Build Your Own. Vision, Values & Purpose
This is simple. I am giving you a step-by-step plan to build your Vision, Core Values, and Purpose.
I’ll toss in one image here for the sake of my own creative enjoyment.
You’re in a dense forest. Vision is your map, Core Values are your compass, and your Purpose is the groomed trail.
If you don’t use each of them properly, pretty soon you will be lost and fighting for your life.
Only YOU can stop yourself from getting lost…
Establishing a Vision, Core Values and Purpose takes time and it’s something only you can answer for yourself.
It took me a process of 3 years to confidently establish each of these and guess what? They are still a work in progress. I expect they will continue to morph and change throughout my life and that’s okay, but a strong foundation needs to be laid.
This is the process I followed.
Vision:
The easiest way to develop a vision is with emulation. At first, I stole my vision, you should too.
Find someone that is living the life you want to live. What do they do for work? What are their relationships like? How do they treat people? How do others treat them? How do they spend their free time?
In the age of social media, this can be dangerous. People put out false images of who they are and how they live their lives.
Clearly, discernment is important for this. Pick the best of the best from many people and smash it up into how you want to live life and write it down.
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not and add a little of your own”-Bruce Lee
What does your life look like 5 years from now? What is your daily routine? Who are you surrounded by, what are you doing? Now 10 years, 15 years.
Observe it, craft it to be your own, and write it down.
This is your map.
Core Values:
Core values are your compass. They keep you on track, constantly helping you pick the right trail.
History is full of established and prescriptive values and many of the great thinkers of history held these in high esteem.
The Virtues of the Stoics. The Perfections of the Buddhists. The 10 Commandments. All of these cultures knew the importance of having strong values because at the end of the day humans are flawed and weak.
We need frameworks, and barriers to keep us on the right path.
Core Values help you to do this. They should be the framework behind every decision you make.
When you have a set of values you’re committed to, every decision gets significantly easier.
With each decision you make ask yourself, “Does this align with my values? Yes. Great, let’s rock n roll. No. Cool, I’ll pass.”
“A person’s worth is measured by the worth of what he values”-Marcus Aurelius
Just like your vision, to find your Core Values a starting point can be to steal from the established. There are no rules here, we take what is useful for us and we make it our own.
Your vision will help in this process.
That future you, that you just envisioned, what do they value? How do they act?
Are they radically honest? Do they pursue excellence relentlessly? Do they treat all people with love and kindness?
Make a laundry list of potential values, an absolute brain dump, all on one sheet of paper.
Set aside time every day to look through it and slowly purge it until you have 3–5 values left that you feel the strongest connection to.
These are your Core Values, write them down, hang them where they can be seen, and speak them to yourself every morning.
This is your compass. Let it point you in the right direction.
Purpose:
Establishing a Vision and Core Values is not easy.
Compared to purpose, however, they are a walk in the park.
It took me about 6 months to settle on a rough idea of a purpose. I would constantly question, what is my purpose? I read some books and watched tons of videos all with the idea that somehow this would fall into my lap. It did not.
I finally decided enough was enough and made it my purpose to find my purpose. (Was this cheating? Not sure, don’t care.)
The aim is to create a simple statement. A purpose is something that should be pursued every day.
So the solution is simple. Work on it daily.
“There is no hope of success for the person who does not have a central purpose or definite goal at which to aim.”-Napoleon Hill
While I was working on this myself, I read a recommendation from Ben Greenfield where he suggested you should end each day reviewing your day like it was a movie and you’re the main character. Being a movie star sounded pretty sick not gonna lie, so I gave it a go.
At the end of every day, sit down and close your eyes. Settle your breath and watch every single moment of the day you just lived like it was a movie.
Review what was good, what was bad, and what felt right and wrong. At the end of that, ask yourself these questions:
When did I feel most purposeful today?
When did I lose track of time and feel a sense of accomplishment?
Write this answer down into a statement. It can be one sentence or a short paragraph. Put a star next to it. Every week take a look at your last 7 statements.
Summarize these into one.
After a month you’ll have iterated your purpose statement daily and you’ll have four weekly summary statements.
Smash them all up, take what is useful, and get rid of what is not.
If you like what you see, if it speaks to you, roll with it. If not, rinse and repeat the process until you’re satisfied with the purpose statement.
This is now yours. Keep it to yourself or scream it off a mountaintop.
What’s most important is that you know it and you speak it or write it down daily.
Your Purpose is the trail. Time to start hiking.
Never Lost Again
I said this was simple. That was a lie. Straightforward is more like it.
It will not be easy, but it will be effective.
Follow this process step by step, or take what you like and add some methods of your own.
Either way, get back on track now.
Use your Vision to draw the map, let your Core Values be your compass, and use your Purpose to pick the right trail.
I’ll catch you on the other side of the forest.
