“Whenever thinking is murky, ambiguous, or off purpose, you must let go of the level you’re focusing on and shift the horizon to another plane.
If you’re busy (action) and unclear, stop and review your plans. If you’re planning (organization) and unclear, get to a whiteboard or blank piece of paper and do a mental core dump to get the ideas and information you may be missing.
If you're trying to free-range or get outside the box (brainstorm) and unclear, drop back and revisit the image of what success would look like, for more specificity.
If your picture (vision) is too ill formed, return to your purpose — why you are doing the thing at all.
Clarity is never found within something unclear. You must loosen your conceptual grip, let go, and lift your sights.”
— David Allen, “Ready for Anything”
Vision Toward Missions “On Purpose”
Declaring one’s singular purpose for being on the planet and getting up in the morning may seem ludicrously overreaching. Certainly some gifted individuals come to understand their life’s purpose at a young age and barely waver on their quest.
Then there’s the rest of us. We sort of back into it by trial and error.
In coming phases of our work, we craft statements of your professional reason for being, your mission to change the world in your own unique way, your vision of what the world will look like if your mission succeeds, and a vigorous proposition as to why others should align with you. This is all a proclamation to your audiences for them to evaluate as they decide whether to engage with you or choose an alternative. To be convincing, you’ll need clarity around exactly what you are doing, why and how.
This work is modeled closely on the Horizons of Focus laid out in David Allen’s classic productivity methodology, “Getting Things Done.” In our use of the terminology, Vision is like evidence of what it would look like in those moments when we realize our progress toward our Mission. Mission is one of multiple possible ways you could choose to make a dent in your Purpose: there may be Missions before and afterward, and there may be multiple Missions in play simultaneously. Purpose is that change-you-wish-to-see-in-the-world that you are going to become, and likely already are being. Purpose can come on suddenly, or it could be discerned as you look back at the thread that weaves through the fabric of your life. Realistically, we may not have answers to these inquiries. And realistically, we have some inklings, some values that have stood the test of time. Let’s look.