Is your life on track? Do you know where you’re heading, and how well you are progressing toward your goals?
Maybe you’re still trying to figure out what you’ll be “when you grow up.” While others set out toward certain careers, you’re still floundering.
Or maybe you once wrote out a list of things you wanted to accomplish, but now you can’t remember where you put that list – or what was on it. Maybe you should have made keeping track of your goals one of the priorities on that list.
You don’t have to have a firm career in mind in order to make progress toward fulfilling your life’s purpose. The truth is, a simple shift in your perspective can make the difference between a life of achievement and satisfaction, and one of just muddling through until you die.
Examining your own beliefs about your life’s mission, then working to clarify and detail those beliefs, is a definite step toward finding that mission. Unless you’re willing to think about your life in that way – as a joyful march toward your destiny – life might pass you by unlived.
These are subtle but important changes in perspective and behavior that will help you become the most successful person you can be. Kimberley Jace offers a few advices.
1. Visualize: How do you feel while going about your daily activities? And picture yourself toward the end of your life, reviewing all the many accomplishments that make you proud. How will it feel to know you lived life fully? Develop the most complete picture you can of yourself as successful, and return to that image often throughout the day.
2. Pray: This is important to you even If you’re not a religious type, or not sure you believe in God. You need the help of the creator! So ask for help in three parts: a request, an affirmation and a thank-you.
3. Know yourself: You are the expert on you, and the more you understand about yourself, the better you can guide your progress. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual, but we do have clues: our passions and our talents. What do you really care about? What makes your heart soar, or pound with excitement? And what are you really good at? Don’t assume you only like or excel at the same things others do; your passions and talents are likely to be quite different from everyone else’s. Take time to write down the moments in your life when you have felt really alive and happy; your passions are in there. Then think about what you have to offer. Get help from those who love you if necessary. What has drawn praise to you? When have you felt special? Your talents are there. Write this down.
4. Write a plan. Your life should have a mission statement and a clear set of short- and long-range goals. Your mission statement will reflect both your passions and your values. “I do my best to help children and animals because I’m a defender of the helpless” or “I do my best to help my community, because I believe in people working together.” When your mission statement is clear, you can derive goals from it. Do you want to organize a humane society, or provide solutions to the health challenges that plague the world? Do you want to run for political office, or campaign for a social change? Write down a list of many possible things you’d like to accomplish that would help fulfil your mission, and be ready to add goals as you think of them.
5. Be prepared for it to take off.To be honest, I wasn’t fully ready for this part of my vision to take off this quickly. And that’s ok – you’ll never be 100% ready for anything. That’s the adventure of leading change. Everything is an experiment. So while you never know when it’s going to happen, expect it when you least expect it.