Every day I meet with people who own or run a business. I don't spend a lot of time in government offices now that I am retired from the Air Force Reserves. I like meeting and talking with business owners and leaders because they all understand the concept of "Mission".
My wife is a real estate agent, actually a Realtor (tm), and for the first time since I have known her, she now has a sense of "Mission". Gaining the sense of mission is one of the fastest and least expensive changes you can make in your life when it comes to achieving success at any level.
Let's say I want to lose weight, and get down to 180 pounds. Everytime I pass an ice cream store, I ask the question of mission. Will this ice cream cone help me lose 180 pounds? If it hasn't, and I am taking it as a luxury, have I done the exercise to add it today? The key difference between someone trying to lose weight and being on a mission to lose weight is the work to lose weight is done first. If I plan to be at 180 by June and I am on track and ran an extra mile today to earn the luxury of the ice cream, I can treat myself. Otherwise I have to keep walking. Today I kept walking.
Business is no different. If you want to make $100,000 this month in whatever you do and you make it a mission, decisions are much easier. When your buddies call to go to the ball game, you can look at your numbers and know that you are ahead of track or behind. If it is the 15th and you have already made $90,000. You can either work on the last $10,000 or go to the ball game.
On the 25th of the month and if you are at $90,000, your actions will tell everyone including the universe itself if you are on a mission or just set a goal. The person with a goal, will say "$90,000 is close enough." and go to the game. The person on a mission will stay and work. There is no "close enough" when it comes to real missions in real life, only success or failure.
Learning to accept the concept of mission is one thing, disciplining yourself to live it is another. The right side of my white board in the office has initials for several goals I have currently. Together they spell out the focus of my mission. I look at it several times a day and it makes me thing smarter about decisions. My goals cover a few areas today, and I highly suggest that you start out with just one target at a time for your mission. As you get better at hitting targets, then you can add more targets to shoot for simultaneously. The worst thing you can do is list to many targets and not hit any.
What is your first target?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your insights.