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The Power of an Impossible Mission

Guest post by: Brad Swift

Article Overview: I was sitting on one of the park bench at the top of Little Glassy Mountain at Connemara, Carl Sandburg's former home, when it hit me. I'd been reading excerpts from Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich and Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, and was pleasantly surprised to find a connection between Hill's "definiteness of purpose" and Goldberg's essay on the power of our obsessions.

The Power of an Impossible Mission

I was sitting on one of the park bench at the top of Little Glassy Mountain at Connemara, Carl Sandburg's former home, when it hit me. I'd been reading excerpts from Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich and Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, and was pleasantly surprised to find a connection between Hill's "definiteness of purpose" and Goldberg's essay on the power of our obsessions.

It reminded me of what I've come to know as my "Impossible Mission" that came to me years ago during another time of contemplation -- "To deeply and profoundly touch and contribute to at least 1% of the world's population by assisting people to clarify their life purpose and live true to it." I realized that I'd not taken this Impossible Mission seriously. After all, 1% of the world's population is over 60 million people and I'm just one guy.

So I wrote, "I turned 57 years old about a week ago. Only God knows how much longer I will be an active player here on Earth -- 1 day, 1 year, 10 years, 25 years or more? Perhaps. Anyway, it appears I'm behind on my mission. Ok, so what if I were willing to play full out. To have a 'definiteness of purpose' that might even border of an obsession, how might I go about it. That's when it struck me -- A breakthrough in thinking that has resulted in the Impossible Mission becoming 10 times easier. It came from asking myself the question, "How many people will one person who has identified their life purpose likely to deeply and profoundly touched and contributed to?

I figure conservatively the number would be at least 10, those being family members, friends, and co-workers. So, each time we assist one person to clarify their life purpose and live true to it, we're really enhancing a total of at least 11 people's lives. And suddenly the 60 million people we need to directly impact drops down to a mere 6 million, give a take a few hundred thousands.

Now, I know 6 million is no small potatoes but when compared to 60 million, the Impossible Mission suddenly looks...well, doable. After all, popular TV shows are often viewed by over 6 millions. Some best selling authors sell that many copies of a book, or more.'

FROM A LIFE ON PURPOSE TO A WORLD ON PURPOSE

How do we create a World On Purpose? The same way that you eat an elephant; one bite at a time. Of course, in this case, a bite is by helping one person at a time to clarify their life purpose, or 5 people or 10 or 100 people at a time. Of course, as anyone in business knows, it's important to let as many people as possible know what you're up to so they can decide if what you're offering is of value to them. Life On Purpose Institute's primary 'product' is enhancing life through purpose. But how do you capture and share the essence of such an apparently intangible product? Well, one of our graduates, Wayne Marshall, has done a marvelous job capturing it through the Life On Purpose Movie. It was his way of expressing his life purpose and helping us with our own impossible mission to be a catalyst for a world on purpose.

WHAT'S YOUR IMPOSSIBLE MISSION?

Are you ready to be inspired out of bed each morning? Pulled forth from the warmth of your bed by a bold, perhaps even impossible mission? What could that be for you? There are plenty to choose from, of course: Ending hunger, ending child abuse, building nurturing environments to encourage creativity, bringing a lasting peace to the world. The list goes on. Of course, I'd recommend you tie your impossible mission to your life purpose so you can tap into that inner strength and power of purpose.

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Article Tags: definiteness, glassy mountain, impossible mission, life on purpose, life purpose, writing down the bones



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