Your clarity of purpose and direction provide your foundation. From them, you can build the successful life and career that you want and deserve. The more clear and the more mighty your purpose and direction, the stronger your foundation.
I’m a sixties guy. After all these years, my favorite recording artist is still Bob Dylan. My favorite Dylan song – and maybe my favorite song ever — is “Forever Young.” He rerecorded and re-released it recently. Pepsi has picked it up and is using it in its ads that run on NFL games. I used one of the lines from it to introduce my bestselling book, Straight Talk for Success – “May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung.”
Check out some of the other lyrics…
“May your hands always be busy.
May your feet always be swift.
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of change shift.”
By now you may be saying, “Get to the point, Bud.” So I will. You should begin your success journey by clarifying your purpose in life. Why are you on this earth? What are you meant to do? I believe that the more mighty this purpose, the more you are likely to succeed. A mighty purpose gives you that strong foundation “when the winds of change shift.”
Brad Swift of the Life On Purpose Institute makes a great point about clarity of purpose…
“Taking a bold stand for living on purpose starts by knowing your purpose with crystal clarity — knowing it so well that if someone woke you up at 3:00 in the morning and asked you what your life purpose is, you’d be able to tell them. And if someone who knew you well heard what you said, they’d realize that your life was a true, authentic reflection of that purpose.”
There are two common sense points on which I want to focus here. First, your clarity of purpose should be so big, so mighty, so important to you, that it is deeply ingrained in your psyche. It has to be part of who you are. Second, you have to live your clarity of purpose 24/7/365. This takes commitment; commitment to determining your life’s purpose, and commitment to living it.
If you were to wake me at 3:00 in the morning, shine a light in my face and ask me for my life’s purpose, I’m sure I would say, “Helping people create successful lives and careers.” It’s that much a part of me. My elevator speech begins, “Hi, I’m Bud Bilanich, the Common Sense Guy; I help people create successful lives and careers by applying their common sense.”
For me, this is a mighty purpose. I’m helping other people find career success — and fulfillment in their lives. That’s important work in my book. I take immense satisfaction out of seeing others learn, grow and succeed. In another life I might have been a teacher or athletic coach. In this life, I help people create the life and career success that they want and deserve.
There is an old saying that goes something like, “The problem is not in setting your goal too high and not reaching it. The problem is setting your goal too low and achieving it.” I can’t remember the exact quote or the attribution.
What is your purpose? Is it mighty? I hope so.
The common sense career success coach point of this tweet is simple. Successful people think big. They ground themselves in a mighty purpose. Tweet 4 in Success Tweets says, “The mightier your purpose, the more likely you are to succeed. It will give you a strong foundation when the winds of change shift.” Take this advice to heart. Ground yourself with a mighty purpose. It’s better to aim too high and fall a little short than it is to aim too low and reach your goal. Or, as Mario Andretti once said, “If you’re in complete control, you’re probably not going fast enough.” Think about it.
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