Have you Checked your Map recently?

Talking to an ex-colleague when traveling in August last year, they remarked how they couldn’t believe the year had gone by so quickly. They were surprised, and even seemed mildly annoyed at themselves, so I asked them if things were not going to plan. “It’s not that it’s not necessarily going to plan,” they replied wistfully; “But rather I have just over four months left in this year, and I haven’t done what I wanted to do.”

“What did you want to do?” I quietly asked. They sat there for several seconds, staring off-center before finally responding; “that’s not the point; the point is that I didn’t get started on my plans.”

Isn’t that the whole point, though? Isn’t that the entire purpose manifesto? I believe having a purpose is one thing; knowing where you are in relation to your goals is another. We all inherently have a purpose, a roadmap, a plan through which we align and focus our efforts. Now ask yourself this question:

Have you checked your map recently?

“How often do we stop; to see where we are, to revaluate, to decide if we are on the right path? To see if we need to make adjustments, to tweak our efforts, to evaluate if it’s even the right direction still?”

Change, as we know, is a natural part of the order. Transformation and evolution is part and parcel of everything we engage and are a part of. Maybe your circle of friends has faded or moved on. You could have become stagnant in your work and feel you’re heading nowhere. Perhaps you have a new superior in your company who has changed the dynamic of how you work. Or maybe your organization has changed ownership and shifted the plates on which you stand.

A lot of what drives our happiness, our center is our sense of purpose. The environment in which we work, the function we hold, the leaders who help us rise or fall, and our impact on the broader sense of purpose — all are continuously subject to change. Therefore if we wish to balance these in the positive, we need to keep ensuring we know where we are, where we want to go, and, more importantly, if we still want to go there.

Having no clear purpose is akin to getting in a car with no map and no destination in mind. At some point, your vehicle is going to run out of gas, and you’ll be in the middle of nowhere.

To know your purpose is having the map right next to you. It will not tell you where to go, but you will know where you are. But like making any journey, you will need to, at times, go around mountains and oceans (managing challenges in life), take rest, (be mindful and reflect), and adjust direction if needed (react to problems in our life).

Most times, this means leaving our comfort zone and breaking through something new and unknown. You will never grow as an individual if you don’t start moving outside of this. Our comfort zones are a place of safety, a place where we feel comfortable. But we need to remember like a tree we will never rise in the shade of that zone.

Stuck in this bundle, we often focus on our pleasure and comfort and try not to be uncomfortable. This is a significant driver of why it’s difficult to motivate ourselves to exercise, on why we don’t only eat healthy food. This is why it’s tough to take the risk to take that chance.

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for” — John Shedd

This fear of breaking out of that zone of being uncomfortable is often why many of us get anxious at meeting new people, hampering our social lives, our love lives, our work relationships. Because we don’t want to look bad, we are afraid of making mistakes. So we don’t tackle tough tasks and challenges. We often procrastinate because of this fear of failing, this fear of discomfort.

What would you do if you could do whatever you wanted? Move out of the comfort zone?

Although an unusual question, think to yourself what you would do if you didn’t have to work and you couldn’t spend that time just being at home. What would you do with all the free time you now had? Interestingly enough, we often get very comfortable hanging around the house or keeping occupied with unimportant tasks. In some rare moments of clarity, we stop for a few seconds and realize that the time and effort we exert could have been used doing something more meaningful

Purpose falls into three areas; Personal, Job, and Organization. Unfortunately, most of us neglect our Personal Purpose and allow the required focus of Job & Organization to take over how we approach our life. Balance is essential, balance among all 3 Purpose narratives to ensure we are doing things for the right reasons.

“A lot of us put aside pursuing our dreams as they seem fanciful and may never come to fruition. The more you keep focusing on your dream, your purpose, the more your conscious and subconscious mind will start working out ways to make it happen, instead of dismissing your vision as ‘just a dream.”

A friend of mine is very passionate about beautiful things: watches, fine art, automobiles. That devotion (which I am sure many whom he engages and works with do not even know about) is abundant when he explains his latest purchase or a recent viewing of a documentary on these topics. Recently he shared that he was taking a course on one of his passions and launched into a vivid account of the required reading, work that would be involved, and commitment to time to take this endeavor on.

My mind starting calculating how much effort was needed to finish that course. And the cost of my friend putting all of his heart into it, given that the course would expend much of his limited free time. The class didn’t advance him financially, and it didn’t place him on a path to be the best in the world on that subject.

But you should have seen the fire in his eye as he spoke about it.

I encourage all of you to find a way to think outside of yourself. To find a way to learn that this life we’ve been given is a fantastic opportunity, and whatever path we choose, we should face it with fire and passion.

So I ask again, have you checked your map recently?