TOPIC: Finding your mission in life, what is your lifetime goal, strategic planning, goal setting and action planning

Mission and Goal Setting

The Challenge - Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you. - Jim Rohn

Tree key points to activate your purpose:

• Align your purpose with your natural ability: align your life purpose with something you really enjoy and have passion on it.
• Be determined: Many people lose their direction in life because they are easily distracted or influenced by other people.
• Maintain a humble attitude: Don't allow an unhealthy ego to override your good intentions.

Statement of Purpose:

• Keep it short and simple, so you can memorize it.
• Must be in alignment with your values.
• Must include contribution.

Life's Fundamentals:

• Know what you want, know why you want it.
• Discover your strengths, maximize them daily.
• Work hard, work smart.
• Give unconditionally, love unconditionally.
• Find your purpose, live your purpose.

You are what you do

The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread. Every time you repeat the act you strengthen the strand. You add to it another filament with each repetition, until it becomes a great cable and binds you irrevocably to each thought and act. First you make your habits and then they make you.

Your thoughts lead you to your purpose. Your purpose always manifests into action. Your actions form your habits. Your habits determine your character, and your character fixes your destiny. Your habits are either the best of servants or the worst of masters.

New Year Resolution

In every end and beginning of the year, we need to make reflections and evaluations for what we have done and for everything that we have or haven't accomplished. New Year is always a milestone to state our goals and hopes for the future, and as a starting place for self help and self-development to be a better and more successful person.

There are 3 elements in goal statement that usually known as be-do-have, what do we want to be - what do we want to do - and what do we want to have. From the time dimension, there are 3 period that we should pay attention to as Alan Lakein said in his book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, they are:

• What do we want to achieve in this life (lifetime purpose).
• What do we want to achieve in 5-10 years from now (strategic plan).
• And what do we want to achieve in next year (New Year resolution).

What do we want to achieve in one year is a part of the process to reach the strategic goal for the next 5-10 years. That strategic goal is the foundation for our life mission or purpose. So, before we make a New Year resolution, we have to decide our life mission or purpose as a foundation for all of our activities in life. Then we can decide our strategic goal that we want to achieve in the next 5-10 years from now. And the last one is to decide our goal for next year.

Design and decide our future is the most important part to handle our life. All the management practice in every field put goal planning as a very important part. Without planning, our life will flow without direction and we don't even know where we will end up. Remember what the magical creature said to Alice (the story of Alice in the Wonderland) when she lost and don't know where to go, "if you don't know where you are going, any road will lead you there"

Below we will tell you on how to decide your life mission, design strategic goal and decide your next year resolution.

Writing Your Life Purpose

Take some papers, a pencil or pen, a watch, and spare about 15 minutes of your time. Write on the top of paper this question: What are my lifetime goals?

You may realize that this exercise will give you different results if you're 5 years old, 25 years old, 40 years old or 65 years old. But you have to know that your life mission or purpose is the goal that you see in your life perspective starting today with what you have now. Don't look back or regret with what you don't have today. Focus your attention with what you want to reach in your life, what kind of meaning that you want to achieve in the rest of your life.

Do this for 2 minutes to list all you want in the first paper. Your goals should involve all about your private life, family, social, career, financial, health and spiritual aspects. Do not afraid to write down things that seem impossible for you to accomplish, like climbing Himalayan mountain, become a senate member or even running for a president, have a luxurious house in another country, become a Peace Nobel winner, etc.

After that, spare another 2 minutes to make necessary changes to your life goals until you're sure that they're what you really want in life. You may want to rewrite your life goals in your personal diary, so that you can constantly check to remind you about the missions or goals of your life. Remember that you've created by God for a purpose, and the only person that understands about it is you.

If you haven't satisfied with the goals that you've written, take a few days to analyze and pray about this so that what you've written is your real life purpose. Talk to your heart or intuition. Practice relaxation or meditation to this crucial and very important thing. Because only by knowing without a doubt about your life mission and purpose, then you can start fill your days in life with meaningful activities toward accomplishment of your life mission.

Making 5-10 Years Strategic Plan

Making strategic plan is relatively harder than writing your life missions or short term plan. Because it's usually easier for us to make a short term plan depend on our current ability and situation. While life mission is naturally tend to be more emphasized on quality and intuition, not a detailed layout plan, and you don't have to calculate everything based on what you have right now.

The important thing to remember in strategic plan is it should be flexible and rely on 3 things : your life mission, your strengths and weaknesses, and also opportunities and obstacles that might occur in the next 5-10 years. Example, in the next 5-10 years you have to achieve a higher level of education such as Master Degree. Another example is you want to have your own dream house/apartment (if you still live with your parents or rent a place to live).

First, in 4 piece of paper make a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) list that consist of 4 parts: things or characters that reflect your strengths of weaknesses, and every opportunity that exist with any obstacles that might occur in your way to reach your dream. Spare about 4 minutes to make this exercise. After that, state your strategic goals in the new paper based on your SWOT analysis and life mission that you've written in your diary. Do this for 2 minutes.

Making the New Year Resolution

You can use the last 5 minutes for making plan and goals that you want to accomplish next year. You can start by making the list of things you want to do or not to do next year..

For example if you're a smoker and you want to quit smoking. Good habits like "determine to spare your weekend for your family, and at least once a week you take your partner to go out for lunch". If you want to reduce your weight and live a healthy life, maybe you can try food-combining program. The most important thing for developing a new habit is you have to do it now. Remember, to program your subconscious mind, you have to use personal, present tense and positive sentence. For instance, you want to quit smoking, you have to make an affirmation like this: Starting now, I quit smoking.

In developing a new habit or eliminate the bad old habit, make priorities and chose things that you really want to accomplish. Avoid making a very long list because you can't focus on the priorities. 3 new habits are more than enough, as long as you really have a strong commitment to do those things.

The second list is the things that you want to do or accomplish in a year. For instance you want to write a book, or you want to take a vacation to Bali with all your family. Remember that yearly goals are something that SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reality-based, and Time-based).

The next list is the things that you want to have in the next year. While doing this, remember about your SWOT analysis, and make this list according to it. Many people make unrealistic goals for the next year. Let see, if today you don't have any saving and your salary is only enough for your basic needs, don't make a goal for having a luxurious house in the prestigious neighborhood next year. Unrealistic goal will leads to frustration and next year if we can't achieve it, most likely we won't make another New Year Resolution. So you will be like Alice in The Wonderland, lost in life without any direction.

By constantly practice to make and state our goals in life, we take the first major step in self-management to control our own life. After making a long term, mid term and short term goals, the next important step is to make a plan on what we should do or schedule and steps that we need for a year. A dream will stay as a dream if you don't act on it. Start your first step. Remember that a long journey always started with the first step.

If you want to get more info about Q-Society, please email me