. You might be surprised at the answer if you are honest with yourself.
“The trick to balance is to not make sacrificing important things become the norm.” — Simon Sinek
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