Page 28 - Demo

28Too many people focus their life mission around temporary things. If you do, you're doomed to failure. Whatever your mission is in life, it must be permanent. Life is a journey, and whether you're 20, 30, 60 or 80 years old, your life mission should be thesame. I would implore you to adopt the one that Jesus did %u2013%u201cPlease God.%u201dVisionAlthough one%u2019s mission of life should never change, one%u2019s vision should change. Vision is the optimum implementation of your mission at any point and time. Vision is your ideal picture of your life. It is the picture you paint of your desired state of affairs over a period of time, three to five years.Let's go back to our example with Ford. In 1880, Henry Ford said my mission is transporting people. How will I best do that in the next five years? Well, the answer in 1880 was to build good buggies. In 1900, he asked that same question, how do I best implement my mission over the next five years? His answer was no longer the same. His vision had changed.In my life, my mission is to please God. Now how do I best do that over the next five years? The answer I give to that question is my vision statement. The vision will vary from person to person. Your vision will vary based upon your gifts, your experiences, your background and your opportunities. Your vision will vary in your own life from time to time. How do I best please God over the next five years? Quite frankly, a 20yearold will probably answer that question differently than a 60-year-old. But if you%u2019re going to live the maximum life you need 1) a concise mission statement, written down and memorized always reminding you of what you want to do with your life and 2) a vision statementwith a written picture of how you plan to be fulfilling that mission over the next three to five years.Now because we human beings are the most complex creations in the world, a vision is not always easy to craft. It could be pretty hard to look at a total composite picture, write out a comprehensive vision statement of how we best please God and use the gifts that He has given to us. Perhaps the best way to create a vision statement for your life is to break life down into some basic areas and craft a piece of the vision statement for each major area.There are a number of ways to do that, but here's one way that I like that appears to work very well. I encourage people to construct their vision statement around what I call the four P's.Passion -how you approach life.What do you love to do? How has God made you? With what kind of attitude will you approach life? When you begin to answer those questions, you've started your vision statement.Purpose -what do you want to accomplish in life?What impact do you plan to make in your life? How do you want to be remembered once you%u2019re dead and gone? What contribution do you want to make to your immediate community? What is your purpose in life?