Why knowing 'how' is irrelevant

Photo: Emily Morter

By Kerryn Vaughan

17th December 2019

Have you ever wanted to do something or try something, but instantly decided it’s just all too hard? And besides, “I don’t have the skills”. What if we gave it a go anyway?

There have been so many times in my life, and I mean literally thousands, where I have had an idea about a vision, but absolutely no idea about how to do it. This ‘how’ is what puts most people off. They try to have it all figured about before they start, and never actually get around to starting anything. What a crying shame!
The world needs what you have – and everybody has something to give.

There’s a bit of a ‘well known’ secret that goes like this: You need to get your ‘why’ in order first, and then the ‘how’ will just take care of itself. Trust me, I do this all the time and it works.

I share this in workshops and people doubt me, but they always come back with “Wow, it really does work! I can’t believe how easy this is!”.

But you need to know why you are doing something, or why doing it is important to you, or why you are motivated to do it. Otherwise that thing you want to do, but don’t know how, will never happen.

Let me give you a personal example: right now I am testing out Word Press and I had no idea how it all worked before I started, and frankly I still don’t have my head around it. But I’m trying and I’m getting there. The ‘how’ is super frustrating to me, but my ‘why’ outweighs that.

Photo: Ian Schneider

So why am I so driven to use Word Press despite the frustrations? Because my work is helping people Get Off The Bench, and setting up a blog or a website seems to come up very often and I like to further my knowledge so I can better support those needing these things.

I am already great with other platforms, but not with Word Press. One person is this very moment, setting up a blog in Word Press, so if I use it too I can give her support if needed, and that helps her feel more confident about getting off the bench.

So ultimately, my why is that I genuinely care about people succeeding and living their dream. I want to understand the pain points people have to go through to make their dream a reality. It also makes me a better facilitator and it gives those I support a better success rate. It’s win/win and we should all be striving for that.

If you are driven by your ‘why’ you can’t help yourself, and as you take the first step, the next step just unfolds and becomes obvious. Further, if you allow the small steps to fall into place as they appear, before you know it you will be in a place you never expected to be, simply because you didn’t know how but had the courage to try anyway.

Most great things in this world started with a vision and a solid ‘why’, and the creator just kept trying and trusting, and allowing each step to lead her/him to the next.

So whatever that thing is you want to do, and don’t know how, ask yourself ‘why?’. If your ‘why’ is big enough then just get on with it, and let go of the stress of constantly worrying about it. If you need help, then head on over to Get Off The Bench! and I’ll get you started.

Just try! You may fail – but you may also succeed.
Happy ‘thing’ building!

Kerryn Vaughan is the author of ‘Magnificent Kids!’ and ‘Get Off The Bench!’, founder of One Planet Classrooms, and co-founder of Girls With Hammers.