“What’s your mission?”
It’s a question all of us ponder and even wrestle with when we want to have meaningful lives. Those of us who start a business, even a small one-person operation, have to figure this out. For a business it might be a practical statement like “I help people keep their records and information organized so they’re ready and stress-free at tax time.” For a people-oriented service business it can be more personal like “I help people who have struggled with a weight problem their whole lives change their relationships with food and exercise so they can be healthier.”
With the kind of business I have, my business mission intersects with my personal mission. Early in the process of discovering what I wanted my business to look like, I wrote and rewrote my personal mission. A longer version at one point was To be a catalyst for personal growth and development through genuine dynamic relationships that expand to create welcoming and nourishing communities. Pretty overdone, isn’t it? I came up with a shortened version: To ignite hearts and encourage others to do the same.
But what was the point? Growth and development, igniting hearts, communities… why did they matter?
They mattered to me because underneath these ideas was the intersection of my interests and natural abilities on one path and my values and beliefs on another. On the values side, I respect the importance of conformity – up to a point – but I am a champion for individuality. Conformity gives us language so we can communicate, and rules and guidelines so we can get along and help each other out. But there’s always a tradeoff. The more a person conforms to the expectations of others and the rules of a culture, the less that person’s individual uniqueness is expressed.
When someone is raised in a family of professionals with social status, there are all sorts of expectations placed on that person. I started to list some, but it got depressing just thinking about someone living with the weight of those requirements. Let’s just agree that this person will feel a lot of pressure to fit in with a professional, status-driven world.
What if this person is a young woman with an aesthetic heart and mind who sees the world in a unique way? What if she sees patterns in natural things that others miss, but can present them to the world through photography and multimedia art?
Or what if this person is a young man who loves taking things apart and putting them together to see how they work? What if he especially loves engines and is so “in tune” with them (pun intended) that he’s like an engine whisperer?
This is where my own interests and natural abilities enter my mission. Early on I was a people watcher. I wanted to know what made people tick. As I’ve matured (well, up to a point) and learned things, I’ve expanded this to become a people cultivator. I not only enjoy understanding what makes them tick. I’ve also learned how that ticking develops.
I know that people have unique combinations of abilities and strengths – or gifts and talents – at birth. I know that they will feel most alive and most energized when they develop and use their strengths and talents. And I know they will be frustrated and discouraged when they don’t.
I know that this is kind of like the phenomenon called “failure to thrive.” When infants aren’t given enough interaction, physical touch, affection, and freedom to explore their environment (stimulation for their senses), they experience something that looks like severe baby depression. They eat less. They grow less. They fall off the developmental charts in terms of their milestones like grabbing things, rolling over, and crawling.
As babies they have all these natural abilities they need to develop just to become mobile, capable, interactive children. When they aren’t free to develop those abilities, they’re deprived. They’re miserable.
As adults we all have natural abilities we need to develop. We have the basics of communicating and manipulating the environment down so we can handle tasks. We can take care of ourselves, even if we’re not good at remembering all the ways we should. But unless we develop our unique combination of gifts and talents, we also live in deprivation.
I value individuality. I value the uniqueness of a person with a particular combination of gifts and talents. I understand that person will be fulfilled and enjoy life more by developing and using those gifts and talents. I understand that person will be stifled and live in deprivation if prevented from developing and using those gifts and talents.
The young woman with the aesthetic vision has to develop her skills in photography and other visual media or she will be stifled and deprived. The young engine whisperer has to develop his mechanical skills in order to enjoy his life and not be miserable.
People whose gifts and talents don’t match the world they live in feel like misfits. They think there’s something wrong with them, or they get angry at the world around them wondering if it’s wrong. It’s not so much that either is wrong. It’s that they just don’t make a good fit. The solution is to find the right soil where they can thrive. It’s a simple answer, but a hard thing to do sometimes.
It takes a lot of courage to leave the world you know and go looking for something you’ve never found, some place you’ve never been. It takes a lot of persistence to stay on that kind of quest, with its obstacles and confusing choices and wrong turns. It takes a lot of flexibility to handle the changing terrain and the unexpected challenges without falling on your face all the time.
It takes the skills of a Trailblazer. A Trailblazer is like an all-terrain vehicle. A Trailblazer is adaptable and flexible as the road turns to mud, or when the steep hill is covered in loose gravel. A Trailblazer know how to navigate by the stars, especially the north star, the personal compass of values and meaningful vision that guide the Trailblazer. A Trailblazer can figure out which direction to head even when the goal is obscured. A Trailblazer can improvise in a new situation based on experience and skills learned in other situations.
But most of all a Trailblazer isn’t stuck on the well-paved road following the rest of the people to places already known. The Trailblazer has the dexterity to head into unexplored territory, scout it out, and create an outpost. The Trailblazer can use that outpost to explore further, and can then grow that outpost into a settlement and even a town, carving something out of the wilderness that attracts other people.
A Trailblazer owns her own productivity and creativity. A Trailblazer claims his gifts and talents as his best tools. A Trailblazer owns her own life and all the possibility that includes. A Trailblazer embraces his freedom, along with all the risk that involves, and claims his power to make things happen instead of waiting around for others to take care of him.
It might sound corny to some, but to me it is meaningful at a very deep level. A Trailblazer is a tribute to our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
This is an article from my e-mail newsletter The Trailblazer. What do you think? Does this sound like your approach to life, or an approach to life you want to learn more about? You may be a Trailblazer! Consider this quote: “The natural state of the… human being is joy. Work and problem solving are the natural activities of the human being. We are designed to be joyful adventurers.” I want to help you embrace the adventure. Trailblazing is a life for joyful adventurers. It’s a journey of exploration, discovery, and integration. It’s about cultivating our natural gifts and talents and pursuing work that honors our values, connects us to others, and helps us grow. Sign up for The Trailblazer and join the journey. I will never sell, rent, or trade your information. Not ever. Period! When you sign up I’ll send you The Trailblazer once or twice a month, and I’ll send out a note or an update from time to time, but I definitely won’t be blasting you with lots of e-mail. In fact, I’m more likely to go too long without sending a message than I am to send you too many. I don’t want to waste your time, and I sure don’t want to waste mine! It’s all about Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. My mission for The Trailblazer is to help liberate people who are stifled by other people’s expectations and their own limiting thoughts. I love to see people break free from suffocating boxes and cubicles and step out of the ruts of their daily lives, embracing the sunshine and the fresh air of freedom and possibility. I love to see people uncover their natural gifts and talents and connect with their passions – all part of the core Self – so they can design their life and work around them. A lot of the time that kind of creative, authentic, self-directed work leads to self-employment. In The Trailblazer I write about the journey to self-employment, from self-discovery to designing your worklife around your core Self to starting and growing a small business. Occasionally I write about marketing as a tool of personal empowerment. It’s a vital skill set that will help you achieve your goal if you choose self-employment. Are you interested in learning about the journey of self-discovery that leads to custom designing your life and work? Are you interested in ideas that help you embrace personal freedom through self-employment? Sign up! Remember – I will never sell, rent, or trade your information. Not ever. Period!
~ Maren Schmidt, Author and Montessori expert