Imagine a point in the future where you have achieved your greatest professional goal. Invest a moment here. Try to visualize your career success—you are at the top of your game. Imagine you’ve worked hard and have earned this. Now consider this question:
How might that success feel?
I think most people will have some level of contentment or satisfaction. Others may feel a bit of pride in the accomplishment. Some may begin to ponder, “What’s next?” Those responses are all normal and valid.
But now, imagine it’s one month after that major achievement. Consider these questions:
- How do you feel now (one month later)?
- What is motivating you now (since you’ve accomplished your greatest career goal)?
- What occupies your time and your thinking now (both at work and at home)?
Yale professor and economist James Choi tells his students that “the greatest scarcity they will face in their professional lives is not a scarcity of opportunity, but a scarcity of meaning.” He contends that finding happiness in life can be accomplished only by knowing our why.
Choi explains that thinking about some future ultimate success or reaching major life goals can become arrival fallacies. Here, we mistakenly believe that we achieve happiness only after achieving a particular goal. This, he contends, can lead to deep disappointment. He concludes that the only way to find contentment and happiness in life is to identify a purpose.
This blog series will present many reflective questions that will challenge you to think beyond the immediate future and dig below the surface to discover what really matters in life.
As the questions help you zero in on your life’s purpose, you will, subsequently, become more valuable in the workplace. Walking through this process of deep, missional thinking will provide clarity. It will give you the courage to leave a job you dislike or stay and improve one that has great potential. This inward focus will help your outward leadership skillset grow tremendously.
The question prompts shared over the next 6 to 12 months will be rooted in the nonformal mentoring framework I outlined in 2022. It draws upon established methodologies in adult development and learning literature (Kegan, 1994; Knowles, 1968, 1980, 1984; Knowles, Holton & Swanson, 2014), and includes components of motivation theory (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). Overall, nonformal mentoring parallels Coombs & Ahmed’s (1974) concept of nonformal teaching practice.
Are you ready for the challenge?
Are you ready for the opportunity?
Are you ready to define and live your purpose?
The time to begin is now.
Dr. Brian Raison
*I’ll be sharing introspective question prompts in this blog. But you may view and download many at: https://encouragingmentor.com/
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