Year after year you have said to yourself and others, “I’m going back to school, I’m going to write a book, or this month I’m going to clean out and organize my basement.” Sound like someone you know? Yet you watch time past and you are no closer to completing your “heart goals” than you were when you first spoke it.
What is it? Some would say it’s time management. Not that I disagree with that reasoning, but I do find that there is more involved when it comes to fulfilling purpose. It’s not that you don’t know WHAT your “assignment” is, it’s that you either don’t start it or when you do you don’t stay focused enough to complete it.
So we give up. We put it on the “back burner” as many say but so much time has gone by not only is it on the back burner, but it’s not even in the kitchen any more.
Planning 4 Purpose
Fulfilling your purpose and tackling all of life’s distractions both internally and externally is absolutely necessary in completing the assignment that was given to us before we were even born. But if we don’t plan for it in our daily lives we risk dying full of dreams or living an unfulfilled life that most certainly could have been avoided.
Launching P4P [Planning 4 Purpose] came from a passion to have order and a color coding system in my planner. Although that was the foundation it definitely has unfolded into a deeper concept. Purpose planning is much more than highlighters and “To Do” list but a strategic design and intention to include purpose items in my everyday life so that I am not just doing tasks, but I am fulfilling that which I was created to do.
As you think about what your purpose (assignment) is, here are 3 reasons why Purpose Planning is essential.
1. To Live a Fulfilled Life
How often is your day packed with errands and task that leave you feeling as if you have accomplished nothing? I see it all the time (in me on many occasions) where my calendar is packed with things to do, places to go and people to meet with, yet when the day, week and year is over I look back and realize that what I knew and desired to do sits incomplete. My spiritual father had a saying, but I’m going to change it a bit. And that is, “Doing good things, can be the wrong thing if it’s not a PURPOSE thing”.
2. To Make the Right Connections
Understanding your assignment is clear to you, yet the connections we make many times, whether relationships, job choices, or even volunteering to help someone can be far from our “pieces” that will bring us to our expectant end. If you look at a puzzle, if the picture you are to end up with is “My little pony” the pieces in that box connected will give you that. But if you try to use pieces from a “transformers” puzzle box you will never finish your picture because those pieces don’t connect. Even if you forced them (stick a pin here we will revisit this at a later date) your picture will be distorted. If you want THAT PICTURE – the dream or goal you envisioned, you must connect with those parts that will help you get there.
3. To Complete Your Purpose
Each of us has been given a specific assignment in life to accomplish and whether it takes us out of our comfort zone or not, that is what is being required of us. Remember when you were young and your parents would ask you to clean (for instance) your room and bathroom before they returned home? Well, that’s what they wanted done. You may have DECIDED to dust and vacuum the living room and I’m sure you did a great job, but when they returned they weren’t looking for the living room to be cleaned (although it was appreciated), but the assigned task.
We can’t avoid feeling the pull of purpose. We have heart goals that we can’t shake, dismiss or bury under other things just because it gets frustrating at times.
Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but purpose is what will prevail.
Identify your pieces—connect your scenes and fulfill your purpose.
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