For more on this topic, be sure to check out last week’s post on The Myth of Success.

Like many organizations, some people have mission or vision statements.

However, also like many organizations, while these can be good, they can also be overused, overly vague, or overcomplicated. This can make them useless when actually trying to serve their purpose, namely to inspire or assist in decision making.

This doesn’t meant that the idea is bad, however. Having something simple and overarching by which to evaluate possible choices can be a great way to maintain focus and ensure that you’re living the life you’d like to be.

So how do we get these advantages of having a yardstick by which to measure without leaving it vague and formless?

Choose a single word.

Whether you call this an ideal, a mantra, a goal, a mission, a vision, a core value or whatever, this is a value by which you’re looking to evaluate the things in your life. For GTDer’s out there, it’s like a one word summary of your 50,000ft level.

Each time you find yourself trying to make a larger decision, this can serve as the yardstick by which you measure it’s alignment with how you’d like to live your life. For example, if you were thinking that your yardstick would be “balance”, each time you’re setting a goal in your life, you can refer back and ask yourself, “Does this improve my balance?” For each project you might be starting, ask, ‘Does this project help me work towards my yardstick?”

Now, this doesn’t need to be a constant for your entire life, change is something we should try to embrace. However, the ways in which this changes will more likely be evolutionary instead of revolutionary. There are situations, generally life-changing situations which change the rules of the game, so to speak, in which you might find you do need to drastically change your direction. But for the most part, this would be something that would be refined or evolve to meet new situations, not crumble in front of them.

So take some time to think about what you might be looking for in your life. This can be the first step in defining your idea of success.

Cheers,

Adam

PS. On a related note, Alexandra Levit has posted what success means to her over at Water Cooler Wisdom. What does it mean to you? Share it below in the comments or write a post on your own blog and drop a link here.

Photo by Darren Hester