If you’ve stayed with me so far, you are a lot closer to creating the life of your dreams. You now know what success means to you. You know what your ideal day would look and feel like. And you have a list of things you are passionate about doing.
Now it is time to tie all of those together into a dream business plan. But first, there is one more ingredient. This may be the most important piece of all…what is your purpose?
You may be thinking, what is the difference between passion and purpose? One easy way of thinking about it is this: your passions are WHAT you enjoy doing, your purpose is the WHY behind your passions.
Let’s take this example. Lots of business people have a passion for making money. They may enjoy the game, the art of making the deal, or just the feeling of being on top. But if you ask them WHY they love making money, you will get a different answer.
Here is a little story I read not long ago. An aspiring business person hired a coach to help him succeed. The first question the coach asked was: “How much money do you want to make?” The guy thought for a minute, and said: “I want to make a million dollars.”
The coach then said to him, “What are you going to do when you have a million dollars?” Without missing a beat, the guy said, “I’m going to go fishing.”
The coach shook his head and said, “You don’t need a million dollars to go fishing. What’s keeping you from going fishing right now?”
There is a lot of food for thought in that short parable. The first lesson I took from it is, why not be happy now? Just because you want more financial success in your life, it doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the gifts you already have. In fact, all the great spiritual teachers tell us that expressing gratitude every day will take us a long way on the path to achieving our dreams.
The second lesson is, you’ve got to think beyond yourself. Once you have all the money and possessions you want in your life, what else will matter to you? Most successful business people keep earning money long after they really need it because they want to make a difference in the world.
So take a minute and think about the WHY of your life. And as the Buddha of the Internet, Joe Vitale once said, DARE SOMETHING WORTHY.
Maybe you’ve never thought about your life this way, but we all leave behind a legacy. If you’re having trouble coming up with your life purpose, try this little visualization:
Imagine you are at your retirement party. Your family members, good friends, and professional acquaintances are gathered around, and they are each taking the time to say what you have meant to them. What would you like to hear about yourself? What accomplishments would you like to be remembered for? What kinds of relationships would you like to leave behind? How would you like the world to be different because of your life’s work?
Now that you have figured out your life purpose, it is time to package all of the ingredients together into a vision statement for your new business. Here is the equation:
PASSIONS + PURPOSE = VISION
How to write a vision statement
- Put it in the present tense…”I (or we) are doing WHAT for x,y,z reasons WHY. We are working with xxx clients or customers to earn gross revenues of xxx per year GOALS.
- Add as much detail as possible. The more real the vision, the more likely it will manifest in reality.
- Use language (and visual, auditory or other forms of expression) that make it vivid, exciting and emotional to you.
- Make sure your vision is an expression of YOU…your values, your passions, your desires. You are a unique human being, and your vision should be a natural extension of what you believe and care about.
- Don’t worry about perfection. A vision is fluid, adaptable, and changes with the ebb and flow of life. Just get something down on the paper that INSPIRES YOU NOW!
- Finally, don’t worry about the HOW right now. We will start talking about tomorrow. IF you get the WHAT and the WHY right, the HOW just requires some strategic thinking and planning.
Please don’t just read these words. You can create the life of your dreams…but YOU are the only one who can create your own unique vision. Do it here, do it now, and we’ll get back together tomorrow to start strategizing. If you need more inspiration, feel free to check out the recommended readings and resources below.
Recommended Resources and Readings
If you are having trouble connecting to your life’s purpose, Barbara Marx Hubbard is one person you need to listen to. Barbara has been a pioneer in positive options for the future of humanity for 40 years. A public speaker, author and social innovator, she is president and executive director of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. She has been instrumental in the founding of many future-oriented organizations including the World Future Society, New Dimensions Radio, Global Family, Women of Vision and Action, the Foundations for the Future and the Association for Global New Thought.
Here is what Barbara said about her passions and life purpose in a recent interview:
My greatest passion right now is to find a way to connect people and their passions to create in such a way that we can have a quantum jump on planet Earth. We see the crises that are facing us on all fronts, but we also know there are innovations and solutions. There’s passion in millions of us, billions of us, that isn’t yet expressed.
I have felt all my life that if there’s a way for that passion in the people to be connected, expressed and fulfilled, that we’d have everything we need on this earth. I’m very interested in HUB for this reason and in building a wheel of co-creation where people could enter in their passions to create, their needs and their resources and be connected within a wheel of co-creation. I would say that’s become my greatest passion.
Now, there is a vision of a life lived with purpose. Click here to read more from Barbara Marx Hubbard.
