What’s REALLY Motivating You to Contemplate a North Carolina Car Accident Lawsuit?
It’s never a bad idea to ask the “why” question.
WHY are you thinking about taking legal action against a person or a company for a recent North Carolina auto accident? What’s your purpose? How might victory or success redound to help you and your family?
Your first inclination when you read a question like this might be to roll your eyes. Of course you understand “why” you are doing what you are doing. Someone took advantage of you on the road. Or maybe your bucket of bolts fell apart on the highway. And you want justice. You want compensation. You want to be paid back for the physical, mental, and financial harm that you’ve suffered (or will suffer) as a result of the disaster.
While these motivations are all very understandable (and very common), they are somewhat superficial.
Gaining a deeper sense of clarity of purpose may give you more tools and options and ensure that you make smarter decisions going forward. Spending time to examine your fundamental motivations for taking legal action can also help you meet more of your underlying needs.
So how can you probe for these deeper motivations? One interesting method is to borrow a process developed by Toyota called the “Five whys.” Essentially, you take any question that’s on your mind – any problem that’s keeping you up at night – and you drill down to identify the core reasons behind your actions.
Here is an example of this method in action.
Why #1: Why do you want to sue John Doe for your North Carolina car accident?
Answer: Because that idiot cut me off in traffic and forced me to drive my car into a telephone pole.
Why #2: And why was that incident a problem?
Answer: Obviously, because the guy nearly killed me. I have a need to be safe on the roads.
Why #3: Why is it important to you to drive safely and avoid accidents?
Answer: Because I want to live a long life and spend a lot of time with my family.
Why #4: And why is a long life and spending a lot of time with your family important?
Answer: Because being with my family is a fundamental source of joy for me.
In this case, we don’t need to drill down any further – go to the fifth why – because we’ve already arrived at an important conclusion. What’s motivating this person is a deep need to spend time with his family. So it’s a lot more than a quest for dollars or a quest for vengeance. It is about preserving this fundamental need to cherish his most fundamental human connections.
All that said, while it’s important to identify your motivations, you also need good strategies and tactics to get results. Connect with an experienced North Carolina car accident law firm today to start that process.
More Web Resources:
Five Whys
What’s your real motivation?
