Beginning with the end in mind

Direction, reaction…creation

Without getting started little can be achieved.

The great educator Stephen Covey further submitted that a habit of highly successful people is to begin with the end in mind.

Taking action is great; but you need a strategy.

And the actions you take need to be in the right direction, towards your ultimate destination.

This requires a blueprint – an imagination or vision of who & what you want to be – because things are created twice, once in the brain, & then a second time in physical reality.

Who are you?

It’s startling to consider how little thought we give to some of life’s most fundamental questions; like who we really are.

The answer comes down to your personal guidelines & core values, but since we react differently to different situations these can seem hard to pin down.

It may also be that you believe what you do for a living shouldn’t define you.

So, what really lights you up?

What do you do better than anyone else?

What would you want people to say about you at your funeral?

And, importantly – to take a line that is not solely introspective – what do you for people that changes their lives, and how does it change them?

On a mission

One way to identify & then codify your purpose – what is truly important to you – and think a bit more deeply about your life, is to write a short personal mission statement.

The finished article might be something as simple as:

‘My mission is to continually improve the quality of life for me & my family, and to inspire others to follow me through helping & educating them’.

Most people will never trouble themselves to write a personal mission statement, preferring to dismiss it as frightful bosh (or something of that nature anyway).

But if you are one of the ~70 per cent that finds life unsatisfactory, perhaps you should?