How To Find Your “Why” When Pursuing FIRE?

When it comes to pursuing FIRE and staying consistent on your journey, by far the most important thing is finding your “why”.

Without a strong “why”, it’s easy to fall off the bandwagon and completely lose motivation for pursuing FIRE.

Especially as a young adult, it’s very easy to get misled into the wrong actions or fall into the peer pressure of trying to impress your friends.

Without consistency + daily action, it’s impossible to reach FIRE, or any type of goal you set out to achieve. Consistency + patience is the foundation for not only reaching FIRE, but succeeding in all areas of your life, whether it’s with your health, fitness, sleep, meditation or relationships.

I’ve seen countless people set a New Year’s resolution goal to save and set an extremely strict budgeting plan, only to fall off the rails a few months later. Why? Because there isn’t a strong “why” for saving in the first place.

If you’re saving out of obligation or with no end goal in sight, then it’s so easy to lose focus.

With that being said, let’s really dive into finding your own “why” for pursuing FIRE, and ways to constantly remind yourself to spark the internal fiery desire.

Find a really strong “why”

After talking to a lot of people in the FIRE community, the reasons why one might be pursuing FIRE come down to his/her own personal desires and experience, but here are a few common ones:

• Escaping the corporate 9-5 grind and getting out of the dreaded rat race. Let’s face it, most of us hate being at work, and the daily stress gets to us mentally and physically.
• Spending more time with family
• Being more involved with your kids
• Travelling the world without being tied to a job
• Pursuing fun passion projects
• Not being completely reliant on your job to live and survive
• Some of us might’ve grown up in a poor household, so we promise ourselves that we never want to experience the feeling of struggling with money.
• Having the complete freedom and flexibility to do whatever you want with your time. Even when we continue working after we reach FIRE, it just feels good knowing that you have a steady investment portfolio that covers your living expenses.

Some of the reasons overlap with each other, but these are the most common “whys” I’ve found.

I know for me personally, my reasons for pursuing FIRE are:

• Being able to work part-time and spending that free time doing relaxing activities like walking, watching movies, reading books, going to the library, visiting friends/families and not being stuck at a job for 40 hours per week.
• This is very recent, but living abroad in a cheaper country like Malaysia, where I can enjoy and live a very good lifestyle for 2-3x cheaper than here in Australia, which not only allows me to live more luxuriously but cuts back my FIRE number significantly, which means I can reach FIRE sooner.
• The idea of a 5-day weekend sounds nice. If I’m being for real, I don’t see myself completely retiring, but working only 2 days and enjoying a 5-day weekend every week sounds like a dream! Oh my gosh, the thought of that just makes me itch even more to reach my FIRE goal sooner.

For me, ultimately, it’s about having the freedom and choices to do whatever I want with my time and money, and not being reliant on my job to pay my bills.

I also envision a scary future where if I don’t reach FIRE, I’m living like everybody, where I’m 1 paycheck away from going broke.

And for years, I’ve been seeing the same people on the train every day, depressed and tired, ready to clock off and just binge-watch Netflix. I’d hate to be in that position, and writing about it ignores that burning desire for me to reach FIRE asap.

Step-by-step Exercises to Find your “Why”

For some of us, it might be a little difficult finding our “why”. In that case, here are a few steps to ignite your passion for FIRE and finding your own powerful “why” enough to filter out all the BS and be laser-focused on your goals.

1. For the next 30-60 minutes, brainstorm and just write down all the reasons why you want to achieve FIRE. What’s your reason for building wealth? Is it to retire sooner so that you can enjoy more time with your kids? Or maybe you just want to simply be in a strong financial position where you’re not dependent on your job for a paycheck? Whatever your reason is, only you know best, and it’s completely tailored based on each individual. Just write whatever comes to mind. Doesn’t have to be perfect.
2. Once you’ve really figured out your “why” for pursuing FIRE and building wealth, make it a mission to read your mission statement and deep internal desires every day. When you constantly remind yourself, the desire will grow stronger every day. Remind yourself what it’ll feel like to have all that free time, never having to work or travel the world 365 days of the year.
   • Or perhaps you can envision a dark, scary future where you’re dreaded at the same workplace, having to clock in and out with absolutely NOTHING to show for it.
3. Take the time to visualise where you want to be in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. Imagine how much better your life is with that $1M portfolio, versus without it. This might sound like a bit of a meditation session, but really, take the time to just close your eyes and envision what it’s like to not have to clock in at work.
4. Discuss this regularly with your partner, or join a network of people in the FIRE community so that you’re surrounded by people who are pursuing the same goal as you. When you surround yourself with like-minded individuals, it keeps you accountable, and you feel so inspired being in a community that supports your journey.
5. If you do need a bit of system in place to keep you disciplined, especially at the start, finding an accountability partner is one of the most powerful ways for staying consistent. Heck, you might even reach out to a FIRE blogger or friend that’s reached FIRE, and pay them for an hourly consultation every month to keep you accountable on your goals.

Here are a few other ways to constantly remind yourself:

• Change your phone and computer wallpaper to your FI goal
• Buy and create a large poster that reminds you of your FI goal, and why you’re doing this in the first place. Place it in your room.
• Hate the feeling of going to work on Monday? Let that serve you as a reminder.
• What’s work without any meaning behind it? Well, it’s really just living an unfulfilled life with no end goal in mind, just mindlessly working at a job you hate and only there to collect the paycheck.
• Ask yourself, “Do I want to spend the next 40-50 years slaving away at a job that I dread going to?”.
• Heck, put up a poster of yourself working in an office job, being dreaded. This might seem counterintuitive, but it could work for some people, serving you as a reminder of the harsh consequences if you don’t own your finances.

10 years might sound like a long time, but really, it goes by so fast

Try picturing yourself in 10 years. I can say that my past self, from 10 years ago, feels like it was literally yesterday, and it’s astonishing how quickly time passes.

Just remember that even though 10 years from now seems like a lifetime away, it really whizzes by so fast in the blink of an eye.

Imagine what it would be like if you hadn’t discovered FIRE at all, and instead continued working for the next 10 years with little to no financial progress. That doesn’t sound great, does it?

Remember that you’re in this extremely financially privileged position of reaching FIRE, and I get it. Even for me, reaching FIRE seems like a lifetime away, and it feels like I’ll be working forever before I get there.

But really, if I think about it, it’s just my mind playing games, and if I think about it, 5 years went by so fast I can’t believe it’s late-2025 right now.

Enjoy and cherish the present, and practice gratitude every day

Reaching FIRE doesn’t have to be a miserable journey, and you don’t have to just think solely about the end goal in mind while hating your job.

I’m trying to practice this every day as well, but I like to remind myself to enjoy the present moment, because one thing you’ll never get back in your life is time. Especially if you’re in your youth, cherish the fact that you’ll only ever have one chance at being in your early 20s.

If you ask multi-millionaires and even billionaires if they could go back in time to be 18 years old again, I’m very confident that 9/10 will say “YES!” in a heartbeat.

It’s very easy to think, “man, once I reach FIRE, then I’ll finally attain that happiness and escape out of my misery”. Honestly, it ain’t that simple, unfortunately, and you can still be happy in this present moment.

Just remember that even though working a full-time job can be demanding, there are people in much, much worse situations, and they’d kill to be in your position.

Things I like to be grateful for are:

• The fact that I’m healthy and energetic. Health is wealth, and there are people with harsh health conditions who wish they could live a healthy life. I’m so privileged and extremely grateful to function with a healthy body and mind.
• Remember, many have it far worse than you do.
• Living in a first-world country like Australia, where we’re blessed with an abundance of housing and food.

Verdict

Your “why” for pursuing FIRE is the most important, as it’s your north star and reminder on why you’re on this journey in the first place. And I get that it’s very easy to lose motivation, as pursuing FIRE can be a very lonely journey.

That’s why I think surrounding yourself and being in a like-minded community can be so extremely powerful.

Two FIRE communities I’d highly recommend are:

• Strong Money Australia Meetups (Perth-based only) – The meetups are hosted by Dave Gow from Strong Money Australia, and I’ve been to like 4 or 5 meetups so far. I just feel so great going to these meetups, as I can openly discuss my journey to FIRE, which is something I never get to do.
• FI Freedom Retreat – I’ve never been to one, but every year, hosts Amy and Matt host a FIRE retreat in Bali.