2023 On Purpose

 “Happy New Year!” Now the New Year’s dust has settled and we’re finally under no illusions that we’re in 2023, I wanted to propose that perhaps we aim to make 2023 more than “happy”. Let’s go for purposeful. Let’s intend to be at our best and make an impact across the various areas of our life. Whether you’re a resolutions person or not, take a quick read and see whether this simple approach (and the framework embedded below) may be helpful to you. My Business Partners Neil and Nell will be sharing a couple of different approaches to making 2023 purposeful later this month, so keep an eye out for those too.

I’ve created and used various reflective & planning frameworks over the last few years and they have all been helpful. This latest one, best compliments our One Page Purpose Game Plan – the multi-year framework we use for people to map out their best self (see here). It also stands out as the framework, most clearly aligned for advancing on-Purpose behaviors, relationships and experiences.

For context:

In all our work with companies, we embed individual purpose as a core, foundational element to people performing at their best – authentically for themselves and for each other. It’s been super-powerful work that has helped people elevate and sustain their contribution and commitment to the things that matter most. Regardless of whether you have done your own individual purpose work, you can still live on-Purpose, if you consider these three things:

1)    What things (and people) inspire me? Am I excited to dive in, accept the challenge, immerse in the experience?

2)    What things (and people) are fulfilling to me? Do they fill my bucket, create moments that matter, like a made a difference?

3)    What things (and people) make me happy? Do they make me smile, ignite joy, establish enjoyable memories?

These three things – inspiration, happiness and fulfillment each sit at the intersection between two of Passion, Impact & Application, in our Individual Purpose Discovery model  (here). So, if you’re able to experience all three – you’re living at the center – ‘on-Purpose’.

Framework Overview:

 I personally like some structure at the beginning of the year. I like to think holistically about my whole-self and life, and ensure that the goals, commitments & actions I make to each are aligned, complimentary to each other and realistic. Most importantly however, for the things that deserve documenting (vs the things that will just happen anyway), I want them to be on-Purpose. So, I think of these things through filters of inspiration, happiness and fulfillment and aim to pick items which, wherever possible, have elements of all three, or at least material elements of at least two.

I then give myself a little ‘On Purpose Score’ / 10 for each item after I have drafted them, as a intuitive gut-check of each’s meaning. If something has a low score, it either doesn’t deserve to be in the framework, or it’s what we could call a “hill sprint” which means that while it may be a little painful or less on-Purpose in isolation, it importantly enables something else with a high score to happen. In literal terms of the definition, that could participating in a hill sprint in order to perform in a race (a separate, more meaningful action); in practical application terms it may refer to a priority administrative task, that is a pre-requisite that enables you to perform better – for example in my case, hiring a VA at work, so I can build capacity for business development and client delivery, with my Partners.

We have integrated our Partner Nell’s Spheres of Impact ™ model into our work. This framework uses the 6 areas of this model to consider all areas of our life: self (mind, body, spirit), friends and family, work (my role), company (broader organizational culture, impact, etc), community, money. See more detail here in our article for using the Spheres of Impact™ for gratitude.

These spheres above form the rows for the framework, within which sit your specific goals, commitments and actions (as columns):

1)    Impact Goal: What difference do I want to make in this area? What’s the end state / what does success look like 12/31/23?

2)    Commitment: What’s the overarching objective I’m committed to, to move towards this goal?

3)    Action: What’s the priority action / actions that will move this commitment forward?

Note, the plan doesn’t list every single commitment and action. The idea is to focus on the most potent parts, get them documented, and to get going to build momentum! Whatever comes from there, you know is on-Purpose and working towards a meaningful goal.

In the worksheet you’ll see a second tab with partially created components from my plan, to the extent that’s helpful for your reference.

Let us know any questions and how you get on.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you optimize your impact individually or as a team in 2023, please get in touch.