What, Why, How

Absence of clarity is one of the primary culprits of frustration, conflict, and other undesirable elements in the process of life. This is true in your personal life as well as in business. One of the reasons why some meetings feel cumbersome and nerve-wracking is due to a lack of clarity around the desired outcome, the purpose behind it, and the process to get there.

So, it is helpful in meetings and other areas of life to ask three questions, as Tony Robbins points out in this video:

• What is the result we want? Be as specific as possible, because what you seek you will find if you specify it in detail and you really want it. This is akin to the concepts popularized by the book "The Strangest Secret" by Nightingale.
• Why do we desire that result? This is the fuel that will motivate you to continue pursuing the goal, the purpose behind the pursuit.
• How do we get to the desired outcome? These are the specific actions you will take to achieve the desired outcome. Here too, specificity and a bias for action are necessary.

These three questions raise the level of clarity surrounding the situation and provide context and explanations for everyone involved to understand. Understanding leads to engagement, which leads to action, which yields results when pointed in the right direction.

Then it's a matter of following through with the action plan (the HOW) no matter your present motivational state. The third question (the HOW) can be more successful when systematized in a way that you can track what to do, how to do it, and when. This adds a layer of clarity (because you write things down) and accountability for you and everyone involved.

Sometimes there needs to be space for unplanned exploration and conversations. So, this is not an absolutely universal framework to apply at all times. You will know when it's time for open, unstructured exploration, and when it is instead appropriate to seek order and establish clarity of aim. Chances are, most of the time you need the latter, because it is further from the default (entropy, chaos), and so it requires more effort and overcoming friction in the process.

The rewards can be proportional to or greater than the effort you input, as long as you really want it, don't let limiting beliefs and rumination hold you where you are, and truly believe that you can live by design instead of by default, and this starts now, not in some imaginary future.