We discuss **defining and achieving purpose and direction** in both personal and professional settings and how it provides **motivation and clarity**, and distinguish between the broad course of life and the individual choices made within it. You **can take control** of your path by navigating constraints and consistently **evaluating the gap** between your current trajectory and your intended goals. Purpose can be quantified through three key factors: **Likeness, Commitment, and a metric**, while also recommending practical steps, like breaking down objectives and using tools such as mind mapping. We highlight the importance of continuous analysis and resilience to stay on course towards defined aims. ## What is it to have direction? So, where are you headed? Life is about going to school, getting an education, growing up, having a career and relationships. While fairly reductionist, it’s still true in a global sense. The question is how you fill your years and what you achieve in that time. Isn’t that how to define your purpose? But to what degree can we anticipate and work towards our goals? Your path may be plotted out for you to some extent. You might not feel as if you’re making the choices, rather that it all unfolds before you. ## Can we plan our own lives? We can take control. There will be constraints, road blocks, and unforeseen circumstances, but we can navigate towards our objectives, adjust our course, assess and update them. We might accept a goal, only later to abandon it. Ask yourself whether this is due to a lack of motivation, expertise, or insurmountable challenges, such as cost. And if your commitment is strong, what would you be prepared to invest for it to come about? Beware of not giving up too easily. Don’t change them just because the road is difficult; rather only if they seem impossible, or you truly want to take a different direction. ## Purpose and Direction To find purpose in life and work or business is to know where you’re going. Managing is about recognizing your destination and taking action that drives you or your organization. You might ask yourself: am I really heading in the right direction? To understand this, you need to do some analysis to measure the distance between your actual trajectory and the planned one. *The diagram below illustrates the idea of evaluating the gap between your current and your intended path, and whether adjustments are required.* ![[measuring-your-trajectory.png]] In practice you may need to adjust your effort, pricing, or positioning. But first, analyse your current situation and the difference between it and where you want to be. Then design actions to get back on course. This evaluation is a permanent process. Look constantly and objectively at where you’re going. This is especially true if you’re self-employed and have multiple roles and responsibilities, many thinking hats. ## Likeness, Commitment, and Metrics According to Clayton Christensen, one should first establish how you want the future to look. Then ascertain your commitment to achieve that end game, and finally develop a metric that will determine whether you’re moving in the right direction, or not. Purpose is therefore defined by likeness, Commitment, and a Metric. - Likeness is what you or your organization wants to become - Your commitment to that objective. - The metric is to determine whether you’re on course to meet the objective *Below: purpose can be described in terms of likeness, commitment and a metric* ![[Purpose and GTD.png|600]] Without purpose, how can you determine which are the important things to put first? - The person you want to become - What is the purpose of your life? - It’s too important to leave to chance. - Conceive your objective deliberately, choose to manage it. Determining a [true mission](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/01/how-to-discover-your-life-purpose-in-about-20-minutes/) for a business can encourage you to have faith that individuals can progress. Perhaps, like Clayton Christensen, one should ask for guidance from a higher power. Another way to analyse this might be - Look for [internal objectives](http://zenhabits.net/passion-and-purpose-in-life/) - What is most important to me in my life? - What are my [deepest values and beliefs](http://www.wanttoknow.info/lifepurposeintentions)? - Try to respond to your Need for Creativity If, for example, you’re a decorator, your essential purpose is fairly well defined. But you might have additional more detailed questions. Are you going to paint people’s houses or business premises? These choices will affect your actions, such as where to advertise and how to tap into the desired market. ## Mind Map of Purpose and Direction A summary mind map of purpose and direction, including likeness, commitment, and metric. Projects have goals too and are defined by cost, performance, and time. ![[purpose-direction-summary.png]] ## Purpose and GTD Breaking an overall objective into pieces, steps, and stages is a top-down process, but you could also formulate them bottom-up from a set of issues or problems grouped together into a project. David Allen says that we essentially develop our goals based on purpose, and then work towards them. So you must be able to both get things done and imagine loftier aims. To paraphrase Maxwell Maltz from his book Psycho Cybernetics, you can only make changes if you’re moving forward. Think about - Your individual or group purpose - The likeness you’re aiming for that means you have arrived. - Your determination to get to the end, how important is it? - A metric to know whether you’re on or off-course. - Why you’re on this planet. - What do you want to become? Can you commit deeply to these things such that they inform your daily priorities and drive what you do and what you don’t do? ## Establishing objectives Some questions worth considering when thinking about your future: - Where are we going and why? - How will we do it? - What are we aiming for? - What do we need to get there? - Will we recognize that we have arrived? - What are the characteristics? - What will it look like? - Does it have a colour, feeling, or smell? If we’re building a car, for instance, we have succeeded once we have a vehicle that travels forward on four wheels and can stop safely. But there might be much more to our definition. - What kind of trim do we want? - What colour should it be? - What size? - How many people should it be able to carry? These are, of course, only surface-level characteristics; there is much more detailed work to do, but you can see that arriving needs to be clarified. But we also have to know where we are now and the distance we have to cover to get where we’re going, where we want to be. - What do we have to achieve to get there? - Whom do we need with us and who can do things for us? - What resources, capacities, time, money, software, facilities, and skills do we need? - How much time do we have and is it enough? What is important to retain is that you can only get somewhere if you know where you’re going. You could, of course, wander, and accept any direction, but you may find after a while that you go in circles. What better than to try, try again and each time improve the process of moving forward? This takes some degree of clarity and determination to both define the end game and to stay the course. The journey may not be straight and narrow; you may need some strength to bring the ship back onto course and resilience to keep moving forward. While it’s important to evaluate your goals, there may sometimes be a point where you should give up. In an ideal world, you do this only for the right reasons. To help you define the endgame, the objective, and what you’re aiming for, consider using [[Many Uses of Mind Mapping|mind mapping]] to visualize and clarify goals, and to determine the factors that define ‘arrival’. For more related information, see how to [[Define and Set Smart Objectives]]. ## Evaluating your Objectives How then can you measure progress towards your goals? The simplest approach is to create a set of indicators that shows you trends (such as income) against time. > [!NOTE] Example objective > If your aim is to increase turnover, you might experiment with raising prices to determine whether fewer orders could still grow revenue. Accurate data is crucial for drawing meaningful conclusions. *Below: managing areas of focus (from GTD), including qualitative and quantitative objectives, an evaluation of the current situation, and the next action.* ![[evaluation_of_objectives.png]] Be aware of what you want and make appropriate choices. You always hope, of course, that the direction will be better; although it might not necessarily happen straight away; you may be developing a market that doesn’t pay in the short term. The challenge is to understand the reality of today, predicting what can be foreseen and designing a desired trajectory. ## What Purpose in Life How do you want your business, your work, or your life to look? What will drive you to strive to evolve, and how will you discern whether you’re moving towards or away from your projected goal? If you don’t know what to aim for, perhaps you should follow the advice of [Steve Pavlina](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/01/how-to-discover-your-life-purpose-in-about-20-minutes/) and think about your purpose based on what makes you cry. Patience is a virtue. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again and keep trying until you can articulate what you really want.