The Power of Purpose

by Joan Marques

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Published on this site: December 2003 - See more articles from this month

"The most rewarding purpose one can have is a purpose that will benefit at least one other soul"

There is no time when more people determine their future purpose than around the dawning of a new year. In order to do so, they look back on the past 12 months with mixed emotions. Some are more satisfied than others. However, the ones that have a nagging feeling of insufficient accomplishment should consider that every achievement requires input and collaboration from various factors. So, one can't possibly take all the blame for things that went wrong.

Nevertheless, it remains a fact that most of us contemplate a little more intense about our life at year's end, and try to formulate our intentions, and therefore our purpose, for the coming year. Business executives plan for the great strategic breakthrough; sensitive hearts pray for the final encounter with their soul mate; struggling paupers look forward to the long awaited financial reward for their hard work; and creative spirits lay out their tactics for earning the recognition they consider to deserve.

Some of us will announce our intentions with much fanfare, while others will prefer to keep their objectives to themselves. Those are probably the ones that believe that too much talking about an issue leads to nothing. And maybe there is some truth to their thinking: the more people you inform about your plans, the more negative energy may be released in the environment by their envy, whether vented consciously or unconsciously.

Yet, regardless if you're one of the silent resolutionists, or whether you prefer the trumpeting approach, you may consider honoring this one crucial mindset: make sure that your purpose will not deliberately be harmful to any person in particular. In business settings this may be a little more difficult than in others, because competition is a tough phenomenon that will always lead to winners and losers. However, as long as personal vendetta is kept out of the picture, there is a much better chance for succeeding.

For purposes are interesting things: we make them with our own progress in mind. And that's not a bad thing at all. There are many schools of thought that believe that everybody is ultimately an egoist. Seen from that perspective, even the noblest seeming act is performed from a egotistical point of view, if only to feel better about oneself. And yes, we may unintentionally bring pain and damage to others with our purpose, but, like the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant believed, it's not the outcome that matters as much as the intention. Elaborating on Kant's theory this can be interpreted as follows: "If your intention is good, a disastrous outcome is forgivable. However, if your intention was bad from the start, even a positive outcome will know no blessing or fortitude."

One final suggestion to the purpose formulation issue: try to formulate your purpose in such a way that as many others as possible can benefit from it. It feels so much better if you know that what you achieve will not only make a positive difference in your life, but in the life of at least one other person as well. This is how an extrinsic reward generates an intrinsic fulfillment at the same time. Good luck with the formulation of your purpose.

Joan Marques, holds an MBA, is a doctoral candidate in Organizational Leadership, and a university instructor in Business and Management in Burbank, California. You may visit her web site at www.joanmarques.com Joan's manual "Feel Good About Yourself," a six part series to get you over the bumps in life and onto success, can be purchased and downloaded at:
www.non-books.com/FeelGoodSeries.html