Samani Shukla Pragya
Samani Vinay Pragya
Step1: Exercise to Write the Mission Statement (Purpose)
The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.
Write a statement for yourself that states what you want to contribute to the world and what you want to communicate. We all communicate in one way or another each and every day. Decide what kind of influence you want to have in your communication. Decide whether your life's communication with others will be good or bad, positive or negative and whether it will express love or hate.
List your core values in order of importance pertaining to what is most important to you in your life. The core values may be:
- Love for all
- Spirituality
- Contribution
- Compassion
- Honesty
- Patience
- Humbleness
- Forgiveness
- Self-purification
- Happiness
Once you discover your core values, stay true to them without wavering. Don't settle or compromise along the way when life's difficulties and challenges arise. Stay focused when assessing future relationships and employment opportunities to see if these additions to your life fit within your life plan based upon your core values. Set your intention to live according to your core values.
After deciding the purpose of your life, ask yourself:
- Is this what I Wanted to be?
- Will it make me feel at the end of my life that I have lived my life well?
- Is it in favour of mankind?
- Is this mission exciting me to live each day with it?
- What is the message I will be communicating to the world through my life?
- Will I be consistent and aligned with my mission and vision?
If you get a positive answer, then the purpose you have decided upon is your true purpose. Otherwise redo the process and derive alternatives.
Step 2: Setting Long Term Goals
Once you decide your mission statement based on your vision, set the long term goals you want to attain including like professional, social or family expectations. Make sure while defining these goals your core values are not diluted.
For example, let's say your mission statement is to contribute to society with a compassionate and positive attitude. Then while choosing your profession, you should most likely pursue a cruelty-free business. Businesses based on the exploitation of animals should be avoided. You should be fair to your employees and should you have non-violent communication with everyone. You are bound by your mission statement to have positive relations with everyone.
To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in other categories of your own, where these are important to you):
- Career - What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you want to achieve?
- Financial - How much do you want to earn, by what stage?
- Education - Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals?
- Family - How can you play a positive role in your family with each member?
- Attitude - Is any part of your mind set (how you look at life) that is holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? (If so, set a goal to improve your behaviour or find a solution to the problem.)
- Physical Health- Do you want good health till your last breath? What steps are you going to take to preserve your health and prevent illness? A proper diet and yoga on a daily basis play an important role in good health.
- Pleasure - How do you want to enjoy yourself?
- Public Service - Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how?
- Spirituality - How do you wish to develop your spiritual self? Without empowering the inner world through deep self-reflection; the outer world cannot be satisfying and successful.
Step 3: Setting Short-term Goals
- Once you have set your central purpose and long term goals, set a five-year plan of smaller, realistic and attainable goals that you will need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan
- Once your five year plan is composed, break it down into attainable portions further by creating a one- year plan, six- month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should attain to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the successively larger plan.
- Create a daily To-Do List of things that you should do today to Work towards your lifetime goals.
- Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.
Staying On Your Purpose
Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keeps the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis.
Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.)
”Jaae saddhae nikkhanto, Tumev anupalejja” (Dasvaikalika, 8.60) -“Pursue your purpose with the same enthusiasm and belief as you commenced with. ” - Bhagwan Mahavir
"Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it”- Gautama Buddha
Purpose Gives You Strength: A True Story
In 1883, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea to build a spectacular bridge connecting New York with Long Island. However bridge building experts throughout the world thought that this was an impossible feat and told Roebling to forget the idea. It just could not be done.
Roebling could not ignore the vision he had in his mind of this bridge. After much discussion and persuasion he managed to convince his son Washington, an up and coming engineer, that the bridge in fact could be built.
With great excitement and inspiration, and the headiness of a wild challenge before them, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.
The project started well, but when it was only a few months underway a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling. Washington was injured and left with a certain amount of brain damage, which resulted in him not being able to walk or talk or even move.
"We told them so."
"Crazy men and their crazy dreams".
”It‘s foolish to chase wild visions."
Everyone had a negative comment to make and felt that the project should be scrapped since the Roebling’s were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built. In spite of his handicap, Washington was never discouraged and still had a burning desire to complete the bridge and his mind was still as sharp as ever.
He tried to inspire and pass on his enthusiasm to some of his friends, but they were too daunted by the task. As he lay on his bed in his hospital room, with the sunlight streaming through the windows, a gentle breeze blew and he felt that there was a message for him not to give up. Suddenly an idea hit him. All he could do was move one finger and he decided to make the best use of it. By moving this, he slowly developed a code of communication with his wife. He touched his wife's arm with that finger, indicating to her that he wanted her to call the engineers again. Then he used the same method of tapping her arm to tell the engineers what to do. It seemed foolish, but the project was under way again.
For 13 years Washington tapped out his instructions with his finger on his wife's arm, until the bridge was finally completed, today the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory as a tribute to the triumph of one 1nan’s indomitable spirit and his determination not to be defeated by circumstances. It is also a tribute to the engineers and their team work, and to their faith in a man who was considered mad by half the world. It stands too as a tangible monument to the love and devotion of his wife who for 13 long years patiently decoded the messages of her husband and told the engineers what to do.
Perhaps this is one of the best examples of a ‘never-say-die’ attitude that overcomes a terrible physical handicap and achieves an impossible goal.
Often when we face obstacles in our day-to-day life, our hurdles seem very small in comparison to what many others have to face. The Brooklyn Bridge shows us that dreams that seem impossible can be realized with determination and persistence, no matter what the odds are.
Even the most distant dream can be realized with determination and persistence.