How to Define Your Purpose and Craft Your Personal Vision Statement to ensure a fulfilling life

A lot of us start setting career, personal and business goals without understanding our personal purpose in life. Others do better than that and identify a vision for their organisation. However, these can lead to either not achieving the goals or achieving unfulfilling goals or visions.

The way to set meaningful goals is by first identifying our personal purpose and vision; then aligning every other goal or vision to this. A May JAMA open study found that people with purpose are more likely to live longer than those without one. Also, they are less affected by their environment according to another study by a Cornell University Professor Anthony L Burrow. This means identifying a purpose and a life vision does two things for you:

1. You can set meaningful goals
2.  You can focus on your goals regardless of the distraction which means you have a greater chance of achieving them

However, identifying your personal vision can be confusing. As a kid, I wanted to be a Veterinarian officer because I love animals. Then read civil engineering in university and wanted to be this person who designed all the great bridges in the world. After delivering a number of challenging infrastructure projects and loved every bit of it; I thought I wanted to be a CEO of large governmental projects. I then attended a course which delved into what was the most important to you. Everyone after getting to know me, thought I would come up with something extremely flamboyant but it ended up that I just wanted my kids to know daddy did his best for them! So, I understand it when people draw a blank when you ask them their life’s vision. Most likely, they will tell you about their career goals!

Purpose and vision are two of the most important elements of personal and professional success. They give you a sense of direction, motivation, clarity and a sense of fulfillment when it is all said and done. But how do you define your purpose and craft your vision statement? My idea of a personal vision is your purpose together with long term goals in areas that not only support your purpose but are critically important to you.

In this blog post, we will go through three steps that you can use to craft your personal vision.

Step 1: Define Your Purpose

Your purpose is your reason for being, your why, your core value. It is what drives you, inspires you, and brings you joy. To define your purpose, you need to ask yourself some soul-searching questions, such as:

• What issue in this world am I passionate about and will want to solve?
• What will I want to be remembered by when I finish this life?
• If I were to write my own epitaph, what will I want it to say?
• What comes naturally to me?
• What do I enjoy doing?
• What makes me feel fulfilled?
• If I was to dream without limits or fear, what would I want to achieve?

Note that, the fact that something comes naturally to you doesn’t mean you won’t need to study and sharpen those skills. The human mind requires continuous development to feel fulfilled.

Your responses to the above internal soul-searching question will help you identify your purpose. Note that, you will need to be true to yourself and ignore the outside influences. This sometimes may take time and become clearer as time goes on and you start to understand your gifts the more and what you are passionate about becomes clearer. As mentioned, mine took a while to discover. The reason for the book Unchained and this blog is to help you discover it quicker than I did mine.

You can also use a formula like this: My purpose is to use my (skills/talents) to (action) for (people/cause).

For example, my purpose is to use my ability to achieve very stringent goals to educate and motivate people to identify and fulfill meaningful goals.

Step 2: Make a list of categories of things that matter to you and supports your purpose

These should be categories that matter to you and want to achieve long term goals in them. These should mostly support your life purpose. Some of the categories to consider are as follows:

• Health (Physical and Mental) – what are you long term health goals?
• Wealth – what are your long-term financial goals?
• Spirituality- what level of spirituality do you intend to achieve?
• Relationships – what sort of relationship do you want to have with your spouse, friends, family and people you meet along your life journey
• What sort of experiences do you want to have. Is travelling to new places one of the things that excites you?

For me; I believe health, wealth and spirituality are the tripod foundation for all purposes as without them, you may feel unfulfilled. Spirituality gives your life a deeper meaning. Great health ensures you can achieve your purpose successfully. The right wealth for you ensures you can go about achieving your purpose without stressing about how you take care of the people you care most about in life. It may also be required to support your purpose.

Your relationships are also critically important. A lot of people have pursued lofty goals only to lose their family and sometimes the reason why they embarked on their goals. Life is more fun and enjoyable when we have meaningful relationships.

Step 3: Crafting your personal vision

Your personal vision is your life’s purpose translated into a goal with a timeframe together with the process of how you intend to achieve the vision. Next, state how your personal vision aligns with your purpose. Lastly, add a statement on how you intend to measure your success.

For example, my vision is as below:

‘To help 1 billion people identify and achieve meaningful goals by 2040 through book publication, blogs on my website, training, public speaking and financial support.

This vision aligns with my life purpose which is to help people find meaning for their lives through goal setting.

The effectiveness of my approach will be judged through course feedback forms, feedback on my website and other channels of communication that become available’ – Clement Kwegyir-Afful

Finally, do not forget to have long-term goals in the categories that you highlighted in step 2 to ensure you are successful with your personal vision. For example, you may have a vision of setting up a charity to provide water to a million people who don’t have access to portable water. However, you will need the finances to support yourself etc.

To help my personal vision to be successful, I have long-term goals in Health, Finance and Spiritual.

Note that, your personal vision statement will go through a process of refinement as time goes by.

Conclusion

Defining your purpose and crafting your personal vision statement are not easy tasks, but they are worth it. They will help you live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. By following these 3 simple steps, you can define your purpose, create your vision statement, and align them with your goals. I hope this blog post has helped you do that. If you want to learn more about how to achieve personal and professional success, get Unchained – Success Unlocked: A Proven Framework for Achieving your goals and other recommended literature and books on the website.