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Often times when I initially meet with clients I want to know what are the vision, mission, and goals for their business. How are they accomplishing carrying out their vision? What led them to have this desire to be of service in the manner that they choose? Some clients readily have an answer and a lot of clients do not.

Whether you're starting a business or have an established business it is very important to understand what your vision for your business is and what you are trying to accomplish, what does the future of your business look like. Furthermore, what is the mission, how are you going to accomplish this vision today in order to meet the needs of the future regardless of the economic times? The mission and vision serve as the foundation of your business and it is very critical to always revisit the foundation and the guiding principles that are set out in your business. When you revisit your mission and your vision they should be pretty consistent; however, how you carry out your vision can change based on what is happening in the marketplace. Most likely, you might not need to change your vision or mission but you might need to change your objectives and goals in order to still carry them out.

Following are three key areas that are critical for you to reassess and validate periodically to make sure that you are still aligned with what you wanted for your business in the first place. Furthermore it will help you to recommit and reenergize your vision for your company, your employees, and your clients.

Clearly declaring and articulating the vision of your business can never be underestimated. What is the direction that you would like to go and what is the overall strategy to get there. A vision statement is very strategic and encompasses the guiding principles for a business that can always be referenced when making critical decisions. Your vision inspires not only your business but all who come in contact with your business. Employees, clients, vendors, investors all believe in the future of the business and should be able to easily identify with what guides the business to success.

Secondly, the mission is how your business is executing on the vision today and this should be validated on a regular basis. The mission supports the vision and positions the business to have a quantifiable approach to address how it will support the vision in more concrete terms. The mission focuses on executing on actions that maintain the longevity of the business while adhering to the guiding principles as set out in the vision statement. It clearly states what is your purpose for being in business and what should your clients, employees, and investors expect the business to deliver, how it will be delivered, when it will be delivered, and the benefits of the deliverables.

Thirdly, based on what needs to be updated or revised due to changes in the marketplace, it is necessary to re-evaluate your implementation plan and determine if the plan made up of goals, objectives, and timelines still supports the overall mission and vision in the best way possible.

Lastly, reconnecting with the past and validating what got you started in your business in the first place can position you to work on a future plan to uphold your vision and mission while still being competitive and serving your clients in the best way possible.

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The following is an excerpt from my book, Sole to Soul: How to Identify Your Soul Purpose and Monetize It, which will be published in April 2011.

Being very curious and asking a lot of questions are my natural gifts, they are who I am. They are gifts that were already showing up in my early life but they were not recognized as gifts of value. In fact, they were the very things I was encouraged not to do. The value of my natural gifts was not recognized and I was encouraged to play down my unique gifts.

I was brought up to value education and social standing and to value being successful in society but society doesn’t have all the answers. The answer to what truly inspires you; what your soul purpose really is, will always be found internally. The answer is already inside you.

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The term sole purpose is one I use in the business world. When a company is totally focused on how they can be of the utmost service, they become focused on fulfilling their sole purpose. A company’s sole purpose can also be its soul purpose. Providing the utmost service as a company means providing the utmost service to each individual who buys the product or uses the service provided by the company.

For example, when Bill Gates founded Microsoft, his sole purpose was to place a personal computer in every household in the world. His sole purpose was also his soul purpose as he recognized that personal computers would enhance the lives of everyone who had one in their home. He understood the value of his gift, not only because of what he stood to gain personally, but also because of the potential it created for others to gain too.

When you’re living your soul purpose, you feel passionate about what you do and you have an energy about you that radiates from you and let’s people know that you love what you do.

Things that might indicate that you’re not in your soul purpose and it’s time to move on include:

• Heart palpitations; a feeling of being anxious to move on.
• Feeling heavy every morning as you get up and get ready for work; hitting the snooze button on your alarm over and over!
• Dreading going to work.
• Little things at work that may normally have gone unnoticed begin to get on your nerves.
• You know there’s something missing and you know you have something more to give, you’re just not sure what that something is.

The amount of time you spend in a job and the energy you feel when you’re in that job can be likened to the changing seasons in nature. When seasons change, you feel a change of energy. When your energy changes in your job, it marks the end of your season there and it’s time to move on to the next one.

If you’re not in your zone; if you’re not meant to be there, it’s not something you should view as a bad thing but it’s something you must recognize and do something about. You must take steps to move on. When it feels like work, it’s not your soul purpose.

When you’re in your soul purpose, you will still be working but you’ll be so passionate about what you’re doing that it won’t feel like work. Moving on might mean setting up your own business and working for yourself. In most cases, someone working for themselves will work far harder than someone working for someone else, but they will feel energized by what they’re doing because they’re doing what they’re destined to do. When you’re working for someone else, especially in a large organization, you generally have only one aspect of the business to focus on, but when you’re starting your own business, you need to have an understanding of every aspect of your business. The demands can be greater yet you will feel charged by the experience.

When you’re living in your soul purpose, you’re passionate about it so you share your gifts with other people. You’re driven, but not in an egotistical way, to look for ways to help others. Your mind is divine and whatever your gifts are, the things you need to help you make use of those gifts and serve in your soul purpose will come to you. When you know that those things are coming your way, you’re open to receiving them and you’re also open to recognizing what you’re destined to do next at each stage in your journey. You recognize what it is you need to do and you work at it every day but it feels right.

When you love what you do, you will initiate getting the energy you need to do what you do really well, jump out of bed in the morning already thinking of other ways you might serve and anticipate what you need to do to make a difference. When you’re passionate about doing something, you become unstoppable.

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