Foundations
foundation
Its important to set the right foundation for us to achieve anything truly remarkable in life. This where mindsets are crucial along with some other considerations such as vision, passion, purpose and action.
First and foremost as mindsets can shape one’s destiny… in my opinion, one needs a growth mindset to look at life and participate in a manner that will be helpful and yield the greatest results in the long term. A fixed mindset is likely to stunt one’s growth, fall victim to negative self-views, and lead to excessive cynicism. People with fixed mindsets generally don’t place a lot of emphasis on personal growth and can often as a result not seek out new opportunities.
Those with a growth mindset can help individuals build strong relationships around them, help them cope with failure by focusing on growth, and foster a more positive attitude and outlook on life. There are other mindsets such as abundance mindset, benefit mindset, etc. that will be covered in my blog posts.
The next important thing after mindset is to focus on vision. It is what guides you to a life of meaning and direction in order to make our long term goals and purpose become a reality. Having a clear vision can help you avoid wasting resources and prevent mistakes. I find dreamlining to be a great exercise when it comes to vision setting. Note this is just one example of vision setting and there are plenty of other ways to set a great vision for yourself.
Next, we need passion. Discovering your passion can be one of the most difficult yet rewarding things that you can do. It requires thought, reflection, experimentation, and understanding of what makes you feel happy, energised, and fulfilled.
A quick google search for the word “passion” will lead to multiple definitions of the word. The context we’re after here is when “Passion can range from eager interest in or admiration for an idea, proposal or cause; to enthusiastic enjoyment of an interest or activity.” Eg. I am passionate about yoga and meditation. I am also passionate about self-improvement, hence why I love reading a lot of books and am keen to share my knowledge and life lessons with others.
Consider the activities that make you feel proud or excited and when you are completely absorbed and time stands still. This is what discovering your passion is all about – what brings you joy and fulfillment.
It should be noted that there is a clear distinction between hobbies (something you do for fun during your leisure time) and passion (something you would love to do constantly and you cannot live without). Also, passion alone isn’t enough to achieve anything truly remarkable…
“Activity without purpose is the drain of your life” – Tony Robbins
You also need purpose – the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc. an intended or desired result. Essentially, when you do something with purpose, you do it with determination. So when your activities/hobbies have a purpose, you have an aim or intention in mind. The better defined your purpose, the easier you’ll be able to explain your aim or intention to others regarding the activities/hobbies you undertake. “Activity without purpose is the drain of your life” – Tony Robbins. If you think about this, you’ll realise how fundamentally true it is.
Eg. The purpose of me doing yoga is so I can keep my mind and body flexible as I get older. Furthermore, research has shown that yoga extends your life for those who do it regularly. There is a myriad of other benefits which I’ll cover later.
We also need action – the act or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim. If we take no action, even with the most meaningful purpose, we will get no where. The world’s best entrepreneurs, scientists, teachers, comedians, etc. and/or anyone truly successful in their field(s) will tell you how important it is to take action. Eg. You could be really passionate about playing soccer and might even want to join your dream soccer team one day. However, without taking action (in this case practice and repetition) – time spent playing soccer to work on the different skillsets such as passing the ball, mastering foot tricks, shooting goals, being the goalie etc. will be nothing more than a pipe dream.
Taking action matters a lot and the longer you’ve been in the field taking action Eg. Crafting your skillsets or learning the job, intuitively you can expect to get better results (assuming you’ve been taking steps in the right direction). Of course, there are times when doing nothing or ‘inaction’ can be just as useful. Eg. You might have bought some stocks on the stock market after careful due diligence on your side. After a short period say 3-months, you’ve noticed that these have dropped in share price slightly and a lot of people are starting to panic and selling their stocks. At this point, you have 3 options – you can either i) Sell your shares and take a hit with your losses, ii) Buy more of these shares in the dip of the market (bet against the crowd) or iii) do nothing (inaction) and just hold onto your stocks. If you are confident about these stocks going back up, in the long-term you would not panic and either buy in the dip or do nothing. Doing nothing in this case simply implies that you are willing for the stock price to bounce back or rise in the long-term (assuming that it does).
Different situations in life and in business will call for various responses and that’s why you have to work in your circle of competence. There is also a point to be made of slowly increasing your circle of competence so you can function well in other spheres of your life and career much like operating outside your comfort zones.
Inevitably it is the combination of vision, passion, purpose and action that yields the greatest results. The analogy can be looked at similar to a very simplified version of the Japanese concept of “Ikigai”. When somone is operating with these 4 elements with the correct intention in mind along with integrity, they will have the desired intrinsic motivation and drive to bring their vision and goals to life.