 Last week we looked at the crossroads in life, how you face these crossroads and take decisions based on habit one. Making choices as per your values, they can shape you forever, especially at these crossroads...
What about friends?
Take your choice of friends as an example, what a powerful influence they can have on your attitude, reputation and direction. The need to be accepted and be part of a group is powerful. But very often we choose our friends based on whoever will accept us, and that's not always good. For example, to be accepted by the kids who play cricket, all you have to do is play cricket yourself.
It's hard, but sometimes it is better to have no friends for a time than to have the wrong friends. The wrong group can lead you down all kinds of paths you really don't want to be on, and retracing your steps can be a long and hard journey. Most of the time we have friends and old ones gets replaced with new ones. This happens mainly due to the new things we venture in our lives on a regular basis.
A personal mission statement
So if it is so important to have an end in mind, how do you do it? The best way I have found is to write a personal mission statement. A personal mission statement is like a personal credo or motto that states what your life is about. It is like the blueprint of your life. Countries have constitutions, which function just like a mission statement. And most companies, like Microsoft and Coco-Cola, have mission statements. But I think they work best with people.
So why not write your own personal mission statement? Many people young and old have done so. They come in all types and varieties. Some are long and some are short; some are poems and some are songs. Some have used their favourite quote as a mission statement while others have used a picture or a photograph.
A personal mission statement is like a tree with deep roots. It is stable and isn't going anywhere, but is alive and continually growing. You need a tree with deep roots to help you survive all of the storms of life that beat you up. As you've probably noticed already, life is anything but stable. Think about it. People are fickle. You're someone's best friend one day, and they're talking behind your back the next day.
Think about all of the events you can't control. You have to move. You lose your job.
Fads come and go. Sweaters are popular one year and on their way out the next. Rap music is the thing.
Rap music stinks.
While everything about you changes, a personal mission statement can be your deep-rooted tree that never moves. You can deal with change if you have an immovable trunk to hang on to.
UNCOVERING YOUR TALENTS
An important part of developing a personal mission statement is discovering what you're good at. One thing I know for sure is that everyone has a talent, a gift, something they do well. Some talents, like having the singing voice of an angel, attract a lot of attention. But there are many other talents, maybe not as attention grabbing but every bit as important if not more - things like being skilled at listening, making people laugh, giving, forgiving, drawing or just being nice.
Another truth is that we all blossom at different times. So if you're a late bloomer, relax. It may take you a while to uncover your talents. After carving a beautiful sculpture, Michaelangelo was asked how he was able to do it.
He replied by saying that the sculpture was already in the block of granite from the very beginning; he just had to chisel off everything else around it.
Likewise, Victor Frankl, a famous Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist who survived the death camps of Nazi Germany, taught that we don't invent our talents in life but rather we detect them. In other words, you are already born with your talents, you just need to uncover them.
One needs to find the unique talents of theirs and align it to the personal mission statement. Next week let's go a little deeper into how we can uncover the unique talents and get it in to drafting your "Personal Mission Statement" in life.
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