What’s Your Mission?

This week I’ve been writing about a great new Walk the Talk book full of life and career success advice. I really like the people at Walk the Talk, they have published three of my books. Their books are no BS – clear, concise and to the point. Their latest, 180 Ways to Live Your Life Like It Matters, by Scott Black is no exception. You can get it at http://www.WalktheTalk.com.

Point 3 in 180 Ways to Live Your Life Like It Matters says…

Develop a mission statement for your area of responsibility that answers the following: Who are you? What do you do? What is the quality in which you do what you do? It is important to know the “whys” behind our activities. This allows us to connect our power sources – our hearts – to our daily routines. And it can keep us stirred up and focused when things get tough.

I suggest that all of my career success coaching clients clarify their purpose and direction in life. Put simply, your purpose is your mission – why you are on this earth. Your direction is where you are going in the next three to five years.

I address these points in Tweets 4 and 5 in my career advice book Success Tweets. Tweet 4 says, “The mightier your purpose, the more likely you are to succeed.” Tweet 5 says, “Your vision should be a BHAG: a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Make it something that is really worth accomplishing.

Your clarity of purpose and direction provide your foundation. From them, you can build the successful life and career that you want and deserve. The more clear and the more mighty your purpose and direction, the stronger your foundation.

You should begin your success journey by clarifying your purpose in life. Why are you on this earth? What are you meant to do? I believe that the more mighty this purpose, the more you are likely to succeed. A mighty purpose gives you that strong foundation “when the winds of change shift.”

Brad Swift of the Life On Purpose Institute (www.lifeonpurpose.com) makes a great point about clarity of purpose…

“Taking a bold stand for living on purpose starts by knowing your purpose with crystal clarity — knowing it so well that if someone woke you up at 3:00 in the morning and asked you what your life purpose is, you’d be able to tell them. And if someone who knew you well heard what you said, they’d realize that your life was a true, authentic reflection of that purpose.”

There are two common sense points on which I want to focus here. First, your clarity of purpose should be so big, so mighty, so important to you, that it is deeply ingrained in your psyche. It has to be part of who you are. Second, you have to live your clarity of purpose 24/7/365. This takes commitment; commitment to determining your life’s purpose, and commitment to living it.

If you were to wake me at 3:00 in the morning, shine a light in my face and ask me for my life’s purpose, I’m sure I would say, “Helping people create the life and career success they deserve.” It’s that much a part of me. My elevator speech begins, “Hi, I’m Bud Bilanich, the Common Sense Guy; I help people create their life and career success by showing them how to apply their common sense.”

For me, this is a mighty purpose. I’m helping other people find career success — and fulfillment in their lives. That’s important work in my book. I take immense satisfaction out of seeing others learn, grow and succeed. In another life I might have been a teacher or athletic coach. In this life, I help people create the life and career success that they want and deserve.

What is your purpose? Is it mighty? I hope so.

Remember, your mission is your reason for existing, your passion, why you are on this earth. Your mission is your purpose in life. Once you settle on a personal mission, you should think very long and hard before you change it.

Your personal vision is the direction in which you are going in the short to medium term – usually the next three to five years. Unlike your mission, your vision should change with the times. It should be consistent with your mission, but should reflect the new goals you set for yourself as you move forward in your life and achieve some measure of career success.

As Tweet 5 in Success Tweets says, your vision should always be a BHAG – a big hairy audacious goal. You need to create a vision that will challenge you and motivate you – it should be big and hairy and audacious. What’s your big hairy audacious goal for the next year? Three years? Five years? Ten years?

I like the word “audacious” in the BHAG idea. According to Dictionary.com, audacious is defined as: “extremely bold and daring, brave, fearless, original, without restriction to prior ideas, highly inventive, unrestrained, uninhibited, bold in defiance of convention.”

Do these words inspire you or frighten you? I hope they inspire you to be bold and daring, fearless and original when it comes to creating your personal vision. Don’t be constrained by convention, or restricted by prior ideas. Be highly inventive.

I’m transitioning from a managmemnt consultant to a full time coach. So my current vision has a one-year and a five-year time frame…

One Year — Create a profitable internet business that will allow me to share my optimistic message on career and life success and help as many people as I can.

Five Year — Make 100% of my income from the Internet five years from now.

This Vision is a BHAG for me; it’s audacious. I’m on a steep learning curve when it comes to Internet marketing. Accomplishing my personal vision is going to take more than a little luck — and a lot of persistence. But that’s OK – I realize my vision is a BHAG, and I’m willing to take the risk of stating it in public and committing to doing the work to make it a reality. I’m choosing to be bold and daring as I enter the next phase of my life.

So what does this mean for you? It means that you too should be bold and daring as you create your personal vision. Don’t be constrained by convention; see yourself as an audacious success three to five years in the future. That’s how you become a career success.

Your mindset makes all the difference. You need to be willing to commit to doing things differently. As the saying goes, you need to be willing to give up what you are for what you can become. The first step in creating a personal vision that is a BHAG is to determine your goal for the time frame you choose. As you see, I’ve created a one-year and five-year goal. Your goal should be very focused. It should be difficult to achieve – or it’s not a BHAG. Your personal vision should stretch you past your comfort zone. It should be life-changing. It should build on the momentum you have going. It should excite and stimulate you. It should be something that is really worth accomplishing.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Successful people think big. They ground themselves in a mighty purpose. They follow the career advice in Success Tweet 4. “The mightier your purpose, the more likely you are to succeed. It will give you a strong foundation when the winds of change shift.” Take this advice to heart. Ground yourself with a mighty purpose. It’s better to aim too high and fall a little short than it is to aim too low and reach your goal. Besides your personal mission you need to create a compelling vision for the next three to five years. Your vision should be a BHAG; a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Make it something that is really worth accomplishing. Your personal vision should be bold and daring, original, not restricted by your past way of thinking, highly inventive, unrestrained and uninhibited. In short – think big, think outside the box, think about what you can become, not what you are today.

That’s my career advice prompted by Brad Scott’s thoughts the importance of a personal mission. What do you think? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment. And, as always, I really appreciate you taking the time to read my daily thoughts on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, I suggest that you check out my career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained. The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less. The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy. You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: Have you seen my membership site, My Corporate Climb? It’s devoted to helping people just like you create career success inside large corporations. You can find out about it by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

 

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