Clarify your work with three guiding principles

“You should teach this in high schools.” For many, once they leave the institution of education, their career path ends up looking like a squiggly trail left behind by an errant slug. They wander in every which direction, mostly because they were never taught in school how to clarify the key principles that would guide their decisions in life and help them discover the work they are meant to live.

For almost a decade, I did teach in formal schools. Several of them, actually. However, my students were long past secondary education, oftentimes into their second, even third, careers. I taught business fundamentals to those who were training in wellness professions that would require them to start and operate their own practices, studios, or clinics. It was through this experience that I myself came to understand the necessity of having clear guiding principles.

Time and again, I would see people launch their businesses only to find themselves confused and months or years later end up in the same state of disillusionment that led them to making a career change to begin with. The decisions they were making (or not making) sent them down unnecessary dead-ends, wasting their precious time and resources, and ultimately, leaving them unfulfilled.

From my observations of those who struggled, I identified a gap. There was a lack of alignment between what they were attempting to bring to the world and who they were within. It wasn’t their fault. Conventional education doesn’t emphasize the importance of integrating the inner and outer facets of who we are into our work. My own school was birthed from the desire of wanting to help close this gap. At the outset of my curriculum, I have people clarify their personal guiding principles. This is essential so they can create work centred in what’s true for them. It’s also what gives them the energy, focus, and commitment to bring their work to life.

Your three guiding principles

Years ago, when I first started sharing about these principles outside the walls of my own classroom, I would lower my voice to almost a whisper. I worried that when I mentioned “purpose, vision, and mission”, others would be repelled by the terms, thinking them to be too “corporate”. But there is a very good reason why many of those corporate statements are so off-putting. Most of them are devoid of any heart and soul. They were generated from the mind with the goal of persuading customers or appeasing shareholders rather than being a genuine expression of a meaningful truth for the people who work within the company.

Given that my work is aligned with what I believe, I do have a somewhat unique perspective as to the definitions and usage of each of these principles. To me, they are all expressions of a truth that is fundamental to your own existence.

PURPOSE: The embodiment of your truth.

Who are you here to be? This is the core question of purpose. A purpose is not an action you undertake, it is an internal state of being. Through your embodiment, you imbue this quality into everything you do. Purpose is a self-determined reason for being, meaning that nothing or no one outside of yourself can tell you what your purpose is, you choose it for yourself. One of the simplest ways to determine your purpose is to identify the feeling state you most wish to personify in your life – the one that represents the truth of who you are. To live as it is what I consider to be your real work.

VISION: The expansion of your truth.

Why are you here? A vision is much grander than most allow it to be. It’s not just a goal – it is the highest possibility you can imagine for the world. It is the world you dream of inhabiting. It is a beacon of possibility to live into. Your vision is not intended to shape the way that others live, it is meant to have a profound impact on the way you live yourself. As you stand in the centre of your vision (i.e., you embody your purpose), your essence radiates outward, and this naturally influences the world around you. Your vision guides your actions in that it answer the question of “why” to all that you do.

MISSION: The experience of your truth.

What are you here to do? Typically, when people seek out their inspired work, they begin with the question of “what”. However, until you are clear about your purpose and vision, your mission won’t be grounded in anything meaningful to you. Once you are clear, then you can answer the more extended version of the question, which is “what are you here to create that will allow you to share your strengths and gifts with others in ways that provide opportunities for them to fulfill the experiences they want to have in their own lives?” Your mission becomes a pathway to the realization of your own vision and you invite others to join you on the journey. Together, you work toward a mutually-desired outcome.

Why it matters to have guiding principles

At one time, I was a part of an informal group of women entrepreneurs who all lived in my local community. We would gather monthly with the intention of supporting each other in our individual endeavours. Inevitably, the reasons for meeting became blurred and our time together wasn’t being directed toward anything useful. I made the suggestion that we spend a couple of hours clarifying our guiding principles for the group so that we could formalize our reasons for gathering. One of my colleagues piped up, “Oh, I don’t have time for that vision crap.” There were a couple other murmurs of agreement. I just smiled inwardly. I knew what that meant. Sure enough, three months later, the group disbanded due to lack of interest. There was no meaningful reason to be together, so we drifted apart.

Guiding principles are not some flaky, abstract notions concocted by people who have “too much time on their hands”. They are essential to supporting us in making meaningful decisions and inspiring us to real-world actions, especially in regard to our work.

In your day-to-day, having clear guiding principles will help you to:

• Know the who, why, and what of the work you are here to do
• Access a more truthful story about who you are
• Sustain a positive emotional state
• Have a point of reference to return to when you believe you’ve gotten off course
• Connect with your source of energy
• Ground into what’s real
• Expand into what’s possible
• Unify your creative ideas
• Provide a nurturing container for your work to grow
• Direct your efforts toward something meaningful
• Maintain consistency in action
• Build momentum in the creation of your work
• Form aligned collaborations with others
• Stay true to what matters to you

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Nowadays, I no longer shy away from talking about these guiding principles. Rather, I shout them from the rooftops in the hopes they are useful for whose ever ears they find. If you wish to discover the work you are here to create, you will want to start by answering the core question of each principle as outlined above. Your purpose, vision, and mission all work in harmony to bring your inspired work to life.

I agree, it would have been useful to have this kind of guidance early on in life. To know what mattered to me and to have aligned my decisions accordingly may have prevented a lot of my own aimless wandering. However, from wherever you are now, if you dedicate just a few hours to clarifying your own truth, you will save yourself from wasting an extraordinary amount of your life doing work that was never meant to be yours to begin with.