Note: If you do nothing else with this post, please take 5 minutes to answer the 4 questions about your purpose (since I’m declaring resolutions to be a relic of the past) via the link here and at the end of this post.
The turn of the year is coming on like a freight train, and I have been reading or avoiding a torrent of wrap ups, predictions, and lists. I’ll also try to dodge all the posts about New Year’s resolutions that will hit right after Christmas. Following a year of prognostications about the “new normal” that supposedly awaits us all, I think it's time to shift the conversation to something more substantive.
Here’s my take — resolutions need to go the way of the dodo. Proclaiming a tactical goal like “lose weight” or “be more patient” seems like the right thing to do at a time of year when we’re self-reflective. But beyond perhaps a dry January, do people really achieve and sustain positive change? Back when gyms were fully open, there’d be a noticeable bump in treadmill usage that would peter out by March. Strava, the fitness app, noticed that January 12 is the date that the fitness bump starts subsiding. If it’s a personal goal, do it because it feels good and it matters to you, not because the last digit of the date has changed.
So this year instead of a resolution, spend some time thinking about what your personal brand and purpose should be. What makes you tick and defines what you hope to accomplish over months and years? What do you think defines you, and is more substantive than whether you’ll finish reading the assigned novel before your book club meets. Find and define something you believe in and want to do. The New Year then becomes a time to commit to a statement of purpose and return to it annually (and more often, of course).
Be your own brand
Recruiters often ask people to define their personal brand in terms of career aspirations, the room they want to influence, or the causes they want to support. My approach to finding a personal brand purpose is similar to how I help leaders define the vision and mission of their companies. To do that, I ask two questions:
For vision: What should the world look like in the future?
For mission: How will your company realize that future?
Answering these seemingly simple questions usually results in some soul searching for founders and executives. My job is to help them state what they come up with simply and clearly.
This can be harder for us as individuals, because we don’t usually think of ourselves as having a vision and mission. But purpose — the motivation for doing the things you do — can bring focus to the activities that make you happier, more ambitious or more fulfilled. Purpose can help you be more certain that the things you say yes or no to align with the contributions you want to make, big or small, to the world around you.
Be open
Before I ask you to put some thought into this, here are some of my past “purposes” (in quotes because I am defining them now, in hindsight):
Post college: clean up my act, get in shape, and work hard to prove myself.
Pre-relationship: figure out who I want to be with.
Bulk of my full-time career: shift from being a thinker to a doer.
Post-full time work: find balance between things I can do and things I want to do.
Most recently: Improve the understanding of civics in this country, and (separately) test myself physically by getting out on my bike as often as possible.
What I realized by putting this list together is that working has been my purpose in some form for most of my adult life. I still have a hard time saying no to projects. But the purposes I’ve honed in on most recently -- to impact the world in some way (civics education) and discover more of the world in some way (travel, and exploration on two wheels) -- have little to do with income, visibility, or career ambition. They are related to a need to connect with the world and solve problems that are important to people other than me.
Be honest
So what is your purpose? It doesn’t have to be grandiose. ” It could be “put food on the table” or “be kind to strangers.” If that is your purpose, that’s noble. If your purpose is to be a community leader, a good friend, an avid reader, those are all valuable.
Ask yourself these three questions:
What is the most important theme in my life right now?
What do I stand for that I can put into practice?
Can I improve something about myself that is fundamental?
You might still decide to focus on going to the gym, being charitable, or helping one person each week with a simple task. But termed as a resolution, that kind of commitment will likely be finite. Connecting your efforts to a purpose is a bigger statement of what and why you get energy from those activities.
Why is having purpose better than making a resolution? Because resolutions try to fix things or correct behaviors. A purpose is more substantive, sustainable and encompassing, and doesn’t have to be attached to some kind of provable accomplishment.
So, what will be your purpose in 2021? Click or reply with your thoughts, and I’ll report back with what people are considering for the new year (anonymously, of course).
Wonderful! There's a complementary message in the TED Talk "How to know your life purpose In 5 minutes" (https://youtu.be/vVsXO9brK7M). His best insight, I think, is the question “What is the one thing that right now you feel supremely qualified to teach other people?”