On A Mission

"All agreements with myself shall be in
writing. Everything else is just a good
idea." – Unknown

Sitting on a bed in a resort in Cancun.
Taking a break from the pool, the beach
and the sun. Spending a lot of time
thinking about my present and my future. I
wonder how it will all work out. I wonder
how I will find all that I am supposed to be.
How do I separate out the various
opportunities presented to me. It seems
that my guiding principles and mission
statement are the answer. Still I find so
many interconnected opportunities. It
seems that, on the one hand, I need a
niche, both for myself to focus on and to
focus the marketing efforts of my
business. On the other hand I don't want
to be pigeon-holed, or forced into some
box by my customers - be they one or the
customer base as a whole.

Everyone needs a mission statement for
their life. Most people have them for their
businesses, and understand the need for
them. The needs for having one as an
individual is as great, though much more
important in the broad scheme of things.
The comments I made in the first
paragraph reflect some of the things I am
thinking now about my mission and, more
accurately, how I apply the one that I
have. You may notice that my words are

interspersed between business and
personal. This is not because I am a
workaholic - it says much more about the
fact that I love the work I have chosen to
spend my life engaging in. I love my
Customers, their struggles and delight in
helping them reach their performance
goals, dreams and aspirations.

I could give you twenty rational reasons
for writing a personal mission. I am not
going to. I could give you all the standard
stuff about goal setting. I am not going to.
In my mind there is one overriding reason
to write a personal mission statement. To
become the best of what you were put on
earth to become. This is the reason for
writing a personal mission statement.

For many of us it is a scary thought -
thinking about what we were put here to
become. I believe one of our goals in life
is to find that which we are truly blessed
with and pursue it as our life's work
(though that doesn't mean it will
necessarily be our work.) Why is it scary?
It's scary because most of us intuitively
know that our potential is great - far
greater than we are currently aiming for. It
is scary because moving towards that
place will require us to do new things - to
learn new things, to abandon old habits,
spend time in new ways, to read more, to
watch TV less, and many other things. In

other words - it will require change. We
cannot find our life's purpose overnight -
especially if you've not thought about it
much before. We cannot expect to find it
"overnight", like the mythical "overnight
successes" we read and hear about. The
focus must be on the journey, getting on
the path. Our first focus needs deciding
to get on the path. Beginning to find our
place on the road.

There are exciting worlds, beyond all of
our imaginations, but to begin to find
them we must begin to search. A critical
first part of that search is to begin to write
about who we are and what we want to
become.

Yours in learning,

Kevin Eikenberry

This Vantagepoints has been reprinted in
the following online publication.

Kevin Eikenberry
<mailto:kevin@discian.com> is a speaker,
trainer, author, and President of the
Discian Group (http://discian.com) - a
learning consulting company. He authors
a monthly article on learning from life's
events called Vantagepoints. If you liked
this article, you can read more or
subscribe for free at
http://vantagepoints.net.