Vision, Mission & Purpose – anchors in an uncertain world

Developing a Personal Vision, Purpose & Mission

© Developing by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CMC, MCC, SCAC
– part of the What Kind of World Series
and the DreamCatcher™ Program

Designing a roadmap for your BEing through the development of a personal Vision, Purpose & Mission is a HUGE Game to play with your life.

Human Resource Manager promptings to the contrary, not everyone will reach a point where they are ready to work on their Vision, Mission and Purpose — at least not in a manner where it can fulfill its promise as a transformative insight into Identity that will forever alter the steps of your life.

Creating truly authentic Vision, Purpose & Mission statements that will call your life into being usually takes considerably more time and internal focus than most people are prepared to dedicate.

It is a process more globally encompassing than the work and business objectives that are the focus of most of what you will find discussed on the internet.

It’s a Stretch

It’s not an easy process, and is decidedly not for the faint of heart. If you’re not at least a tiny bit frightened or overwhelmed, you’re probably not playing a big enough Game. Embarking on this process calls for nothing less than stepping up and owning your personal power.

You are entering the domain of pure creation.

It may feel a bit like jumping into the deep end of the pool for the very first time.  It helps to have a kindred spirit in the water, arms outstretched – it’s as tough to do in an isolated pool as it is dangerous to attempt in a shark-infested tank.

I am in the process of creating mySelf anew, and I invite anyone who is up to it to join me here on this blog during the year I have given myself to focus on re-creation.

The YEAR?!

An authentic Vision, Purpose & Mission statement requires a process much more comprehensive than an exercise worked through as part of some motivational seminar or corporate retreat.

It can be initiated in a short-term setting, but I don’t believe that it can be effective as a deadline-driven project; in my experience, it can’t be rushed.

• To be successful as a guiding principal for the steps of your life, it relies on your being “fully at choice.”  To play The Game successfully, it will be necessary for you to be at choice about a lot in your life.

• To be truly at choice, you must know your Self very well — easier said than done, I promise you.

• Until you have many of life’s Darn Details™ handled, it is simply not appropriate to be playing this Game — in the same way that it is inappropriate for a starving man to be encouraged to focus on deciding what is nutritionally optimal.

First we make sure the man’s ongoing life is vital,
then we work on optimizing that life for growth.

Discovery, not decision

You discover your Vision, Mission & Purpose through a process of Self-examination;
you don’t decide what they will be and effort them into being, ticking off items on a Goals List.

It begins with reflection, along with an understanding of what’s involved in each of the Three Parts.  You must begin by getting clear about what you are in the process of creating if you hope to be successful in the creation.

To help you clarify, the rest of this article will explore the process through my own first Vision-Purpose-Mission creation, with a quick glance at one brought into being by my inspiration, coaching mentor, Thomas J. Leonard.

Me and T

For those of you who are unfamiliar with his name,”T” – as he was referred to by those of us who knew him in the early days – was the extremely Vision-driven man who brought the entire Coaching field into being.

I was fortunate enough to cross paths with him at the beginning of the process – although some might be more inclined to say “unfortunate” — a double-edged sword.

I worked very closely with T during an early phase of the creation of
Coach University, which is now a huge training corporation, CoachU.

T always seemed to me equal parts genius and madman.
My interactions with him changed my life . . . in ways I could never have foreseen.

It was a bumpy ride.

FOR NOW, lets’ begin to get a handle on the process by taking a look at my own personal Vision that guided the creation a company I founded to midwife a new kind of coaching technology: The Optimal Functioning Institute™ – with gratitude to Thomas for his mentorship.

Pay attention to the fact that, foolish or wise, money was not one of my metrics.

VISION           

What you SEE as possible for the world in a place where everything you value is present.

Place yourself one hundred years in the future, long after the world you envision has come to pass. Walk around in that world.  Notice what is wonderful about it.

Notice what’s missing (hunger, pain, etc.) only to help you to language what is present  (“everyone has all they want to eat, to be alive is to be radiantly healthy,” etc.).

The Vision of the Optimal Functioning Institute™ is a world where all people, everywhere, believe in their gut that they work exactly the way they are “supposed” to work, and proceed powerfully and effortlessly from that premise to create magic.

What is YOUR Vision?

PURPOSE

Why you are here; who you are on this earth at this time TO BE — how you are going to further the development of your Vision so that it can be realized in your lifetime.

Standing in that future that is your Vision, think back about how your being in the world contributed to its establishment, just by the process of your being alive and sourcing your actions in total integrity with your values.

Now language your actions in a “purposeful,” conscious way, as if your very reason for being was to DO the very thing you “did” to bring about your vision.

The Purpose of the Optimal Functioning Institute™  is to educate the public about attentional issues and learning modalities, train systems development coaches who are able to work with individuals of all types and love to work with individuals with ADD, and to shift expectations of failure to expectations of success (with a sincere belief that optimal functioning is the only way to go!)

What is YOUR Purpose?

MISSION     

Your campaign to make your Vision a reality.

This is the part where you get to create the game board for your really big game.

Remember to make it SMART:
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and set in a TimeFrame where you could reasonably expect to be alive to see your mission accomplished (yet big enough to last a good long while before you outgrow it.)

Laying the Foundation

Note that you may need others to join you – to align their Vision with your own – if you are to see it fully realized in your lifetime.

You may also find yourself, as I did, with a Vision that may well take more than a single life-time to actuate.

If you find that idea unsettling, ask yourself what part of your Ego is clouding your Vision and return to tweak – or to begin anew.

A Mission is an expression of one’s being,
not a justification for it.

When building the Great Pyramids, a great deal of work had to be accomplished long before the shape took form: most of the multi-ton blocks formed little more than a platform.

Those who lay the final stones may well take credit, or be given the accolades for your efforts.  Can you be okay with that?

If not, take another look at Needs, with an eye to getting them met in another venue.

The Mission of the Optimal Functioning Institute™ is to train 10,000 coaches who each change the expectations and magnify the functioning of 1,000 people, motivating each of them to change the expectations and magnify the functioning of 500 people, who each change the expectations and magnify the functioning of 500 others until our vision is realized and our mission is obsolete.

What’s YOUR Mission?

CLARIFICATION through another model

VISION – what you are here to experience – TO HAVE

What YOU SEE as possible — for yourself, for others, for the world.

“My vision is a world where people are able to spend their lives knowing and using the real gifts they have been given.”
~ Coaching founder Thomas J. Leonard‘s Vision at the dawn of the Coaching field

PURPOSE – what you are here TO BE

Purpose is who you are going to be to further the possibility of the realization of your Vision.

“My purpose is to be a demonstration that one can re-orient one’s life to share those gifts.”
~Thomas Leonard‘s statement of his intention as the founder of the Coaching field

MISSION – what you are here TO DO

Your specific actions, task or goals to realize your Vision and be a living demonstration of your Purpose – what you are going to do to make that Vision happen

“My mission is to help 20,000 people discover their true gifts, re-orient their lives around them and thank me for it.”
~Thomas Leonard‘s first statement of his place as Coaching field founder

Stepping through the Process

For a while, at least, I will continue writing articles similar to the ones regular readers have become used to seeing from me, AS I step through this process myself.

In ongoing posts in this particular Series, I will begin to outline the steps of the Vision-Purpose-Mission process, and reveal some of my own progress and doubts as I step through it for the second time in my life. I’m focusing on my belief that I will not find myself alone in this endeavor.

I envision being joined by an army ready to play this Game with me, sharing their own thoughts and processes in the comments section. We will create additional ways to interact together as we move forward together.

I would love for there to be enough active interest that we could form a TeleClass MasterMind Group, inspiring and supporting one another in an additional venue – one that operates in “real time.”  We’ll see how it goes.

Are you GAME?  Where do you see yourSelf, relative to this process?  Are you ready to begin this work, or any of its preliminary steps?  Wherever you are in the process, I invite you to join me. Ring in below.  I’m eager to find my new Tribe.

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Related Inspiration here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com

• What Kind of World do YOU Want?
  (the first in the Series, links to more at bottom of article)
• About Values and The Goose Story
• Top Ten Reasons WHY Most Successful Coaches Work with Mentor Coaches
• The Goose Story, by Dr. Harry Clarke Noyes
• Awakening in Wisdom

Other Related Articles ’round the ‘net

• 3 Steps For Plotting Your Personal Future In An Uncertain World (emergentbydesign.com)
• Becoming a Vision Driven Organization (VDO) 3rd Post – Imlementation Part 1 (itzikg1.wordpress.com)
• Characteristics of Superior Leaders (boyetteaviation.wordpress.com)
• The idolatry of the mission statement (barefootpreachr.org)
• Teachers, What’s Your Vision? | Edutopia (inspirededucationalist.wordpress.com)
• Your Life is Calling. Isn’t it Time you Answered the Phone? (thedivineedge.wordpress.com)
• Want to make money & change the world? An idiot’s guide to ‘social entrepreneurship’ (venturebeat.com)
• Every (Successful) Strategic Startup Vision Begins with Some Serious Introspection (technori.com)
• Light My Fire (neilcrofts.wordpress.com)
• Preventing mission drift (surfacetosoul.org)
• Your Vision, Your Purpose and Your Mission(simonehappiness.wordpress.com)

BY THE WAY: I revisit all my content periodically to update links — when you link back, like, follow or comment, you STAY on the page. When you do not, you run a high risk of being deleted, to lend greater focus on the resources of those with a more generous come-from.