Your business is just a job, without a Mission.
What is your mission is a huge question, it basically boils down to what is the meaning of your life?
I have no idea and I’m not going to try to even attempt to answer that for anyone. All I know is that I am my best self and feel most alive when I have something bigger than myself to aim for.
Growing up I wanted to be a professional athlete. Yes, it would have been a fun job, but it is still a job and I treated it like a job, working out 5-8 hours per day. My mission behind this was to try to set an example for young people where I grew up. By showing them that if a 5-foot 9 kid from England can become a professional basketball player, then they can do anything.
The dream, mission, vision or whatever you want to call it made my drive for success so much bigger than just being about my life. So, whenever it got hard I just had to think about the impact I could make on other people if I made it.
I truly believe you can get through anything with the right mission.
To fund my dream of becoming a professional athlete I worked as a landscaper, a house painter, a cleaner and even a grave digger. They were the worst jobs, but in my mind, I was on a mission and this was just a means to the ends, not the ends.
When I eventually stopped playing basketball I still had some left-over drive and motivation. Therefore, I was able to easily pivot and use this hunger to start my own businesses. Just like training as an athlete, creating a business was hard work and hard work is something I know I can do.
After working non-stop for 3 years, the business started to grow and I didn’t have to do everything anymore. I started to notice my motivation beginning to waiver, I started to snooze my alarm clock, I spent time just sitting on social media or sat on the couch watching Netflix for hours. When I was doing everything in the business I was tired, but now I was doing less and felt even more exhausted, all the time. It felt like I was walking around in a daze.
I eventually realized the problem. I no longer had a mission. I was opening businesses, I was chasing success, but I had no idea why or what my end goal was.
After recently spending more time with business owners, I have noticed that they are going through the same thing. Especially owners who had started to gain some success and were able to step back from their business slightly.
Business owner or not, we all need a mission. We all need something bigger than ourselves to aim for!