So you’re ready for the Decide phase! What a big day for you! The more time you’ve put into the Interview, Intern, Invest and Internalize steps, the easier the decisions are.
At this point you have a good summary of what makes you satisfied, what skills you have to offer and how that might translate into the real world. Your Personal Mission is guided by the Universal Mission and you’re ready to create a vision of how you might uniquely fit into the Body of Christ.
Personal Strategic Plan
Now you have all the elements to draft your personal strategic plan. To help clarify which option is best for you, you’ll pair up your top choice with an alternative option or at least your best straw man available. Let’s start with the big picture by stating your Personal Mission and Personal Vision.
Now that you have clearly laid your foundation, you’re ready to get into the details. First, you’ll outline your generic goals and the tactics designed to achieve the goals. Think of the goals as the whats and the tactics as the hows. For example, your educational goal might be to study pre-medicine. Your tactic might be to double major in biology and chemistry, complete two years at your local community college and finish up at a state university. Your tactics should also include the time and treasure required to obtain that talent requirement.
Quality Control Plan
If your Personal Mission doesn’t seem to satisfy the Universal Mission, brainstorm how you could tweak it? The other option is to make a commitment to this call outside of your primary mission.
Quality Control of the Quality Control Plan :)
In summary, if you’ve effectively discovered, discerned and decided your Personal Mission, you’ll be satisfied and successful. Even if things occur differently than planned, you’ll have used tried and true techniques to cultivate your personal mission as your interests evolve. According to psychologist Angela Duckworths’ ground breaking book on high achievers, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, successful people share four traits: interest, practice, purpose, hope. Interestingly this outlines perfectly with My Life Coach is Jesus’ approach. First, you explored your interests through the Discover phase, you “practiced” to see if those interests could be developed into a passion through the 4 I’s of the Discern phase, you outlined your purpose through the Personal Strategic Plan in the Decide phase and you realized the hope of God for you through His Universal and Personal mission.
Every once in awhile even satisfied and successful people need to assess whether they’re utilizing their finite resources of time, treasure and talent that God has blessed them with. Check out the Life Evaluation exercises!
