Welcome to another year, and another round of jokes about not keeping New Year’s resolutions. To-wit: The 13 funniest tweets about New Year’s resolutions.
All joking aside, those who will make this year a true success are not focused on their New Year’s resolutions – about what they will start doing or stop doing. Instead, they are focused on their why. They’ve taken the time to connect the dots of who they are with what they do. And that is a very powerful motivator.
This year, don’t resolve to do two or three small things differently. Instead, take the time to connect with your why. What can you do to make an enduring impact? Here are three simple questions to get you started.
1. What did you want to be before the world ‘should’ on you? You know. “You should go into accounting.” “You should take over your father’s law practice.” “You should study medicine.” As Mark Albion writes in More Than Money, “It’s easy to slide into a career that matches your skills but not your deepest desires. When you get good at something you don’t want to do, you feel as if you’re dying a little bit each day – that your soul is being sucked out of you. Worse yet, it takes time to realize what’s going on.”
2. What did you want to do when you were eleven or twelve? In Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham suggests that we remember our ‘yearnings’. He writes, “Perhaps because of your genes, or your early experiences, as a child you found yourself drawn to some activities and repelled by others. While your brother was chasing his friends around the yard, you settled down to tinker with the sprinkler head, pulling it apart so that you could figure out how it worked. Your analytical mind was already making its presence known.” Your purpose is hiding right beneath the surface of your life. It threads between the major events of your life and opens windows of opportunity.
3. What legacy do you want to leave? Author Michael Gerber takes this idea to an extreme in his book, The E-Myth Revisited. He asks that you imagine attending your own funeral. All of your friends, your family, and your business associate are there. Picture yourself lying in the box in the center of the room, then listen. Imagine what your colleagues would say about you. Would they talk about the margins you gained? The deals you closed? The efficiencies you implemented? Or, would they talk about the value you left behind? How you helped them grow? How they are better off because they knew you? Starting today, you have the power to shape these conversations.
Rather than rushing to the gym or buying an organizer, take some time this month to connect with your why. There’s no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. Find your passion. Connect with your why. Work on purpose.
Question: Do you know someone who is guided by a clear sense of purpose? What differences do you see in their daily behavior?
