A Joyous Perspective on a State of Emergency: Protecting your mission in times of chaos

It's Friday, so it must be time for another Friday Night Thought Tale Hour with the Henderson's. This week has challenged me and many of those in my life in astounding ways. I have found myself feeling slightly lost at times for how I could be of help to those around me. That is an unusual feeling for me, and I know it has challenged a lot of us as we've been confronted with something that I don't think anyone saw coming. As a self-proclaimed "Professional Obstacle Remover," I was determined not to allow some virus to stop me or anyone for finding a way to continue a path. Oh, so quickly, I was shown that it might not be entirely possible this time. I found my thoughts combining talk about emergencies with my crisis of personal mission. What does it mean to remain true to your mission when chaos takes hold, and powerful forces begin to remind you that they are much more in control than you think? Ever felt like you needed to get refocused on your mission? Like perhaps it was being threatened?

But how do you know when protecting your mission is a real emergency?

After all, it's not a terrible thing for your mission to be threatened or questioned from time to time. These moments will cause you to dig deep and take careful consideration of your purpose to be sure it really stands up to challenge. You will have to bring forth evidence to support your belief in your mission, and as you do this, you will find yourself gathering supporters who will help stand behind you and your life's purpose. So the act of something or someone standing in the way of your mission really isn't the stuff an emergency is made of, is it? No, it goes much deeper than that. It is not the outward opposition that brings about the feelings of panic, but more the inward debate.

It is that moment you begin to question your mission yourself.

Perhaps you are just tired of fighting, or waiting, or having to find

the resources to support your mission. Whatever the cause, you begin to slip a bit in your convictions, and allow yourself to compromise a little more than usual. You ignore actions that need to be taken instead of taking them, or you justify with believing it is good enough. The worst part is, you begin to sense a slipping away of your ability to achieve the mission, even when you employ all of your best tried and true strategies. It's that sense of defeatedness, also though you know and believe that the evidence remains strong that you are on the right path. You don't want to go backward, and you feel more confident than ever that this is what you were born to do.

It just might be time to declare an emergency of your own design.

Only you can lift yourself back up to that place of a winning mindset, one that will not allow challenges, ridicule, power struggles, or loss to keep you from your purpose. To accomplish this, you have to see the importance of maintaining the mission as a priority higher than any other. That might sound silly at first thought because you consider personal responsibilities, people who depend upon you and livelihood as crucial to your and others' survival. But not when you realize that your personal mission is inherently tied to most of the most vital aspects of who you are.  It's your signature statement, really, so it must be protected at all costs.

Below, I've listed 4 parts of your personal mission that will require emergency action when you see your mission start to fade. See if you agree with me on their importance:

1) Know your mission in the most simple of terms.

A mission statement isn't complicated and filled with lofty terms. It's simple language that encompasses your core reasons for doing all you do. Not what you do, but why you do it. You should be able to spit it out without having to take an extra breath from start to finish.

2) Never tie your mission to your strategies.

Strategies fail or wither. If your mission is to create beauty, you might create something no one buys. If your mission is to educate, you might lose the job you used to teach. Be so untethered from the strategy that no matter what happens to it, your commitment to the mission survives.

3) A sense of purpose is not about talent, it's about what makes you able to achieve your mission.

You might be a very gifted musician, but that does not mean that you must use music as a strategy to support your mission. Developing talent is a beautiful thing, but your sense of purpose should be able to supersede the level of that talent and stand-alone from it. Then, should you ever not be able to perform with your skill, the purpose will find a new way to emerge.

4) Know what specific kind of value you want to create with your mission.

This will improve your ability to set boundaries regarding what you will and will not do to continue your mission. Rather than an act of putting up walls that keep out opportunity, this is a boundary to protect us from becoming distracted or being misused in the pursuit of our mission. 

In short, having a mission can keep us safe from suffering through any chaos or crisis.

That's why it's an emergency when you begin to see that sense of purpose and unified mindset slipping from your life. The author Victor Frankl was able to endure years in Nazi prison camp psychologically intact because he held onto his belief that through his experiences, he could continue to achieve his purpose: "To advance the understanding of the meaning of life itself."

We can endure almost anything if we see it through the eyes of our purpose and our mission.

So tonight, Chris and I will be toasting to recognizing the need for emergency action and how to take it. I've made something I call, "A State of Purposeful Emergency". It's shaken, not stirred because it's us crusty old rogues who sometimes have to do a bit of shaking up to keep our mission healthy and full of meaning. Cheers, Friends.

Joy's State of Purposeful Emergency**
2 oz of Absolute Apple
1 oz of Apple Pucker
1/2 of soda
1 500 mg vitamin C
1 Aspirin
Crushed Ice

Place everything but the Vitamin and the Aspirin in a shaker, shake hard. Place the Vitamin and Aspirin in a martini glass. Add the shaken martini. Enjoy.

**Always drink responsibly