Truly Inspired Individual: Reaching Your Fullest Potential Through Your WHY

As humans, one of our deepest desires is to find happiness and meaning in our days – or live our best lives, as most would say.

But what does that actually mean?

While how you might live your best life won’t be the same as mine, we can all likely agree that the path to finding happiness and meaning starts with finding our purpose – the WHY of our existence.

You see, having purpose, gives your life direction – you have something you’re working to attain. With that comes inspiration, which helps you focus and align yourself with the things you have to do to attain that vision of your ideal future. Once you have inspiration, you start to live with intention, making conscious day-to-day decisions to help attain that vision. Every step towards it provides you fulfillment in knowing that you’re trying to reach your full potential – doing what makes you happy, while sharing your unique skills to bettering society.

But finding your WHY – the very foundation of that path to bringing happiness and meaning to existence – can prove to be a struggle. It’s not some light bulb moment that just comes to everyone one day.

You have to find your WHY yourself, and it can be a process – one that can span decades, if not, an entire lifetime.

I sure didn’t find my WHY until later on in life and a few years into my career as a financial advisor.

When I founded Bridges-PH, for instance, the idea of my WHY was still in its infancy. I’ve always known I wanted to help create a system where the average Filipino employee has access to benefits that would help them lead a financially secure life. Security remains so important because it affords peace of mind, which lets employees enjoy and pursue other things outside of work without much worry.

However, without a plan of action then, I didn’t know how I would go about realizing that WHY of mine.

What I did know was that I had plenty of connections that I could leverage from the relationships I built from my years as a financial advisor engaging with insurance and health providers and employers alike.

From there, I realized the best way I could fulfill my WHY was to target micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), an underserved niche in the country with a wide reach, employing over 65% of the Philippines’ working population.

My HOW then came into the picture – to serve as figurative “bridges” between employers and their need to provide benefits for those in their charge – thus the name Bridges-PH.

It was so important for me to talk to the decision makers directly because by doing so, I cut through the red tape and can help implement positive change in an efficient fashion. And I genuinely love engaging with these individuals since I develop relationships that I can tap later on when there’s the potential to help each other and create an impact.

What I want to emphasize is that your WHY sustains you in life. When things don’t seem right, you can always go back to it to re-establish a sense of stability.

You don’t necessarily have to find your WHY from nothing. You can start with your WHAT and HOW to eventually reach your WHY. Unknowingly, this is what happened to me. After all, your WHY is always connected to your experiences, talents, skill sets, and passions, which are, of course, unique to you.

Once again though, finding your WHY is a long-term affair – your WHY might even evolve over time. Yet, it’s so important because it’s the base for which you build your WHAT and HOW in all aspects of your life.

Still, you have to put effort in that inward search, otherwise you’d risk sleepwalking through life, living it aimlessly one day after the next.

There are some who already have a long list of accomplishments and accolades and might think they’ve reached their full potential – that they’re at the top of the mountain – but later on realize that those successes didn’t provide them with the fulfillment they need, leaving them with a void in their lives.

That’s why it’s important for you to remember that the purpose of finding your WHY and abiding by its principles is so that you can live a life of purpose. And a life of purpose brings a fulfilled existence and an inner satisfaction of how your days are spent.

Yes, finding your WHY can be scary and exciting at the same time, but trust me, it’s worth it.