Writing your clear personal purpose produces a number of benefits in your life. We explore three of them in this series of posts:
Benefit #1: Your clear personal purpose gives direction.
Benefit #2: Your personal purpose provides consolation in the dark times.
And, today, we see a third benefit.
Benefit #3: Knowing and living your purpose expands your personal impact.
As you lean into your personal mission, it grows and expands your personal influence and increases your mark on the world.
You built the foundation. Sometimes others gave you the blocks for that underpinning. At other times, you hewed the stone out of the mountain.
Through pain and triumph. Whether you caused the pain or somebody else pained you. You risked. Won. Lost big. Invested in your education, formally and informally. Rubbed shoulders with world-changers and people who only value holding the fort.
Layer upon layer. Stone upon stone. Constructing your life from various places you chose. You erected some skills in a fraction of time. You still work on developing others. Moment by moment. Year after year. Step One. Step Two. You will wake up tomorrow and hit it again when your feet hit the floor. You will take yet another shot, for the umpteenth time.
And, every endeavor counts. Make no mistake: Each effort you made creates depth and breadth for larger impact through your life.
How does that happen?
a. Your personal impact expands because your mission builds cumulatively.
Your purpose builds because you:
- possess a greater number of tools.
- acquire increasing levels of discernment.
- draw from a multitude of experiences.
Your mission gains momentum the longer you lean into it.
I once tried a WeightWatchers diet in the morning. At lunch, I ordered an item on my WeightWatchers’ list. The wait staff assumed I must be doing an Atkins diet. She guessed wrong, but offered some bleu cheese dressing. So, I decided to do the Atkins diet for lunch. As you may guess, WeightWatchers for breakfast and Atkins for lunch equals no weight loss. Not what I was hoping. The only thing I lost on that two-week diet was fourteen days. The cumulative effect of doing two diets equals no cumulative effect. People lose weight on each diet, but not by doing those two together. Each diet will work if you work it. But, the two diets together are not really a diet.
It may be hard to see it now. But, as the years meld together, your impact increases, if you maintain your direction. Pursuing your purpose differs remarkably from puttering. I knew two guys from the same school, comparable in ability. One died an alcoholic and one leads a major non-profit organization. Although their initial tools looked the same, different choices over time produced remarkably wide gaps in results.
Purpose moves forward and builds upon itself. Whereas puttering does not. It stays where it is, because it does not go in a direction. Lollygagging stagnates, while purpose produces a better world.
A clear mission helps you stay on course, which includes staying the course. The champion weightlifter didn’t also train for gymnastics. If he had, he could not lift the championship weight. The same goes for the gymnast. Both pursuits are honorable. But, going after both pursuits produces mediocrity (at best) with either.
Like the old proverb says (ascribed variously to the Chinese or Russians): He who chases two rabbits catches neither.
b. Your personal impact increases because your wisdom grows in your niche.
Newbie leaders attend a conference and implement what the presenter said. The newbie leader’s organization undergoes major shifts every time he sees a different model. A seasoned leader, on the other hand, attends the same conference. She internalizes the content in light of her current context and experiences, and implements improvements that are unrecognizable to the new leader. But those improvements greatly improve her organization’s performance.
Why?
Wisdom.
After a few repetitions, a leader realizes every context differs. Each group of people possesses their own special characteristics, including cultural ones. People in Texas view the world through a different lens than people in the Midwest. The same can be said of California, the Deep South, Florida and Cajun Country (i.e. Louisiana). The same information produces varying results, from a success to a miserable failure. Add socio-economic, educational and background factors and it soon becomes clear why you shouldn’t wholesale your organization for the one you spent three days visiting.
Following your clear mission enables that discretion.
But, it does take time to develop it.
In the next few posts, I will share practical ways to get clear on your personal mission.
For now, please let us know something you learned as a result of following your current path? It helps and encourages others.
(Missed Parts 1 and 2? Catch up here and here.)
Who We Are
LeaderINCREASE helps leaders get clear on where to go and understand how to get there, with less hassle. We understand that choosing to make a difference as a leader isn’t always the easiest.
We focus on providing leaders with resources they need to make a difference and become actionable leaders for their organization. We look forward to helping you achieve your goals as we have done for many others.
