Get your Life Vitals right - Mission, Goals and Strategy

We have been talking about the need and importance of a mission, goal and strategy to achieve anything meaningful in many of our earlier posts. I call these 3 elements as vitals of our life. Having understood the purpose of these vitals, let us now focus on how to go about creating these vitals for our own life.

I belong to IT industry and have also worked for Electrical industry during the initial 5 years of my professional life as an engineer. I have also been fortunate enough to be associated with other friends, colleagues and relatives who are involved in their own business or work in different industries and locations across the globe. With all our accrued experience, here is what i can tell you with 100% surety. You will never see a successful project in any industry without clear cut vitals defined and followed for that project. Some projects did succeed in the short term, even without a clear cut mission. However, long term success is impossible to achieve and sustain unless "all 3 vitals" are clearly defined and followed. 

The same principle that applies to projects also applies equally to our lives.

So, let me help you with defining these vitals for your life.

Mission

Wikipedia defines Mission as "The purpose of a company, organization or person, its reason for existing. The mission statement should guide the actions, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making. It provides the framework or context within which the strategies are formulated."

To simplify, you must define "why" do you exist on this planet? What is the purpose of GOD sending you on earth? What would be that one reason you would die for or you would feel happy about at the end of your life? The mission guides your goals in life.

It may take you a few weeks or even months to create a mission for your life's innings, but we already know that a life without a purpose is as meaningless as playing a 2nd innings of a cricket match, not knowing the target score. You may have the best of skills,  the best of team, the best of temperament, you may be ready to do all the hard work, but you are never sure throughout your innings whether you are on track or not. What a miserable feeling !!

One of the simpler ways to kick start your thinking process towards finalizing your life's mission is asking yourself to fill in the following blanks

My purpose in life is to ..... people

The blanks can take in any of the following verbs or anything else you deem fit.

e.g. inspire, elevate, help, enroll, guide, liberate, acknowledge, discover, promote, .....

Goals / Dreams

Life goal(s) can be one or many. Life goals are created within the framework of your life's mission. It answers the "what" do you want to achieve in your life? Goals may change through the journey of your life but your purpose / mission (once established) is highly unlikely to change. 

Goals are more specific and with specific dates. You may want to read more about creating SMART goals on the internet or read any of the widely available books on this topic.

Achieving goals give you happiness while achieving your purpose is an ongoing process and showers you with bliss. Achievement of mission may go beyond one generation as well. Your next generation may continue and take forward your mission. Remember that setting up life goals without establishing a realistic purpose is as meaningless as it can get.

Strategy

This vital is surely more technical and specific, unlike Mission, which is more abstract in nature. This defines "how" are you going to achieve your defined goals. These forms your plan and steps needed on a yearly / monthly and then on a day to day basis to achieve those steps.

Once your 3 vitals are set, you are good to go and execute your plan as per the strategy. Decision making in life is so simple when these 3 vitals are set. When some of my colleagues come to me and ask whether they should be pushing for the next promotion or seeking more time for their families, i try and take their focus back to the mission of their lives. Missions and Goals would enable decision making and everything comes out so naturally.

My Example

In the end, before i sign off this post, i thought it would be prudent to share an example with you, and why not my own.

So, here are the 3 Vitals of my life. Each step that i take in life is ultimately connected to these 3 vitals.

My mission

My mission in life is to help people and enable overall upliftment of the society.

My goals (dreams)

My goals are:

(1) To generate enough time to serve the society through achievement of financial freedom 

(2) To plant 1 million trees 

(3) To educate 1 million under privileged children.

Note that all the goals are aligned to my life's mission. Any goals that does not support your mission must be scrapped right away. Also, consider the fact that these goals may change as i go on and achieve some of them. Some will get achieved, and some more might get added in the years to come, but each one of them, supports the overall objective or mission of my life.

My Strategy

Strategy is a linked to achievement of goals. I have a detailed plan with specific dates and targets for each month to achieve each of these goals. You will read quite in detail about the strategy to Goal No. 1 (Financial Freedom) in my upcoming book - From Rat Race to Financial Freedom.

So, here we are.

To achieve something worthwhile, we must not only act but also dream. To set those dreams, make sure that you tie them up to the right mission of your life. Spend the maximum time in finalizing the mission of your life. Rest all will follow pretty fast.

Signing of with one of my favorite quotes by Tina Turner

I had to go out in the world and become strong, to discover my mission in life.

Cheers

Manoj Arora