Take A Big Step Up In 2015!

I never liked setting goals for the new year. I never understood why I was doing it. Sure, I could work out, and I could save more money. Maybe if I worked really hard at it, I could keep my closets organized.

I felt that making resolutions at home and at work had more to do with pleasing other people or meeting some imaginary test ("Am I a good and worthy person?") than with anything inside myself.

Then I figured out why that was so.

I went to work at a company that was growing out of its skin. In that setting, annual goal-setting wasn't about pleasing anyone or meeting some arbitrary target pasted on the wall.

If we knew we had to hire three thousand people in the new year, for instance, we had to figure out how to get it done. We were part of a larger mission.

For the first time in my career, my goals weren't set by higher-ups but by the natural reality of our situation and our forward momentum. That connection between my goals and the movement of the waves around me was a thousand times more exciting than the opportunity to get a gold star or a performance bonus.

I saw my place in the larger mission very clearly, for the first time ever.

"Ah," I said to myself. "Now I understand. Goals aren't just tick marks to hit so we can get prizes and pats on the head, or consider ourselves good little boys and girls. Real goals support our mission."

We had a company mission, but I wasn't sure what my own mission was. I used to stress like crazy about dropping my New Year's resolutions like hot potatoes every year around Valentines Day.

Of course I dropped them! They weren't tied to anything I really cared about. I only made New Year's resolutions every year because there seemed to be a message in the air saying "You should set resolutions -- that's what responsible people do!"

We are deluged with messages like that. We all feel we should be thinner and richer and smarter than we are. We should keep up with the latest books, films and music. We should aim higher, do more than we do now and replace that embarrassing landscaping in the front yard.

We are bombarded with messages that say "You should! You should! Don't you care what people think?"

Goals that come from the place "You really should, you know" are not your goals -- they're someone else's goals laid on you, in case everyday life is not enough of a challenge.

The question to ask at this time of year is not "What do I want to accomplish next year?" but rather "Why am I alive? What do I want to accomplish in my time here on earth?"

That is a very different question. Most of the goals we set as we step into a new year have nothing to do with our purpose. "I'll refresh the landscaping in front of my house" is a perfect example. How will new landscaping help you accomplish what you were born to do? It's a distraction from your purpose, as most of our goals tend to be.

We tend to set small, incremental goals for ourselves, without asking the questions "Why are these my goals?" and "What is the point of my forward motion, unless I know where I'm headed?"

We can easily forget that we only get eighty or ninety years on the planet if we are lucky. In the business world we think "I'll get promoted this year -- hurrah for me!"

The real world echoes back at us "So what? Why is that promotion important?"

If you earn more money in 2015 than you did last year, you can buy some nice things. You can take a great vacation, and God knows you deserve it. Still the question remains: what am I meant to be doing with the time I've been given? When my life is over, do I want people to say about me "Remember when she landscaped her yard? It looked amazing."

A big step up in 2015 is a step that moves you down your path. What is your path? What do you want to accomplish in your eighty or ninety years?

I didn't know how to answer that question for the longest time. I knew that work was broken. I knew that only the energy that mojo-powered humans create together can get anything important done, and I knew that the term "anything important" only made sense in a human context.

That's all I knew. I was frustrated and bewildered.

The clouds began to part in 2011. In 2012 we started our company, Human Workplace. When I filed my taxes that year my accountant asked me "Why did you decide to reduce your income by 75% this year compared to last year?"

"I figured out my mission," I said. My colleagues told their accountants the same thing. The income came back, but more importantly, the mission got clearer and stronger. Now it's obvious, but I had to walk through the desert to get here. The desert is the worst!

The desert is the place you must walk through to get from one state in your life to another. It's an awful place. You want certainty, and there's none. You want validation for your choices, and you don't get it. The good thing about the desert is that you have the most freedom there.

You aren't bound to any plan or schedule. You get to decide what your life is supposed to be about. It's a gift to walk in the desert, but it isn't any fun.

That's why we say "Maybe I'll get promoted next year!" and "I hope I have a great performance review!" We say those things, and believe them, because meeting somebody else's yardstick feels like real progress when we have no idea where our path lies.

At least when we are following somebody else's plan, we feel that we're being industrious and diligent.

Only in the middle of the night does the little voice speak to us: "What is the point of all your hard work? What difference does it make to the world?"

Your job in 2015 is to look for your path. You won't find it in an aptitude test or your annual performance appraisal. It's an inward-looking process. You have to get out the mirror and look in it, and that can be painful.

We think "I'm too old to go chasing windmills" but of course we're never too old for that. Chasing windmills, in fact, is the only activity that deserves our time and attention, as long as we're guided by our conviction and the experience that life has given us.

Your path might take you into a scary place, a desert of your own. Your path might be far removed from what you're doing now. When you find the courage to ask "What will happen if I listen to my inner voice, and tune out the noise?" your path will gradually become clearer and more sure. There'll be flowers along the path and a brook over the next hill, where there was only desolation and emptiness before.

I turned 55 yesterday. My mission feels urgent now. Very lofty executives don't impress me anymore. I only want to know one thing from each new person I meet on my path, and that is the answer to the question "What's your mission?"

When we coach people in career change, we ask them what they want to do, and then we ask them, "Why?"

Why do you want to change careers?

Because I can make more money.

Why do you want to make more money?

Because it's good to make money.

How will it help you on your path to have more money?

What do you mean by 'my path'?

There's an opportunity for learning. What if you explored that question, to see where the exploration takes you?

The question at this time of year is not "What will I accomplish in 2015?"

The question is "What can I do in 2015 to figure out what my life is for, and move in the direction of that mission?"

What else could "a big step up" possibly mean?

Song of the day: Johnny Nash "I Can See Clearly Now"

Read Molly Campbell's column "Looking Back Gets You Ahead" here!

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Michael Wilcox

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