As one year draws to a close and another dawns, I find it both instructive and insightful to reflect on my goals for the passing year as well as consider and set goals for the coming year. How successful was I in meeting my goals? Did I accomplish anything I hadn’t expected to? Given the lessons learned in the year passing, what challenges do I want to carry into the New Year and what new challenges do I want to meet?
There is great benefit from regularly and continually revisiting the purposes behind our actions. If my purpose was simply to maintain the status quo, accomplish a simple task or just get through the day, I am mired in a novice’s perspective – a perspective that hardly takes advantage of my skills, knowledge, or experiences. If, however, your purpose is to think several steps ahead so your collective efforts amount to something cumulative, this is characteristic of top performers. The reason is that in relying on long-term goals and plans top performers insure that their efforts work toward the ‘bigger picture’ of progress and success. Stephen Covey describes this characteristic as ‘beginning with the end in mind’. “By keeping the end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.” In short, top performers have a clear purpose for doing what they do because they recognize the power of purpose.
May peace and joy be yours in 2010.
