Irresponsibility can be an addiction as strong as drugs or alcohol,

What is my purpose in life?

This question has frozen a lot of us in our tracks, the extent of the answer and its ramifications are so huge that it looks like an impossible riddle.

Any problem you tackle in life is made easy if you do two things:

1. Achieve a clear understanding of the problem.
2. Fragment it into smaller, easier problems.

If the objective is to find your purpose in life, you can divide the problem into 10 small steps, which can be done in a week each, and in only 3 months it’s possible to get a clear vision of something that was murky and hard to define.

The motive behind each article in this program has been to find the pieces of the puzzle that is called your life. So if you have been following the series of articles during the past 3 months, it’s now time to sit down and put it all together, on the contrary I invite you to start at step one.

For this step you only need a quiet place to think, your lists, pencil and paper.

The process is:

1. Check your commitments list to make sure that your projects lists is complete, an inventory of the end points of all current efforts.
2. Read the projects list carefully, trying to find the inherent pattern inside it, this is akin to decoding a cipher: there is no recipe that always works. But I can assure you that there is something your projects have in common, a series of Macro-Projects that are almost never more than 7, they can be in the type of “Getting a promotion” “Be a better father” or “keeping my spouse happy”.
3. When you find the 7 Macro-Projects, imagine that 10 years have passed and every one of them was successfully completed, visualize that future self and ask the question: Is this who I want to be?
4. If the answer is affirmative, I congratulate you and admit to some envy… in my case it was very different, I noticed that my Macro-Projects, the things that all my tasks had in common, was a road that others had chosen for me and was leading to someone who I did not want to become. I didn’t know what I wanted, but at least I was clear that my life was being led down the wrong road.
5. Once you get the big picture clear, try to relate this pattern with the journal, finding entries in common with the Macro-Projects. Evaluate which of the entries are happy, and which are sad… remember that our feelings are like an internal compass that helps us find the correct direction. Now ask yourself: Which of my Macro-Projects gives me the most joy? In your life and in your actions there is happiness, and in it is the key to discovering your mission and destiny.
6. Think of the Macro-Projects that point you in the happiest direction, and try to find the pattern contained within them. There you will find your purpose in life.

This exercise was one of the most revealing moments in my life, and even though a lot has changed from that day, every time I do the exercise I’m surprised to find out that my end goals have not changed, even though I do.

It’s like a central anchor point, where you can always return in times of trouble, part of my purpose is to help others find that center and even though the actions I take to achieve this change over time, the final objective remains the same.

Never lose sight of that goal, even though it may sometimes seem unattainable and frustration makes you want to give up, someday a surprise will come and you will find out that no step was taken in vain.

I would love to read your goals; you can post them on the comments section of this post or at my @alexmrv twitter.

Happy decoding!

Alex.

Irresponsibility can be an addiction as strong as drugs or alcohol,

Between 1337 and 1452 occurred a series of events historians call “the war of the 100 years”.

The 113 years of conflict between England and France is a period that defined our global reality, and I take it as an example of persistency and focus.

The war was eventually “won” (if such a thing can be said about war), by France. This victory wasn’t the consequence of one heroic encounter between two majestic armies, like in the movies, but the sum of battles beyond count, not only in the field of war, but also in politics, religion and economy.

Our modern culture of “immediate resolution” has taught us that things get resolved within fixed timeframes: Soccer matches get won in 90 minutes if the allotted time runs out we go to penalties to resolve the issue… our relationships have shorter courtships (sex on the third date) and our food gets served in 90 seconds. Even websites highlight what we should read and products offer immediate and easy solutions to all kinds of problems.

I believe this is the reason we react to badly to a defeat, we think it’s the end of the war; we have lost the ability to see our efforts as the sum of a series of small victories during a span of time.

In the war of the 100 years, England had the strategic, economic and military advantage. Their advanced technology (the long bow) and their revolutionary government of centralized parliament gave them the abilities they needed to take most of France.

But, just when Orleans was under siege, Joan of Arc arrived and led to a series of events that eventually ended with the expulsion of the English army from French territory.

If we see this story from different points of view, we can extract different lessons:

1. The English: It doesn’t matter if you have a position of power, if you overextend and commit with more than you can achieve, its only matter of time until someone finds your weak point and exploits it to defeat you. Advance should be timely, calculated and inexhaustible. 100 years of victory count for nothing if you are defeated in the next 13, we have to be patient and constant in our goals.
2. The French: You haven’t lost until you are defeated. Even if there were only a square foot of French territory, they didn’t give up. Morale was low and everything seemed to be lost, but the inspiration of Joan of Arc arrived, then Burgundy made a change of alliance, then the war ended with Jeans Bureau.

During the Second World War, Sir Winston Churchill said of the potential German invasion of England: “We will fight them in our beaches, we will fight them in our fields, we will fight in the hills and in the streets… we will never surrender!”

This is a war, have no doubt of it. A continuous struggle between the will to be better than we are and the temptation to just let go, so reward yourself for the small victories, and don’t punish the small losses; Down the road you will find a lot of both, but as long as the conviction is firm and the step is constant, I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I can guarantee you will emerge in glory as conqueror of your life.