What Is Your Mission? - Ch 3 of Never Eat Alone - Part 1 of 2 at Catch a Gideon

March 14th, 2007 by digerati

This is chapter 3 of the Never Eat Alone series at Catch a Gideon. Please share your reactions and experiences on the topics via comments at the bottom of the page. (Yeah, that’s networking!)

“Would you tell me please which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, ” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
This quote is from Alice in Wonderland, a book everyone should read (along with Through the Looking Glass, the sequel). The quote is a perfect point for someone just starting their career. We often ask what we should be doing to be successful, but few of us have given any thought to what we mean by successful. As a result we limp around toward vague goals like money and position, but without any real goals.

That’s enough of a point. Decide what you want, when you want it, and suddenly you can start working straight toward your goals instead of stumbling vaguely in an upwards direction. People who make goals are the only ones who can meet or exceed their goals.

The more specific you are about what you want to do, the easier it becomes to develop a strategy to accomplish it.

In the PF blogsphere we know this very well. If you don’t set financial goals for yourself, you can’t reach them, and you will probably be disappointed when you get there. The same is true in business. If you want to start a company, great, but you won’t do a good job if you don’t decide what you need to do first. A good friend of mine couldn’t decide what to major in in college so he chose accounting. Not being an exciting major, I asked why. “Because I don’t know what I want to do, but I know I will need to know how to handle the financials.” A perfect point.

You don’t need to know all the details of what you will do with your life, but you should start making decisions that lead toward your less specific goals. Otherwise, once you decide on the specifics you will be too far off to ever get there.

The key is to make setting goals a habit. If you do that, goal setting becomes a part of your life. If you don’t, it withers and dies.

Here’s another perfect business to personal finance analogy. PF enthusiasts know that you start off with good habits when you’re young and poor so that when you finally do have some money you don’t turn around and spend it all on toys or food. The same is true in business. Start off well young, and create the habits that last a lifetime.

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Never Eat Alone is one of the best networking books written, period. Buy it now and follow along as Catch a Gideon goes through each chapter of the book.