When people live with a mission-based mindset, they are like those elite troops. Their thoughts, feelings, and actions are directed toward what they should be doing in life. Most of all, they immerse themselves in worthy missions, and those make life a challenge and adventure.
Here are three follow up questions pertaining to the personal sense of mission:
* How many people do you know--and regularly interact with--that convey the sense that they are on earth to do something special with their lives? If you're not regularly interacting with people who have a mission-based mindset, what is mirrored to you, and what will you internalize over time?
* If you continue doing precisely what you've been doing in your life, what goals will you reach? What mission will you have accomplished? What special thing will you have done with your life?
* How many people have you recently inspired with your mission? If you're not routinely inspiring others, is it reasonable to assume that you will sustain inspiration?
We lose a mission-based mindset when we become so immersed in life's immediate demands that our priority becomes coping rather than achieving. If we move from one crisis to another--one to-do item on a list to the next one--then events control us. When there is no mission, there is only getting by.
And how about trading? Is your pursuit of financial markets part of an overarching life mission, or is trading your escape from the responsibility of crafting a life purpose? The answer to that question lies in what you pursue outside of normal market hours. From the Special Forces team to the religious missionary to the startup entrepreneur, there are no life missions that operate on abbreviated work schedules.
But then again, when in a mission-based mindset, work does not feel like work. It feels like service: service devoted to a noble cause.
Further Reading: Changing Our Lives
.