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Spend time in Personal Mission DevelopmentLive Your Life On PurposeClick here if you'd like to commence the exercises nowLeaders who live fulfilled lives spend time in personal mission development. Men and women who have a strong sense of purpose shape the world, both at a local and a global level. People such as Richard Branson  , Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Robbins, Ghandi, Sorrel Wilby, Anita Roddick, Christopher Reeve, Janine Shepherd and many more are all people who developed a clear sense of who they were and used their natural skills and talents to make a difference in the world.
Whilst these well known people shape our world, so too do people at the local level. For example from my local community, Gail Mooney (Riding for Disabled instructor) and Valerie Campbell-Hogg (one of the founders of our local Steiner School) have had very strong impact on their local community, yet are probably not known by more than 1,000 people each. The point is that living purposefully doesn't necessarily mean you do a different job to the one you are doing now! It means you have taken the time to ensure that you live with deliberate intent, using values and principles that give your life context and meaning. Living Purposefully may simply mean that in each moment you are present enough to be a kind and loving parent, or to be a fair and just leader or to give hope to another by saying a kind word to a person in trouble. When discussing personal mission development it would be remiss of me to not recommend this book. Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose is an exceptionally powerful book on living a conscious life. Highly recommend it.
Some Things to Keep In Mind
There are three hungers that you will attempt to feed throughout your life.
Step One:What Is The Legacy You Would Like To Leave?Let's start with the third hunger. If you die tomorrow then the purpose of your life has been realized. The reality is your time here is limited! Sadly for many, life is spent in a haze with little deliberate intent and no sense of purpose: drifting from one set of life conditions and circumstances to another.When you decide the legacy you want to leave behind, then you can determine the appropriateness of your daily actions. Richard Leider from the Inventure Group, interviewed more than 1,000 people who'd had distinguished careers in high profile companies. He asked them to look back over their lives and talk about what they learned. He found (almost without exception): The real point of spending time in peronal mission development isn't to end up with some lofty ideals written on a piece of paper. The real point of the exercise is to consider
If you want begin now to decide the legacy you want to leave. You may have already done similar exercises before. If so, it's okay to re-do them, you may find that you now have some new thinking. Step Two: What's Your Talents/Passions/Strengths/Values?Let's move on to the second hunger, discovering your unique talents and gifts. We are each born with a set of innate talents. For example, my daughter is innately good at gymnastics. Within 7 weeks of starting gymnastics she had won the state title for her level. The key to a talent is that you have it regardless of whether you ever choose to use it or not (week 12 she decided she didn't enjoy gymnastics and refused to go any more). Ready to begin identifying your talent/passions? Completing this step will enable you to re-craft your life and your job to make the most possible use of your strengths. For example, when I was working at Colgate-Palmolive I was able to re-design my job so that it focused primarily on the development of the people in the organization. Something I loved to do and it is a true strength for me. When you use this information you will find that your days will be filled with much more flow That experience of when time stands still and you suddenly realise how absorbed and happy you were during the time that you were utilising that strength/value. Read more about the latest research on identifying and using strengths in the workplace. Step Three: Soul LessonsFinally, to the first hunger - to understand your soul's lessons for this lifetime and to connect with your spiritual self. For some of you this section may be a bit out there and on the woohoo side. My request to you is that you set aside any judgements you have for the moment and read the entire section and complete the exercises prior to discarding it as mumbo jumbo. My hope is that it opens you to taking a more symbolic view of your life, rather than a literal view. Carolyn Myss is one of this century's greatest minds and spiritual teachers. She teaches in one of her books Sacred Contracts: that each of us come into this lifetime with an agreement as to what it is our soul is here to learn. (This presupposes that you believe that we have a soul that does not die when our physical body expires.) Now you may or may not believe in angels or heavenly beings. I invite you to remain open to the possibility that there is something or someone who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent in this Universe. Someone who has a master plan that has not been completely revealed to you and I.
We attract to ourselves people, circumstances and events that show us how to release the potential of our soul. At a physical level it seems like all we are faced with are problems and hardship. Yet at the soul level you are being presented with great gifts. Let me give you an example: A young 10 year-old I know has attracted to herself, on several different occasions, people who bully her and pick on her. One of her soul lessons is probably to learn courage and to stand up for herself. Until she learns this lesson, like a magnet, she will continue to attract to her people that will bully her. Here's the interesting thing. As souls we understand our spiritual mission. But as you slide down that birth canal, you go through the river of forgetfulness and arrive here plonk, as a physical being with no clear, sharp memory of your spiritual mission. You have a lingering feeling I'm here for some reason, I'm here to do something, but it is hard to put your finger on exactly what that something is. When you live your life on a literal level with no awareness of soul lessons all you know is that person or circumstance is creating a struggle in my life! "I am being bullied and I don't like it." Or like Christopher Reeve ... "I am at the peak of my career and bam I'm a quadriplegic". Here's the clincher. Our soul is always given the gift of choice. In each and every circumstance, that we face in life, we can choose to learn (or not) our soul lesson.
When you spend time reflecting and discovering what is it that this person or circumstance could be teaching you, you avoid allowing your soul's life lessons to go unheeded. Shifting to a more symbolic view of life means you will start to ask questions such as:
If there has been a situation or circumstance that has recurred throughout your life - it may have shown up in slightly different ways each time - then be alert that this may be a significant life/soul lesson for you. Until you get your soul's lesson, the universe will keep sending the circumstances and people that will help you get it! (Trust me I know this to be true from my own hard-learned experience!). Whilst so far I've focused on tough situations/people, know too that the great gifts, joys and circumstances that come into your life can equally be soul lessons. Not everything needs to be learnt the hard way! To give you an example of how this work helped me. It became very obvious that throughout my life I have often been bossy, controlling and dominating. With this awareness it prompted me to incorporate into my Purposeful Living Statement the words listening and love. Draft your Purposeful Living StatementAt this point you may want to write your first draft Purposeful Living Creed. This certainly won't be your final draft - as I said before life is work in progress and you will find it will constantly evolves. A couple of simple guidelines:
As an example here is my current Purposeful Living Statement: "I transform, inspire and guide people to heal their souls and step into more of their potential through love, listening, role-modeling, writing, coaching and speaking in truth." Ready to begin identifying your Soul Lessons? Once you understand your purpose in life the key is to align it with all parts of your life -- your personal life, your work life, your community. Acting with clear purpose means you no longer feel tired and out of whack. Living a life of congruence and alignment, expressing who you truly are as fully as possible is true success. That makes for a life worth living. Powerful Performance Formula  Self-Assessment Quizzes Leave Personal Mission Development and go to Articles Index |
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