When we don’t have clarity on what we can be doing to maximize our effectiveness, our output, be in alignment with who we are, we often don’t feel content. We don’t feel like we’re performing at our optimal and we don’t always get the results we’re looking for.
So today I want to focus on where I have decided and channeled to focus my energy to really get maximum results.
1. Clarify your personal purpose
So it starts with this: gaining clarity. By that I mean we need to gain clarity about our life vision, about our personal purpose, and our value statement. So to do this, it requires a little bit of brainstorming and some creativity. So I often recommend getting a piece of paper out or typing, whatever is your process, and just kind of do a download from all of the things that have gone into where you are today in your life. The jobs you’ve had, the activities, the interests, the social circles, all of that. Really try to understand what you’re seeking to accomplish.
What is your life vision, you know? What do you want to be remembered for? What impact do you want to have in this world? How do you want people to have felt after knowing you and interacted with you? Family, friends, colleagues, customers, clients, stakeholders, anything. How do you want to be known and remembered? So articulate and getting clarity around your life vision.
Then write out your life mission statement, which is an elaboration or an extension of your life vision or personal purpose. The life vision should usually be one or two sentences. Your mission can be far longer than that. This is important to gain further clarity and depth on what it is you’re trying to accomplish in this life, both personally and professionally. We can’t work effectively and achieve our goals if we don’t even know where we’re going. We need to articulate and define that destination with clarity or we’re not going to get there.
2. Articulate your personal value statement
And the next step is to really articulate with confidence and conviction your personal value statement. So what are the things that you stand for? What is important to you? Honesty, integrity, showing up in life, being enthusiastic and energetic, engaging with people, and building meaningful relationships and connections; Those are just examples of some of mine that are on my personal value statement. And I think this is important, too, because we can’t really channel our energy and focus our efforts until we get clear on these things.
Oftentimes then we’ll do activities, we’ll take jobs, we’ll engage in relationships with people that aren’t supportive of our life vision, our mission, and our values. And this can be detrimental and degrading for a number of reasons:
It can take us off our path. It can affect our mindset. It can move us away from the things we really should be doing that bring us the most joy and the most happiness, and the most results professionally.
So focus on creating, with clarity, your life vision statement. Then support it with your mission statement and elaboration of this. And then get really clear on your value statement: the things that you were brought up to value. The things that you hold close now that are important to you. Some of your non-negotiables.
3. Audit your current situation
And then do a very honest and transparent audit of your current life. Is your job in alignment with these things? For many people, it’s not and that’s a hard reality to accept sometimes. It’s what we do day in, day out. Where we spend most of our time. If it is not actually supportive and furthering our life vision and not even be in alignment with our values, that’s a problem. That’s an incongruence that really creates friction in our personal self, our psyche, the way in which we feel. How we feel about our output and our impact in the world.
So sometimes we need to admit this and make a meaningful change. Sometimes that means walking away from a job. Sometimes that means starting a business. Sometimes and often that means taking a risk, getting into a zone of discomfort. But that’s where most of the growth happens is on the other side of that, right? So we need to be able to take calculated risks and then go after our dreams.
The other thing too is after we do this audit, we’re going to see some of the relationships we’re in: friendships, maybe even with a significant other, maybe even certain family members, are also not supportive of our life vision and our mission and those things are not in alignment with our values. And that’s tough.
That’s another difficult thing to admit. But sometimes we have to realize that and we have to start to make changes to the people we surround ourselves with because our psyche, our disposition, our energy is really the average of the five people we spend the most time with. So be very careful who you’re surrounding yourself with and what ideas and energies you’re putting into your mind because that will directly affect what you put out into the world and how you show up and how you perform. So try to be diligent in that as well.
4. Reinvest in what aligns with your personal purpose
And then again, after you do this—it’s going to take some time, some weeks, months, sometimes years for people—start to create more alignment with what you’re investing your time and resources in. The job you’re in, the career, the social circle, the friends, the groups, the organizations you participate and volunteer in. Be more diligent and intentional in how you’re building that life to make sure that it’s congruent and aligned with your personal purpose, your mission, and your value statement.
Because if it’s not, again, you will never perform to your capability and true potential. You won’t be fully fulfilled and happy. You won’t have the best and most meaningful and rewarding relationships that you potentially could have. So really try to do this, have that defined, achieve clarity around that, then build congruence after doing a very honest and transparent audit. And then start to strategically build your life to make sure that those things are taken into account.
When you do that you will increase your effectiveness, you will become a better performer at work, you will be happier, you will have more meaningful and rewarding relationships, and you’ll just live in better congruence with yourself. And I got to tell ya, that’s a great feeling and it takes a lot of courage to do this. It takes the ability and willingness to say no to certain opportunities, to certain people, and to certain things in your life.
And I’m still working on this. I love to say yes to new ideas and ventures and concepts and to certain relationships that I probably shouldn’t, but when we realize that it’s okay to say no and that we need to say no and safeguard these things, that’s when other further opportunities will open as well.
So hopefully this is helpful. If you get any value from this, please do me a favor, leave a comment below, like this, and or share it with somebody that could benefit from this. We have a lot of resources, too, available in the area of mindset training, building your life vision, and all these other things that we’ve been talking about today. So please explore those here.
And again, thank you for being with me. Have a great day. Stay safe. Stay positive. Stay healthy. We’re going to get through this. We’re turning the corner already. Again, to your success and happiness.