To build your personal brand you need to know your WHY!

Personal branding is a long journey, and it’s not always rosy. It would be best to have a solid internal reason to move forward. Your WHY is a powerful idea that works in correlation with your values.

Let’s start with the idea that you will have two ‘WHYs’. I know it sounds unusual, but stay with me. FOr your personal brand One ‘WHY’ will be public, and I call it external.

External ‘WHY’.

It’s mostly related to external factors, concepts, or people. An example of such personal brand WHY can be: “I do it all for my kids”, “I want to save the world”, “I will fight for my country”, and so on. This type of motivation is essential as it expresses your values and shows other people what you stand for.

But here is the catch. Many, not all, people proclaim external WHY in their effort to reach external validation. They often set such ‘WHY’ because society anticipates it. Even though such statements are powerful, they are temporary and rely on external factors; therefore might not work in challenging situations.

You need a stronger ‘ WHY while building your personal brand and establishing your leadership position.

I believe that your ‘WHY’ is a potent instrument that can help you move forward in any crisis. Your leadership calls for action even after the darkest moments. I call such ‘WHY’ internal. No one needs to know it; it’s all yours. It’s good not to share it with everyone.

Internal ‘WHY’.

Your internal ‘WHY’ is related to your reasons. What’s paramount for you? Such internal ‘WHY’ is often related to the feeling you want to prioritise over other emotions. For example: “I want to be free”, “I want to feel safe”, “I want to feel appreciated”, “I want to be seen”, “I want to belong”, “I want to be known”, “I want to enjoy my life”.
If these examples look selfish to you, you need to dive deeper to understand what is your internal ‘WHY’.

Let me show you how it works.

Internal: ‘WHY’ “I want to feel safe”. External: ‘WHY’ “I’ll protect my family and do everything for them no matter what”. Internal: “I want to be known, appreciated or recognised; I want to achieve something important.” External: “I want to make this world a better place.”

How does it help?

When you understand what emotions and feelings drive your decisions, you can better understand your actions and motivations. For example, you can work with your fears or negative narratives when you know what inspires you in your life.

I remember witnessing the AHA moment when my client realised that her ‘WHY’ is Joy, and she wants her kids to enjoy their lives no matter what. Her kids are her external ‘WHY; the Joy is internal.

If you want to work on your values, your ‘WHY’, discover yourself and write posts that connect to your audience, you may like to join my program “Find Your Brilliance“. Let’s chat on LinkedIn and see if this program is the best fit for you :)