The Need for Having a Clear Purpose – Jocko Willink

how important is purpose reason or cause in being successful like the perp your purpose right well clearly purpose and reason and cause are extremely important this is this is the why of of your actions this is knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing this is the commander’s intent and so you you absolutely absolutely these are important if you don’t know why you’re doing something well then let me ask you a question why are you doing something ites it’s it’s very clear it’s very simple to understand so yeah you got to know if if you don’t know why you’re doing something then what what are you going to do when you hit an obstacle you’re going to stop what are you what what adaptations are you going to make when things go wrong to overcome them you’re not going to make any because you don’t know why you’re doing it yeah so if you have no reason if you have no reason for doing something you’re not going to do it so you got to have a long-term goal you got to understand the underlying purpose of what you’re doing now this doesn’t necessarily meaning that it mean that it has to be rigid because it doesn’t have to be rigid you know I’ll tell you an interesting case as an example I’ll give you is my own case right so of course you know I’m all about planning and and always having a long-term plan and all that stuff but to be honest with you the situation that I’m in right now as a human mhm M I didn’t have a longterm plan for this you know the the the I you know Le and I wrote the book I had no intention of writing a book that kind of happened you know cuz people were asking us and and as we worked with businesses they said you have this stuff written down so we ended up writing the book once we wrote it we thought maybe we’d be handing it out when we go and work with companies literary agents saw it to hey let me let me show this to some Publishers Publishers thought said let us publish this okay so you figure you’re going to publish it well even when you publish a book you don’t expect that a bunch of people are going to read it you expect that you’re going to have a book published and that’s cool but it ended up doing really well so that kind of happened with that all of a sudden I was on a couple of podcasts well I didn’t you know I didn’t have any intention when I went on Tim Ferris is podcast I didn’t say to myself this is going to propel me into my own podcast or Joe Rogan’s prob didn’t say now you know Joe Rogan’s gonna launch me into the podcast world no I didn’t expect that but it happened and you know what it happened it made sense to me okay these two guys are away they’re squared away in this particular genre and they’re recommending my mind is open okay let’s try and make a podcast did I know that the podcast was going to be super popular no I just thought we were making a podcast so that you know the few people want would want to listen to it cool I mean then look what happens next thing you know we’re we’re making tea you know next thing I’m making tea I had no no idea that that tea would be part of my world so all this stuff happened right but but the goal really the underline the reason for me doing all this is still the same through the whole thing and that is that I want to help people I want to help people with something that the the lessons that I’ve learned I want to help them so how can I do that well you write them down okay you wrote it down so people can read it great how else can you help them oh you can make a podcast so people can access it easily and cheaply cool here you go so the underlying go oh you know I want people to be healthy well what’s a good way to be healthy stop drinking Monster energy drinks stop drinking Red Bull 12 a day and start drinking something that’s healthier okay cool Jocko white tea next thing you know that’s what we’ve got going on so it’s it’s that’s been my that’s been my goal and I haven’t really even though I even though I strayed from what maybe the original path I thought I was going to take I still stayed my reason is the same and I think that that’s what I’m saying when your reason is clear and your purpose is clear that’s going to make your drive clear and that’s going to make you execute well because you know where you’re going you know you where you want to be you understand your purpose and why you’re doing something and that’s what’s going to help you be successful in my opinion do you think that like how um you know people they’ll be like this is my why and it’ll be like their kids or something like that do you think that falls within this like you know like reason purpose and all this stuff yeah I think I think that that’s the same this the same general the guy could have said purpose reason cause why I think that that the question could have said that I think that if your purpose is your kids really clear example right and a lot of people might say that well that’s cool but that’s you’re going to have to clarify that a little bit more because if your purpose is your kids then quit your job and just spend all day with your kids well then obviously you’re not supporting your kids cuz now you can’t afford to buy them food yeah it’s like it seem like there’s a lot of different so your your goal should be taking good care of and providing for your children’s now and in the future wow okay now that makes sense now you’re looking long-term shortterm you got to you know that you have to work hard now you know you have to make investments for them so that that’s the kind of thing that’s beyond just a simple I’m doing this for my kids because what are you doing for your kids what are you trying to achieve for them yeah so like for using that example like this is my why it’s my daughter it’s less this is why I’m you know I don’t know writing a book it’s more this is why I can endure the hard days or this is why I’m going to continue to work hard kind of thing whatever it is I’m doing yeah you just have an underlying yes an underlying reason that’s that’s the question and I think that’s the answer yes yeah it’s pretty I I should I should have just answered that in two words I should have said how important is purpose reason cause and being successful answer very important there you go you can have a lot of different reasons too you know or like few core more than one yeah you know what I’d say if there’s anything to be taken away from this question it is if you don’t feel here’s the here’s I would say the takeaway if you don’t feel some kind of Drive in your life if you don’t feel passionate about something if you feel like you’re wandering and Meandering through the world then it’s time to assess then it’s time to say okay what is my reason what am I trying to do what would I like to do in the world now we get something valuable here yeah all know that you got to have a purpose you all know got have reason so if you feel yourself Meandering down the path with no reason no purpose dig in and find one