• Hers Was A Hopeless Surrender

    This story is part 5 of 5 of The Man From Kiama.

    There is a romance to allowing oneself to be pulled along by the perceived energies of the universe but it is akin to being enslaved by a master who is not interested in or capable of being in control. Hers was a hopeless surrender.

    The days got shorter and then longer again but little else changed. He passed the weeks with study and writing and wine but spared a moment here and there to think of her and look off in the direction she had left.

    She would ring him every so often to say hello but the tenor of her being had changed. Her tempo was no longer in step with his own. Their dance was becoming clumsy and forced.

    On a warm day in February he wandered toward the lighthouse and watched the mobs of tourists come in waves not unlike those landing on the nearby beach. He had always been happy here but Kiama felt empty without her.

    He meandered toward his apartment and past the cafe where she had worked. Past the book store where she had bought him a Joyce. Past the park where they would lie and he would struggle to get through that book for her sake alone.

    He rounded the corner to his street and noticed immediately that the hammock on his porch was swinging. The needle of his heart skipped a groove and began to play an old but familiar tune as he saw the sun reflecting off long and unmistakably auburn hair. There was a suitcase on the landing.

    He was home.

  • The Interminable Vibrations Of Hipster Capitalism

    This story is part 4 of 5 of The Man From Kiama.

    She had soured on Sydney and what she called the ‘interminable vibrations of hipster capitalism’. He was sure that he would never understand what she meant by this.

    She got a job engineering espressos for locals who frequented her cafe for little more than some company while they read the paper.

    The two of them would sit in the hammock and watch the trains chug to and fro. When she first arrived she would lay with her head on his chest but as the months passed he began to notice the surfacing of a restlessness she could not tame. She no longer gazed out at the beach – she was now looking back toward the city beyond.

    Over the course of the summer the black roots of her hair grew while the auburn ends were continually trimmed back. The colour had been entirely eliminated when she told him she was leaving.

  • They Stood And Populated A Moment

    This story is part 3 of 5 of The Man From Kiama.

    She said she would return to Kiama on the weekend but he knew it was a lie. The train accelerated away from the platform and glided over Terralong Street en route to Bombo, where they had spent the previous day walking along the seaside cliffs, and the city beyond.

    It would be two months of excuses and last minute work things before she finally made that return trip. He watched her train wind into town from the hammock on his porch and met her at the station five minutes later.

    Her hair had grown to reveal black roots that she had not bothered to recolour. Each centimetre of that black hair represented a week since he had last seen her and smelled the Chanel perfume she had been sharing exclusively with Sydneysiders in the meantime.

    The bag she brought was bigger than he was expecting. Soon they would kiss and he would effortlessly take the handle of her bag even as he wrapped his other arm around her waist and began to lead her toward the station stairs.

    For now, though, they stood and populated a moment.

  • Five Years And Two Girlfriends Ago

    This story is part 2 of 5 of The Man From Kiama.

    The next morning found them walking along the water in the general direction of the lighthouse. The beach at Bombo could be seen arcing into the haze that constituted the horizon on this rather muggy day.

    She was wearing sunglasses, which struck him as odd. Had she had these with her all night? Women are so resourceful.

    The auburn coloured hair that had looked so bright on the dance floor the night before assumed a new character of luminance under the bright sun. When she turned his way he could see that it framed a square face that had endured little stress. He envied this.

    The afternoon was meant to bring rain. They would go back to his modest apartment and sit on the hammock he had strung between two support beams on his porch five years and two girlfriends ago.

    Knowing now what he did not know then, he would make the most of this honeymoon period with her.

  • He Was Sure He Would Love Her

    This story is part 1 of 5 of The Man From Kiama.

    The train would get to Kiama at just past three in the morning. He didn’t know this girl save for the aspects of her that were immediately obvious. Her hair was auburn coloured but it was clearly not the doing of God as her eyebrows were noticeably darker.

    Circumstance had brought them together at first and then to this platform in the present. He barely liked riding the train that long with himself as company but some incredible chemical reaction brought about by a combination of white wine, cheap beer and heightened adrenaline made him sure that she actually wanted to be boarding the train.

    They sat upstairs on the side of the train that would have given them a view of the ocean had the sun still been in the sky. More than two hours to Kiama.

    He was sure he would love her by then.

  • “She would have laughed at this…”

    This is the first post in what should be a fun project: I’ll be using my Instagram feed (@tovagreg) to share microfiction inspired by the photo I’ve posted. I’m not sure what will become of this, which is part of what makes it fun. Mostly the stories will be one-offs but there is certainly the possibility for linked stories and recurring characters down the road. Follow me on Instagram and keep your eyes on ToVa to stay tuned!

  • Don’t Rush To The Middle

    Rupert is watching.

    Listening to comedians discuss their craft never ceases to fascinate me. In fact, I sometimes find it more interesting than watching their act.

    Sometimes.

    A great source of these discussions is the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, on which Jay Leno was recently a guest. Leno rolled out a few stories I have heard him tell in the past, but one point he made about ‘working clean’ really stuck with me:

    You have a lot of [comedians] now that rush to the middle and then stay there for twenty years.

    He goes on to describe a phenomenon where new comedians are very quickly able to reach the middle of the pack because they can milk swearing or vulgarity for a cheap laugh… but then their careers hit a wall and stall.

    It’s really easy to take a clean joke and make it dirty. It’s almost impossible to take a really funny dirty joke and make it clean. When the punchline is some four-letter word, what do you do with that? Where do you go with it? You can’t take it past a certain point.

    The warning here is obvious: if you take shortcuts to success, you’ll eventually be stranded without the tools to progress further. It’s easy enough to learn what certain words translate to in Spanish, but if you don’t understand how to conjugate verbs and construct sentences you’ll find it difficult to ever carry a conversation in that language.

    A comedian who relies too heavily on cheap laughs runs the danger of never actually learning the craft of comedy. Eventually the novelty of your vulgarity will wear thin and if you don’t have the skills to write new jokes, so will the laughs you receive.

    Granted, there will always be a receptive (but transient) audience for those who lean on tried-and-true tricks, but the real success is reserved for those willing to work for it.

    Most people want to play the audience where they get the best laugh… But if you just play rooms where everybody laughs at everything you say, you never get any better.

    Leno is talking about comedians in this interview but he may as well be talking about anybody with any serious ambitions. Shortcuts and low-hanging fruit abound, as do people who will pat you on the back and tell you what you want to hear. Don’t be afraid to climb a little higher and seek feedback from the people you fear you’ll never impress. Eventually you will find the higher, riper fruit and get a laugh you know you earned.



  • You Can Still Fix What “Ain’t Broke”

    Maybe you should fix what "ain't broke"

    Part of the fun of moving away from home is confusing your new neighbors with the colloquialisms that you heard while growing up. Having done my growing up in the hills of West Virginia, I have quite a collection of such phrases and truisms that frequently raise eyebrows when I slip them into conversation here in Australia.

    One such phrase is: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

    Most often this is meant in the context of possibly screwing up a good thing with constant tinkering; the idea that trying to extend that board just one more inch… and then another… will ultimately bring your house down when you’ve extended too far.

    Taken at its most literal interpretation, though, the idea of not ‘fixing’ what isn’t broken seems awfully limiting. It flies in the face of ambition and creativity by assuring you that the grass is perfectly green here and there’s no need to bother looking for grass that is greener. It suggests that you be content with the delicious and nutritious meal sitting in front of you and never wonder if the menu features something even better.

    Life is a Mexican restaurant

    This very situation unfolded for me recently. Claire and I frequent a particular Mexican restaurant that friends introduced us to a couple of years ago. These same friends recommended the fajitas during that initial visit and Claire and I heeded their advice. It was far from a bad tip. These particular fajitas quickly became my favorite dish in Sydney. Over the years Claire and I would get there once a month or so and we would both order the fajitas every single time. Why mess with success?

    Why fix what “ain’t broke”?

    Eventually we found ourselves there on a night that Claire had a strong craving for fajitas that I didn’t share. I looked at the menu and, for the first time in nearly three years, considered other options.

    This was the record- scratch moment. Freeze the frame there on me examining the menu like I’m seeing it for the first time.

    A lot can happen in two years. New menu items could have been introduced. Specials came and went. Any of these things could have been better than the fajitas that, despite being very good, are not the pinnacle of culinary achievement. How many opportunities to find something even tastier had I missed?

    The truth about things that “ain’t broke”

    Naturally, life is slightly more complicated than ordering Mexican. The concept of missed opportunities, though, is basically the same and all too real.

    It is easy – and, in some cases, beneficial – to fall into routines within our day-to-day lives. For the sake of our sanity and productivity, this is mostly okay. Your job pays good money and has great benefits. It’s close to home. Your boss is chill and a pushover in fantasy football. You’re a hit on casual Friday. Life is good. Nothing is broken.

    But what if there is a better opportunity out there? A chance to be even happier in ways you haven’t considered because you haven’t seen the need to look around for them?

    Another popular phrase that you’re more likely to have heard is: “Fortune favors the bold!” It encourages us to take risks here and there because – and why not layer in another cliché? – you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

    And thus we arrive at a critical juncture in which many find themselves throughout their lives: when can we stop looking for something better? When can we be sure that we’ve ‘arrived’ and can achieve no more?

    The answer, of course, is personal. For many, there becomes a natural state of equilibrium at which it no longer makes sense to push ahead. Research shows us that once we’re earning about $90K a year, increases in income don’t really increase our happiness anymore – so why would we bust our rumps to get further raises?

    However, you’re on an actualization blog because you’re a natural pusher. To you, the grass can always be greener. Yet, we can’t constantly be assessing every aspect of our life in search of areas that can be improved. If we were always worrying about the next job, we’d be less effective in this one. Furthermore, exploring every single option that is available to us can sometimes lead to analysis paralysis, a state of being in which the sheer volume of options hinders our ability to make a decision. More often than not, this leads us to make no decision at all.

    Knowing when to fix what “ain’t broke”

    In the interest of pushing forward without driving ourselves crazy, let’s consider three strategies for recognizing when it might be okay to fix something that “ain’t broke”.

    1) You’re on autopilot

    All of us build systems into our life than enable us to be more efficient and productive. In the interest of saving time and mental energy, we often make decisions without even considering that we had other options. In the Mexican restaurant of life, we just order the fajitas and move on.

    Yet you should consider why you have arrived in the place you now find yourself. Did you have a craving for fajitas and thus you came to this restaurant that serves very tasty ones? Or did you come to this restaurant for whatever other reason and now you’re on auto-pilot, ordering the fajitas out of habit? If it’s the latter, the bell should be ringing inside your head as it did for me in this exact scenario.

    As you go through life, consider your context and your situation. To mix metaphors: if you’re not craving the fajitas, maybe it’s time to look for a new job.

    2) You’ve hit a natural plateau

    There’s nothing wrong with a plateau here and there. Sometimes life throws a bit too much at us and we need to set at least one aspect of our life – like our job, for example – on cruise control for a while. However, this should only ever be a temporary solution. If we leave any one area of our life in this mode for too long, the symptoms will start to show:

    • You’ll be bored
    • You’ll no longer derive pleasure from this activity
    • You won’t be learning anything new

    When life has settled down enough that you start to notice these symptoms, take it as an opportunity to explore other options. Have a look around at some other jobs or maybe some courses that you could enroll in to help take your career to the next level. Even if you take no action, the very act of considering other possibilities should be enough to shift you out of cruise-control and get your foot back on the accelerator.

    3) You’re playing it safe

    Granted, when you start to look around at other possibilities, you may be tempted to make a change and go for it. We know that fortune favors the bold, but what if we take that new job and it totally sucks?

    Any hesitation of this nature might have already slipped into your day-to-day life. At work, do you often go for the tried-and-true method? When choosing between different strategies, do you hedge your bets and select the option with lower upside but less risk? If so, you’re playing it safe. The room for possible failure has made you too cautious; too afraid of doing something that might not work out in the short-term.

    Well, nobody ever said fortune always and immediately favors the bold (besides being untrue, it’s also not as catchy). It is the long game that will eventually yield our reward.

    You will most likely encounter setbacks as you push your way forward. Break through some walls and you’re certainly going to collect some bruises. Playing the long game with any decision allows for the possibility of initial setbacks. Yes, you may have to take a step back on the food chain when you transfer to that larger company, but the future opportunities at that new company might be more numerous and appealing than those where you currently work. Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back in order to lengthen the track in front of you. Over the course of the long game you’ll pass those who reached the end of their own track and are being forced to run in place.

    Some will be happy to run in place in this way – nothing is broken and so you won’t catch them trying to fix anything. Send them a photo when you reach the summit and make sure the next, taller mountain that you’re going to climb is in the frame.



  • YouCo. Part 2: Strategy And Scenario Planning

    Rupert employs aggressive marketing.

    This is the second in a series of posts I have lamely dubbed YouCo. I’m drawing on lessons from my graduate business studies to show how best practices from the business world can be applied at the most micro of levels: yourself. The first post considered how a mission and vision statement might be useful to individuals and I encourage you to start there before continuing with this post. That said: I’m not your real dad so you’re free to do whatever you want.

    Today’s post examines how businesses construct a strategy to help them attain their stated vision within the context of their mission. I also introduce scenario planning, an idea that is sure to tingle your creativity-senses. The series concludes next week with a look at some generic strategies that might just bring you closer to actualization. I’ll put it this way: once you’ve looked at mentorship as a merger, there’s no turning back.

     Part Two: Strategy And Scenario Planning

    If your mission and vision are what you are and what you want to be, respectively, then strategy is the means by which you’re going to attempt to bridge the gap between the two.

    Constructing a strategy (which may go by any number of names depending on which particular annual report you happen to be reading) for a business is complex. Internal forces are complicated enough to navigate, but there is also the added consideration of a number of external factors ranging from consumer attitudes to the behavior of your competitors. An effective business strategy must maximize results for stakeholders while minimizing risk and loss – and all within a turbulent external environment over which the company has little control.

    Businesses compete with each other because the nature of the marketplace presents only one pie from which they can carve out a slice. If 40 people in your neighborhood drink coffee and you decide to open a cafe, you’re competing for a percentage of those 40 people. You’re not creating a customer base, you’re competing for a piece of one that’s already there… and you always will be. A business strategy, then, must focus on maximizing the business’ slice of this pie. Rarely is a dollar of profit created; it’s usually “captured” from a competitor.

    Fortunately, things are far simpler for an individual. Actualization (the assumed endpoint of our efforts) is not one big pie from which every person on the planet must carve their slice – it’s billions of individual pies just waiting to be snatched once we climb high enough to reach the shelf. I’m not claiming that there is an absence of competition for individuals. We’re all going to end up competing for jobs, promotions, etc. However, these competitions are isolated rather than ongoing and the philosophies that I’m about to introduce don’t just apply to the bigger picture, they will also help you come out on top in these intermediate battles.

    Constructing And Stating Your Strategy

    Your strategy statement is every bit as important as your mission and vision statements and should be concise, specific and realizable in the same manner. Such a statement is made up of three components:

    1. The Objective
    2. The Scope
    3. The Advantage

    The objective, of course, is the end state that you would like to accomplish and (where possible to gauge) a time-frame in which you would like to achieve that state. The scope is, simply put, the context within which you hope to reach the objective. The advantage, meanwhile, is the unique set of characteristics and traits that you bring to the front of this particular war that will enable you to lead yourself and other stakeholders to the objective.

    In part one we looked at the mission and vision of my alma mater, West Virginia University. WVU are seeking to achieve their mission with their 2020 Strategic Plan For The Future, a set of five goals that conceptualize the components of the university’s vision statement into (caution: buzzword ahead) action items.

    Enjoy a nice cup of Goal 5 for an example:

    Goal 5:

    Enhance the well-being and the quality of life of the people of West Virginia.

    OBJECTIVE 1
    Create an academic health system and health professions programs that enhance the well-being of West Virginians.

    OBJECTIVE 2
    Increase opportunities for the citizens of the state through workforce education, lifelong learning, and outreach to every county.

    OBJECTIVE 3
    Promote sustainable economic development and a cultural environment that improve the quality of life throughout the state.

    ACTIONS

    1. Promote sustainable economic development and a cultural environment that improve the quality of life throughout the state.

    2. Expand outreach efforts to connect the campuses to citizens and communities throughout the state. Provide resources and information to equip West Virginia University Extension agents, and other personnel engaged in outreach and care, for a broader role as ambassadors for the institution.

    3. Meet regularly with state and industry leaders to articulate University successes and initiatives, to learn of the needs of the state, and to promote the commercialization of research, economic development, and global commerce.

    4. Create a nimble academic health system that is responsive to patient access needs, ensures high quality, cost-effective, and safe care, and delivers patient satisfaction and value.

    5. Strengthen relationships with alumni, stakeholders, and the communities that neighbor West Virginia University campuses.

    This goal clearly addresses the final part of WVU’s vision statement: “By 2020, West Virginia University will attain national research prominence, thereby enhancing…  the vitality and well-being of the people of West Virginia.”

    This desired end state is presented in the strategic plan as a list of objectives and actions required to get there (the first component of a strategy statement), clearly states the scope as being the people of West Virginia (the second component) and makes reference to the advantages that WVU will employ to get there (the third component), namely: their aspirational position as a leading research institution, the ability to work alongside the government as a land-grant university, and the existing network of campuses across the state.

    Your own strategy statement can be engineered in just this way. A component of my own vision statement is to become an academic. This follows from education and knowledge being important values to me and the pursuit of both being central to my personal mission. My own strategy, then, must bridge the gap between that mission and my desired end state of being an academic. What objectives, then, will lead me to that promised land? There are two major possibilities:

    1. Pursue further formal education in the form of a PhD.
    2. Continue on my path of independent research.

    It’s possible for either of these roads to take me to my destination. However, considering the scope (again, component two) helps me to turn the wheel in a certain direction: I wish to be a university-based academic. Now the picture begins to crystallize and come into focus. Sure, I could be an independent researcher and have one foot in the door at a university, but pursuing my research through university channels aligns more closely with what I’m hoping to achieve.

    Considering my advantages allows me to pull the trigger and make a strategic decision. Conceptualizing this third component for an individual is slightly different to doing so for a business. A business must differentiate itself from competitors in order to “capture” more of the pie. My coffee might be the same but my take-away cups are way rad. It might seem insignificant, but these small details effect consumer behavior in subtle (but often detectable) ways.

    However, advantages for an individual don’t have to create or demonstrate differentiation between yourself and others (although, again, isolated instances will require this but we’re talking big picture stuff here). For this reason, it’s best to consider your strengths as your advantage. You don’t necessarily have to be better, but you do have be good. I have worked hard to become a solid academic writer. I wasn’t born that way – I developed the skill over years of constructive feedback. Now it is a strength of mine – an advantage – and it is a strength that would serve me well in pursuit of a PhD. Clearly the first objective is the way to go.

    Or is it? In developing my strategy statement I have considered objective, scope and advantage, but all of these considerations are based on my current state of affairs and balance on the dangerous assumption that my life – in all related aspects – will continue as it has proceeded to date. In taking the cornerstones of my existence for granted I have ignored the fact that an earthquake could – at any point in the future – shake that foundation and bring it to the ground. How, then, do we consider what life will look like at that point in the future when we actually achieve our objective?

    By engaging in a fantastic exercise known as scenario planning.

    Back To The Future: Scenario Planning And You

    Scenario planning is an exercise in which strategists imagine plausible futures in which their organization will eventually operate. Not to be mistaken for forecasting, scenario planning is less about the bottom line and more about ensuring the organization can withstand changes in circumstances that may or may not be beyond their control. The scenarios that are drawn up are not predictions, they are plausible narratives.

    The practice was popularized by Royal Dutch Shell, who began scenario planning in 1965. Attempting to imagine alternate futures that ignored the generally-accepted assumption that present trends will continue unabated allowed the company to survive the 1973 energy crisis and is a practice they still employ to this day.

    Fortunately, like developing a strategy statement, engaging in scenario planning is far less complex for an individual than it is for a business. You are simply attempting to picture what the world around you might look like when you ultimately achieve your objective. It might seem a bit silly, but you will often find that what the future holds for you may not be conducive to an objective you’re thinking about undertaking.

    Using my own example, I know that the timeline of completing my PhD is about four years. What will my world look like in four years? I know I will be married and after this there are two futures: one in which I am a dad and one in which I’m not. Obviously the possibility of having a child is an important (and very realistic) consideration. My sleep will be impacted. I will have less free time to focus on my study. My partner’s needs will change and I will need to meet her at those junctions. Perhaps my partner will get a job in a different city, which will put a strain on me as I will be tied rather immovably to the university here in Sydney.

    Such scenarios underscore another important consideration: other stakeholders. Where I have a number of possible scenarios, so does my partner. Our lives are linked, but only to an extent. My pursuit of a PhD would affect her own scenarios. She might be forced to turn down that job in another city, even if it would have been better for us as a family.

    It’s easy to imagine an infinite number of scenarios because, stopping short of going FULL PHILOSOPHICAL, there truly is an infinite number of possibilities. Scenario planning calls for identifying those that are plausible without inducing an analysis paralysis that will prevent you from moving forward. Choose one or two (Shell used to work up three until they noticed management tended to choose the middle of the road as a way of hedging risk) but Angela Wilkinson and Roland Kupers (authors of the HBR article about Shell) warn against identifying a best and worst case scenario:

    The trap of having a “good” versus a “bad” future is that there is nothing to learn in heaven, and no one wants to visit hell.

    Instead, they recommend looking for links between your strengths (advantages) and those plausible futures. Such thinking forces you to look outside of your comfort zone, actually enabling you to grow even while you’re planning for growth. When the future eventually arrives (as it usually does) it may not look exactly like the scenarios you had imagined, but the flexible thinking and consideration that scenario planning has helped you develop will leave you agile and adaptable in a way that will make you feel like you were born ready for anything.

    This is the second in a series of three posts I’ve lamely dubbed YouCo. The series examines how best practices from the business world can be applied to your pursuit of self-actualization.

    Part One: Define The Mission And Vision Of YouCo.

    Next week I will wrap things up with a look at some generic business strategies that might not seem applicable to your personal pursuits but may just yield surprising results for YouCo.



  • Define The Mission And Vision Of YouCo.

    Rupert employs aggressive marketing.

    I recently completed my MBA at the University of Technology, Sydney. My own shift toward personal development coincided with the commencement of my graduate studies and the two simultaneous pursuits really played well off of one another for the duration of my course. Since putting the finishing touches on my coursework I’ve begun to synthesize many of the larger ideas that were common threads across different subjects including efficiency, responsibility, strategy, and communication.

    More than once throughout my course I was struck with the notion that many of the theories and best practices that we were being taught to apply to business could also be implemented at the most micro of levels: ourselves.

    This is the working thesis behind a series of posts I’ve lamely dubbed “YouCo.” that will appear over the next several weeks. Think of it like a crash-course MBA that’s all about you. No tests. No accounting requirement. Just the best practices of the business world turned inside out in the name of self-actualization. Let’s begin.

    Part One: Mission and Vision

    No concept has induced more yawning or eye-rolls in “team building” meetings than that of a mission and vision statement. This is an unfortunate byproduct of the fact that so many mission and vision statements are poorly constructed or don’t reflect reality. Do you know the mission and vision of the company you work for?

    Does your boss?

    Yes?

    Because he wrote it?

    Yeah, I thought so.

    When appropriately stated and grounded in the reality shared by all members of the organization, mission and vision statements can be powerful rather than groan-inducing. Mission and vision are two different notions, though they are often clumped together. Generally speaking, a company’s mission is a summary of what’s happening now while their vision considers what they’d like to be doing in the future and how they aim to make that ideal future into the present reality.

    Examples are fun, so consider this one from my alma mater, West Virginia University:

    Mission

    As a land-grant institution in the 21st century, WVU will deliver high-quality education, excel in discovery and innovation, model a culture of diversity and inclusion, promote health and vitality, and build pathways for the exchange of knowledge and opportunity between the state, the nation, and the world.

    Vision

    By 2020, WVU will attain national research prominence, thereby enhancing educational achievement, global engagement, diversity, and the vitality and well-being of the people of West Virginia.

    The mission explicitly states what the university is, what they aim to deliver, who they aim to deliver it to, and establishes an ideal framework in which they operate.

    The vision, meanwhile, looks ahead and sets a goal of even higher achievement with a specific focus on the people of West Virginia. This vision is in line with their 2020 Strategic Plan, but we’ll save that for next week’s YouCo. entry on strategy.

    Is it shocking that a university emphasizes learning and wants to be better at it in the future? Well, no – but that’s not really the point. More than stating the obvious, a mission and vision statement is a checkpoint against which operational decisions can be measured. It is, in essence, the compass that keeps the ship headed in the right direction.

    It has to be based in reality and it has to be realizable.

    If you were to measure any current student or faculty member against the mission statement you would find either a whole or a broken link in the chain – there is really no middle ground. If the mission is based in reality, you’ll find only one strong chain with no broken links. If it doesn’t reflect reality there will be weak links indicating the mission statement is actually the vision statement and you need to take a step back to reassess.

    Your Own Mission And Vision

    Though not every group will formally state their purpose and aspirations, most will have at least an informal idea of who they are and where they’re going. It’s easy to see that mission and vision statements are a virtual necessity for even small organizations; all members have to be aligned in order to achieve the best results. But considering the fact that we’re talking about dealing with yourself and yourself alone, why bother with a formal mission and vision statement? Aren’t you always going to know what you want and where you’re going without the need to reference an articulation of those ideas?

    Well, sure. It’s not impossible to achieve great results without formalizing the state of your being and your aspirations. Many have done it throughout history and many will do it into the future. However, I happen to believe that stating and continually updating your mission and vision will keep you moving toward actualization at a faster clip while helping you monitor your own progress along the way.

    If you look at a photo of yourself now compared to when you were ten years younger I imagine you can immediately notice some differences in your physical appearance. Maybe your hair is darker, maybe your jaw line is better defined. Whatever the differences, they’re obvious and easy to point out in this ‘then and now’ comparison.

    But can you point to a day in that ten year span that you noticed your hair color had changed from the day prior? A morning when your jaw could cut glass whereas the night before it was hard to distinguish? Of course not. The change was gradual and not detectable on an ongoing basis, even to yourself.

    What about your worldview over a four year span like high school or college? Between being a freshman to becoming a senior you probably engineered a different take on things societal, political, romantic – but was it an overnight epiphany that made senior-you unrecognizable to freshman-you? Probably not, and you would find it difficult to point to the individual and isolated moments that came to inform your new perspectives.

    If such physical and mental change is happening to you without your knowledge, would you not like to have some manner of control over it? Some ability to reel it in and steer it in the direction of your passions rather than let it be carried away by a current of indifference moving toward the status quo?

    Your personal mission and vision statement can be that tool.

    Defining your mission and your vision will allow you to do what you could not do while comparing ‘then and now’ photos: track your progress while it’s ongoing. How does this work? Your aspirational vision will be incorporated into your mission once it’s been accomplished. Say, for example, that your vision is to become a politician that serves the people of your precinct. You work toward this goal until one day you are elected. Now your mission becomes the present form of what was once your vision for the future. Now you are a politician that serves the people and your vision must be revised (within the frame of your mission).

    If you revisit your mission and vision at regular intervals, you will be able to see how you have accomplished your visions and enhanced your mission over time. More than ticking boxes on a to-do list, this is a visualization of your road to actualization. It’s the same concept that those who keep journals and diaries are always talking about: the ability to track the subtle but often tectonic shifts in your personality, character and priorities.

    The most important component here is the integration of your achieved visions into your current mission. By doing this you can track your progress toward larger, more ethereal goals (vision) while further fortifying your foundation (mission). Your mission serves as your rock, allowing you to remember who you are and what you stand for. It’s an inventory of the artillery you have at hand to defend against crises of character and attacks from would-be corrupters; the ever-expanding fortress from which you venture out daily in search of actualization.

    A good way to get started with your first mission statement is to take stock of where you are and what factors in your life actually define you. If you don’t want to be defined by your job, leave it out. If you do want to be defined by your love of animals, make it explicit. Your mission statement might look something like this:

    As an educated and professional accountant, I will deliver the very best service to my clients by making their priorities my own and ensuring my job is done correctly the first time. As a husband and father of two, I will prioritize the happiness of my wife and children by separating my work and home life and celebrating their successes as if they were my own. As a citizen of West Virginia, I will take an active part in local politics by being an informed citizen and encouraging healthy debate on my political blog.

    Your vision, though, can best be thought of as “how would I like history to remember me?” A vision statement for our hypothetical accountant might look like this:

    By the age of 40 I will have achieved a junior partnership at my firm. By the time my children graduate, I will have saved the tuition costs for them to attend a state school. Using my knowledge of business and local policy, I will provide ongoing support for my wife as she aims to open her own business. By 2016 I will have expanded membership on my blog to 10,000 and readership to 50,000 unique hits a week and by 2018 I will use the blog as a platform to campaign for a seat in the West Virginia state senate.

    When you’ve crafted your personal mission and vision, write it down somewhere. No need to laminate it and hang it on the wall. Put it on a card in your wallet. Make it a reminder on your phone that becomes the first thing you see each morning. Commit to it and strive to live by the mission and achieve the vision. After a year, revisit it. How far have you come? Can any of your vision be integrated into your mission? Have you deviated from your mission in whole or in part?

    If so, rework your mission and vision accordingly. Over time you’ll have documented verification that you’re making real progress toward becoming your ideal self and that the status quo does not apply to you.

    Next week I will take a look at how businesses develop and execute various strategies and how a little strategic thinking might pay dividends for YouCo.