One great mistake when setting out on a new business venture is to try and plan it without taking into consideration your life’s purpose. Your business is a vital part of our life, but not your whole life.
We may try and deceive ourselves into thinking we can focus on just business goals and make this our whole life but that won’t work. In fact this would end up destroying everything and everyone else around us.
There are at least 7 ways in which your life’s purpose will influence your business goals, planning and development:
1. It will set the principles or standards of your business.
Your life’s purpose will include a belief system that will come with personal and moral standards incorporated. These criterion will determine what business methods you will embrace or reject.
2. It will guide your choices in the tough times and in the good times.
During tough times it is easy to get discouraged and make wrong and rash decisions. Having your life’s purpose before you will help avoid such pitfalls
3. It will help you not to get trapped in a circle of technicalities.
Running any kind of business involves doing things you love to do and that are easy as well as doing things that are not so easy.
When facing technical problems (and in this age who doesn’t), it is so easy to fall into the trap of becoming obsessed with solving the problem to the detriment of all other areas of life.
When life’s purpose is a strong part of your focus, you will more readily seek help with these technicalities, so as not to get distracted from our real course.
4. It will keep you motivated
We humans are all emotional creatures. One day we are set to conquer the world and the next day all the world seems to be against us.
With a life’s purpose in your focus, it is easier to stay motivated to continue with the determination to win and achieve the ultimate goal.
5. It will keep you on course.
In this age of ever increasing knowledge and new technical gadgets hitting the market every day, how easy it is to be distracted.
If you ask yourself two simple questions when facing the temptation to be to wander off on a tangent, it will be much easier to stay on track.
1. Will this help me achieve my life’s purpose?
2. Will this help me or hinder me with my business focus.
Of course there are times to play, and then distractions are valid. After all entertainment is all about taking a break and being distracted for a while.
6. It will help you not to allow business to take over your life.
There is a saying “we either live to eat or eat to live”. In the same way, we either live to work or work to live. Those who live to work do nothing else but work (“workaholics” we call them),
The healthy lifestyle embraces many aspects with work being just one part of it. We need to make sure our time schedule includes doing things other than working, so as to balance out our lifes.
Your life’s purpose will (or should be) greater than your business purpose or focus. Therefore keeping in mind your life’s purpose will help you not to get bogged down in one single area of life.
7. It will lead you to success in every area of our life.
Again since your life’s purpose is greater than the purpose of any single area of our lives, you will be motivated to make sure you make room for all aspects of life.
Sadly we have so many testimonies of those who have succeeded in business at the expense of their families and social life.
Please don’t let that happen to you.
You Too Can Be A Champion!
September 26th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
[...] the definition of commitment we considered at the beginning of this article. (Check out my article Your Life Purpose and Your Business which will help you measure the real importance of the goal you have [...]