Is it enough to have purpose?
It is obviously essential for success to be purposeful in your actions in order to stay on track and fulfill the vision. But, what if it is not based on Truth and it’s hard to tell what THE Truth really is?
Is it worth rowing along in personal conviction if it is all based on Faith from within and personal interpretation of one route map to be followed in Life if fellow boaters do not acknowledge it and follow you down the same path?
In other words, is having a vision and pursuing it purposefully make Life whole, or is it more important to have the right vision & how do you discover it?
Explain, using examples and references, and relate your comments to the Four Principles for Purposeful Action.
This post was written by Jimy George, who will lead the discussion for the week starting on March 17.
Good question. Are we tilting at windmills with some of our purpose? I think it is imperative that we have a meaningful vision to drive our actions. That vision (or purpose) is developed from within us based on our passions and desires. If we have positive values, our vision will be purposeful, thus helpful to others. Vision and purpose are necessary.
Now I do believe our missions and plans laid out to achieve the vision can most certainly be in error and misguided. The twelve steps help us to make certain our plan will achieve the vision. If the vision is purposeful, then we must continually analyze the plan of action to ensure the mission is met. If the mission is wrong, change that to achieve the vision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purpose
The most basic question everyone faces in life is Why am I here? What is my purpose? Purpose is the cognitive awareness in cause and effect linking for achieving a goal in a given system, whether human or machine. Its most general sense is the anticipated result which guides decision making in choosing appropriate actions within a range of strategies in the process (a conceptual scheme) based on varying degrees of ambiguity about the knowledge that creates the contextualisation for the action.
Purpose alone is not enough in life. The zeal and the enthusiasm to achieve the desired state is very important. When we observer our great leaders who made this day our lives possible did not just have purpose. They had the courage and zeal to drive the purpose into reality.
Swathy,
I like your question “Why am I here? What is my purpose?” and you have responded very nicely.
“In other words, is having a vision and pursuing it purposefully make Life whole, or is it more important to have the right vision & how do you discover it?”
When I take the last part of this blog topic, I see a question that cannot be answered.
A vision of what? Pursuing what? Important to have the “right” vision - who decides that?
Every individual has to decide how they are going to “pursue” the dreams or aspirations that they have. And during the different times of their lives, the dreams WILL change and how they are pursued will also.
I also believe that most people’s idea of what makes “life whole” will change overtime also. My journey thru this was:
-fast car
-good job
-happily married
-healthy kids
I have read all the post so far, and there are many great lines and sayings from well known individuals, but you have to find you own way thru life and not use someones else idea
I agree Roy - Our vision and purpose comes from within us. Too many people today don’t even know what they believe and why they do believe the things they do.
Look to yourself for vision
Good points Roy. I agree that over time our visions change. With kids, they become the focal point of my vision and their happiness is tied directly to mine. As you stated, the most important thing is to find the right vision for you and to go after that vision. It doesn’t matter what someone else’s vision is, they are not the one that is going to make you happy. Only you can determine what it is that will make you happy.
Vision Alone Is Not Enough:
The example of Steve Jobs illustrates the distinction between vision and strategy, and highlights that lasting success comes from having a compelling vision of what you want to achieve and developing a strategy for making that vision a reality. Having only one or the other leads to underachievement. In fact, many well-known entrepreneurs suffered from the Jobs syndrome – being a visionary and with relatively weak strategic skills – and suffered the same fate of being cast out of the company they founded. Many high-profile dot-com failures suffered from the corporate equivalent of the Jobs syndrome, with lofty visions (e.g., “the Internet will reshape the business world, and we’re going to be a part it…”) but poor strategies (“… so let’s sell dog food online!”).
On an individual level, the Jobs syndrome underlies several types of psychological dysfunction; perfectionists and procrastinators, for example, both tend to have ideals so lofty or daunting that no strategy could possibly be successful, leading to broader patterns of anxiety and avoidance.
The same combination of high-minded ideas with the inability to put them into action is seen from television characters like Kramer on Seinfeld to social archetypes such as “hopeless romantics” and “absent-minded professors.”
True success only comes from a combination of vision and strategy:
1. Henry Ford, for example, not only had a vision of an America reshaped by affordable automobiles, but also a highly successful strategy built around mass production and mass marketing.
2. Throughout history, successful business ventures – from Ted Turner’s CNN to Steve Case’s America OnLine to Bill Gates’ Microsoft to Oprah Winfrey’s inspirational empire – have all been made possible by the combination of vision and strategy, of insight and execution.
3.Social and religious leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. had the same combination – an inspiring vision of what society could be, and strategies based on civil disobedience for helping make that vision a reality.
Vision and strategy are both required for success in daily life as well, as illustrated in a study conducted by James Pennebaker at Southern Methodist University. He identified three kinds of people:
1. “high-level thinkers” who consistently focused on important issues of vision – their lives, identities, expectations for the future, and so on
2. “low-level thinkers” who consistently focused on mundane concerns and daily obligations, and
3.“flexible thinkers” who engaged in both high-level and low-level thinking. Flexible thinkers were found to have the best physical health and the lowest rates drug and alcohol use. Success and good health result from both high-level thinking about issues of vision, as well as more detailed, lower-level planning about how to achieve that vision.
To get the most out of life, ask yourself if you have both a vision and a strategy. Think about your vision for your future – Do you really know what you want to achieve? Have you really thought about who you want to become? And what about your strategy for getting there – Have you set goals? Have your written down your goals? Have you made plans for success? Clarifying both your vision and strategy will help maximize your motivation and your success, not to mention your health and happiness.
Reference: http://www.1000advices.com/guru/success_vision-strategy_sk.html
Hema,
This is a very informative post and you have pointed a good thoughtful points…
I wish to share this poem written by Dullanni E Waterman.I feel that this is more than enough to expalin the purpose of life.
“Some of us live lives where we constantly are taking from others, leeching off the very essence of the good that flows from the hearts of those who give freely to those around them, while some live their lives in constant need; the need to have….the need to give…the need to feel needed…Some of our lives are mere extensions of other peoples dreams and aspirations, be it our will or not.
Many of us struggle and clamor about to find what out purpose is in life. Many try to define themselves in ways that best suit their current understanding of what purpose is…Be it to give freely to all those that come into our lives, Or to be the takers of the world, be it to be those that swindle and steal…the fact is, our purpose, or our so called reason for being is purely a reflection of our current mental state and is directly related to how we have been molded by our upbringing and environment.
Our purpose is what we make it to be. We choose our own reason for being, we define our own existence. Our actions, life experience and views of what we call life, all play into our own man made equation of purpose….each event adding its own variable in the formula that is set to give us the answer to what we constantly strive for. Ironically, no two answers will be the same due to the fact that no two people share the same mindset, beliefs or upbringing. We all have our own idea and interpretation of what our purpose should be. So remember, that each day we live, each breath we take is giving yield to the answer we seek….
Which is to live, just live. This is the purpose of our existence…to live our lives, experience what it has to give and go onto the next plane of existence when our time on this one is over.”
source:http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewpoetry.asp?AuthorID=31369&id=148783
“Our purpose is what we make it to be” says it all. Our vision changes as we gain knowledge and mature in our life. The vision we had as kids is different that the vision we have today,
At some point during our lives we come to understand that we are placed here to fulfill a specific purpose.
Regardless of who you are, what our financial situation currently is, or where we are currently at in our life, each and every one of us has a specific life purpose.
Once we are working in harmony with our true purpose, our life will unfold in seemingly miraculous ways.
“Having a purpose is the difference between making a living and making a life.” -Tom Thiss
“Never forget that the purpose for which a man lives is the improvement of the man himself, so that he may go out of this world having, in his great sphere or his small one, done some little good for his fellow creatures and labored a little to diminish the sin and sorrow that are in the world.”-W. E. Gladstone
“One needs something to believe in, something for which one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel that one’s life has meaning, that one is needed in this world.” -Hannah Senesh
http://www.abundance-and-happiness.com/purpose-quotes.html
mirek that was some miraculous statements..
Its purpose that drive a person.
Mirek
I really found your comments thought prevoking.
I believe that we have more than a “specific” purpose in life. I believe we have many. Life offers us many purposes in life
Good points Mirek. I agree with “Having a purpose is the difference between making a living and making a life.”
Good quotes and great statements. You are so right that when we work in harmony with our true purpose wonderful things happen. I believe that our destiny has been pre-determined for us it is just up to us to discover what our destiny is. It is when we are working toward this true meaning in our lives (toward the path that God has laid out for us in our lives) that these wonderful things happen. It is then that we find fulfillment.