“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18
Happy New Year! A new year, a new beginning. If you’re like most people, you’ve probably flirted around with New Year’s resolutions – you said, “THIS is the year I’m gonna lose weight and get in shape. Starting January 1st, no more snacking. I’m joining the health club and I’m gonna work out daily. I may even do my first marathon.” What happens? By February 1st (the latest …) you’re back on the junk food regimen, you’ve been to the club a total of 5 times (you’re “just too busy to get there”) and you’ve filed that marathon application in the trash. And you’ve concluded, “Resolutions don’t work for me.” (You’ve got a lot of company on that one …) Maybe you need a better approach.
Instead of making a mental resolution, create a Mission Statement. The difference? A Mission Statement is a hand written or typed out paragraph that is
• goal focused
• deadline driven — in this case, December 31st
• posted where you can see it daily
• committed to memory
I have a proprietary process that helps my Financial Advisors clients create a Mission Statement for their business. When completed, they come up with something like this:
“My purpose is to express my intelligence, creativity and people skills by continually learning and applying new ideas, by finding unique solutions to my clients’ problems and by building a powerful network of contacts to create 12 new client relationships, a steady flow of referral business, social media savvy and at least $225,000 net income by December 31st this year.”
I encourage you to take a stab at crafting a Mission Statement for your business. Just like Napoleon Hill prescribes in Think and Grow Rich, you’ll want to commit it to memory and recite it daily. This is your key to self-motivation. With it you won’t need to make any more fruitless resolutions — you’ll be like The Blues Brothers on “a Mission from God.”