Principles of Personal Vision [Part 2]: Starting with the end in mind

I have decided to open my mind a lot recently and have explored various different career paths to see if these were for me.

Inner Compass

Let's start with my mothers funeral which I feel serves as a useful basis for which to develop my own life plan. I can picture myself leaving my hometown in the funeral cars, following the hearse through Chineham, the A339 and onto the M3 heading towards Basingstoke Crematorium. When we arrived I immediately noticed the over 100 friends and family stood waiting outside and as we walked into the crematorium building I noticed the flowers, the soft organ music. You could feel the shared sorrow of loosing mum, as well as the joy of having known her, and this quite clearly radiated from the people attending the funeral. All these people came to honour her, to express feelings of love and appreciation of her life. These people included immediate and extended family including children, sisters, cousins, and grandparents who travelled from all over the country to attend. As a child I sat waiting in the crematorium building with the programme of service in my hand, there were to be two speakers; namely me and my father. My father gave a sense of what she was like as a person, and my speech (which was subsequently read on my behalf) was how I knew of her as a baby, toddler and child. I had to earn money from an early age delivering newspapers and this taught me the importance of seeking financial independence. Her loss also taught me the importance of intimacy.

Life Goals

In relation to my life, I would want people to remember me as someone who was good at writing; the sort of husband who always does his fair share of the chores, plays music; the sort of friend who you can come to if you had worries; an independent, self starting worker who just gets on with it. I want to be remembered as the sort of person who contributes through writing. Therefore, beginning with the end in sight can help to create a frame of reference through which everything else is examined. By keeping the end in mind, I can make certain that whatever I do on each individual day does not violate the criteria as a meaningful way in which to live my life.

Early Career

Over the first 10 years of my working life I have noticed how hard it is to get caught up in an activity trap whereby you keep pushing and pushing harder to climb the career ladder only at a later date to find out that it was leaning against the wrong wall. Therefore, in summary, my first professional job taught me that its possible to be very busy but not very effective. My first job taught me that I was able to achieve a high income but this came at the expense of things that were more deeply valuable to me; and are now gone.

My main thoughts early on in my career are that I must work more overtime or working late in an effort to get a new raise. I used to be the type of guy who would call my then girlfriend to tell her I have to stay behind at work, assuming she'll understand that economic needs come first. I thought a lot about the opportunities that my early career experiences gave me, the job and the possibility of exchanging a few points of view with my boss. I was the type of person who gave myself a pat on the back for putting in the hours well beyond what was required, to demonstrate evidence of what a hard worker I am. I did this because I wanted my then girlfriend to be proud of me.

If we keep climbing the wrong ladder then every step we take just takes us one step further in the wrong direction. My first job taught me how to be vulnerable and that I have for a large part of my life been dependent on others and their needs for acceptance and love; for belonging, a sense of importance and worth. The management team at my first job taught me how to do things right, the leadership team taught me how to do the right things. The right things include investing income. I was the sort of junior worker that was so busy cutting through the undergrowth that I didn't even realise I was in the wrong jungle. I didn't get an awful lot of job satisfaction from wrestling with managements direction issues, the culture building issues, the deep analysis of problems and the seizing of new opportunities. I did get satisfaction from the financial independence this job gave me, and with the exception of a car loan, the job taught me that I will never get myself into consumer debt again. Ultimately, I resigned from this job because its mission did not agree with my inner compass.

By living in the wrong jungle, and exposing myself to life's vulnerabilities, I found my inner compass. In regards to a possible writing career, its important to plan the writing, as well as doing the actual writing. Similar to an architect wanting to build a house, the architect must first design every inch of the house before actually building the house; likewise a pilot would plan the journey very carefully, and then deliver the journey. In terms of the house I want to leave behind to my children, it would be a family-centred home with a family room as a natural gathering place. I would also plan to have sliding doors and a patio for children to play outdoors. The sort of home where people can play with ideas, work with their mind until they have a clear idea of what it is they want to do with their life. My home will be a place where I and my family, friends, and guests find joy, comfort, peace and happiness. It will be a clean and orderly environment yet liveable and comfortable. I especially want to teach my children to love, to learn, and to laugh, as well as to work and develop their own unique talents. In a way, what I am trying to say is that I have learnt (the harder way) the importance of creating a blueprint of what success should look like. My tutoring business has also taught me the importance of planning lesson material; in order to be successful here I have had to think through in-depth the service that I want to deliver; and this is teaching material targeted at those with special educational needs. Then I systematically organised all of the elements predominantly around the operations and marketing. Most business failures occur as a result of lack of business planning, misunderstanding of the market or a lack of a business plan. The first time I dipped my toes into the world of teaching I found myself struggling to find clients and reacting to the market rather than engaging with it proactively. However, survival taught me the importance of networking and I now work with a much more established company who have the capacity to find me students who meet my target criteria. My first aforementioned job taught me just how quickly the real world moves and how slowly education moves. I've learnt the importance of setting a vision, a destination and a compass. I have quadrupled my revenues, but this time I want to use my money to create and make life more enjoyable for others through service and charity giving.

In my early twenties I feel as though I was particularly susceptible to becoming friend centred. Acceptance and belonging to a peer group felt supremely important. Over the years I have acquired and lost friends but this taught me not to become emotionally dependent on one individual, because this creates an escalating need spiral that eventually results in negative outcomes.

My early career experiences demonstrated to me that I had become a bit of a workaholic, driving myself to produce revenue at the sacrifice of health, relationships, and other important areas of my life. My fundamental identity early on in my career became my occupation - "I am a business consultant". Because my identity came from my work, my security was rather vulnerable as soon as something happened that prevented me from continuing on that journey. This taught me another lesson that when you lean on someone who you perceive to be emotionally and socially significant, its very easy to become preoccupied with the injustice and make the wrong-doer the centre of your life.

Work and education made me become very self-centred and I found out that there is very little security, guidance and wisdom or power in being a self centred person. Eventually I became stagnant because my sense of wisdom and power came from the work that I did, which rendered me ineffective in other areas of my life. By producing lots of revenue in my first career I was able to afford tangible possessions, such as fashionable clothes, BMWs, and jewellery, as well as the intangible possessions such as social prominence; but none of this created long term satisfaction. I thought a lot about how much the overtime I was putting in could buy.

I feel as though we now live in a world where fun and pleasure are readily available; instant gratification is encouraged. Early career experiences, for instance at University, have taught me not to keep succeeding each level of fun with more fun, because this simply results in the feeling of crying out for more fun, so the next new pleasure has to be bigger and better, more exciting. Life is better when vacations are hard earnt; it ensures that a persons capacities remain dormant, that talent remains in a developing phase. Whereas, in my opinion, too many holidays makes the body and mind feel lethargic and the heart being unfulfilled. When I look back on my twenties and late teenage years, what strikes me most forcibly is that what seemed significant and seductive, now seems rather absurd. For instance, I have learnt that success comes in various guises; as does being praised, and ostensible pleasures such as solo travelling to and from different places in the world. In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem like pure fantasy.

I have to some extent in the past reacted to the scripts handed down to me from family, associates and other peoples agendas, of circumstances beyond my control; from training and educational conditioning. However, I am slowly realising that the key to success is being proactive.

Marriage

So far, marriage has taught me that it can be the most satisfying, enduring and growth-producing of all human relationships. However, marriage and the death of my mother when I was 12 has also taught me not to become highly dependent on that relationship. In a way I have had to become vulnerable to the idea of having children, in-laws, economic setbacks and social successes. My now much larger family provides great opportunities for deeper relationships, for loving, for sharing, for making life worthwhile. Its where I get my sense of security from and its very easy to become vulnerable to changes in family culture or reputation. However, it is important to remember not to use marriage as an excuse for pleasing my wife over other important areas of my life.

Correct Principles

The benefits of applying the correct principles in my life is that they don't get mad and treat me differently one day to the next. They can't divorce me and run away with my best friend, and correct principles aren't out to get me; these correct principles don't allow room for shortcuts or quick fixes; they don't depend on the behaviour of others or the environment, nor do they depend on the current fad for their validity. My new found principles don't die, and therefore I'm grateful that they aren't here one day and gone the next. They can't be destroyed by fire, earthquakes or theft. My present principles are deep fundamental truths; they are tightly interwoven in my life with exactness, consistency, beauty and strength. The wisdom and guidance that has come out of the aforementioned experiences enables me to see more clearly where I want to go and how to get there. In my tutoring I use data to help me make the correct decisions that are not only just correct but also meaningful.

These days my sense of power comes from self awareness, knowledge, being proactive, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviours and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and/or environmental factors that influence other people.

I've found from learning music that I better understand harmony, and as such I experience positive harmony when I am enforcing those principles, and negative harmony when I am choosing to ignore those principles.

As a principle centred person I try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation, and from other factors that would act upon me, and evaluate the options. Looking at the whole picture I now have work needs, family needs, or other needs that may from time to time be involved and the possible implications of the various alternative decisions. I'll try to come up with the best solution, taking all factors into consideration. I now try not to make decisions based upon other people or the environment, but instead based upon a set of principles. I make decisions based upon knowledge and wisdom. I know my decision is most effective because it is based on principles with predictable long term results. I now work late in the evenings not because I want a pay rise but because I value the effectiveness and contributing to the company's welfare.