Stop me if you heard this one before: “I want to do it, but I just don’t have time” Or what about this one? “Where does the day go?” Or have you ever thought (or said), “Wow I was busy all day, but what did I actually get done?”

If you say you haven’t heard (or thought) any of these, you are a liar. We have all said them…at least to ourselves.  It’s the symptom of letting your day–or your life–happen to you. You might have been hustling. You were certainly busy. But you were not intentional.

You did not live “on purpose.”  Learn more in the DMJ Podcast from today.

Don’t worry; this is a judgment-free zone. We have all done it. I have most certainly had those days where I came home exhausted and frazzled and ready for a drink…but was not sure where the day went.

That is why we need to spend some time to create our day (and ultimately our business) intentionally (on purpose). Be we can do better than that. In order to take this intentionality to the next level, we can also create a business mission too (on Purpose). When you combine the two, great things can really happen.

Let’s start with Intentionality. It is amazing how many well-meaning, intelligent and somewhat successful people go through their daily lives and routines while life “just happens to them.” They work hard. They do their best at their jobs. But at the end of the day, their hustle is misguided—or more accurately—unguided.

Studies show that only 3 percent of people actually have goals. Even less of them actually write them down! That is beyond mind blowing to me. If you don’t know where you are going, how can you get there? What are the next steps? How could I (or anyone else) help you? By simply spending some “me time” to consider your goals, you are ahead of most of the population.

Side note, I think sometimes people don’t participate in goal setting because you might feel foolish or wrong. But keep in mind; you can change your goals. You can update them. But you can’t create a road map if you don’t know where you are going.

If you DO have your personal goals, great! Now do you have them for your organization? Get it done. Then you can intentionally create action steps to reach those goals…every day.

You can do it…on purpose.

Now let’s talk about Mission. So you have the goals that you want to accomplish…that is a huge start. Now it’s time to consider what you want your organization to be “about.” What is your mission? This can be as lofty as curing the world of disease, or it can be simpler. My company, Hasseman Marketing, has a goal of doing business joyfully! We Deliver Marketing Joy. We also want to impact our community. We want to give back. But if you ask one of our team members what our mission is, they will gladly tell you that we “Deliver Marketing Joy!”

This simple mission gives our team members a goal to strive toward and a base from which to make decisions. Does the way we are handling this client help to “Deliver Marketing Joy?” If we are not creating joy, then we need to re-think what we are doing for that customer.

A well-defined mission helps to create a alignment. When all of your employees really understand the mission, each team member will be rowing in the same direction. And if they are not, it will become very evident…very fast.

When you have this alignment, you have created a business On Purpose.

So how do you do it? Though there is no special sauce, here are some action steps to help you create your business (or organization) on Purpose.

Create the Mission: Get input from the team here. What are you all about?   What gets everyone excited? How do your customers know you? At Hasseman Marketing we are a pretty positive group. We love the idea of helping companies market themselves through what we do.

One time, as we were planning a customer appreciation event, we got packages with imprinted items nearly every day! We were excited. Each day we ran to the front to open the latest box to see what was inside. We decided that each day held “a little piece of Christmas morning!” We also realized that if we felt this way (and we saw this stuff all the time) then our customers probably did too! So our mission was born! We wanted to create “marketing joy!”

 Create Team Goals: Yes, it’s back to goals. You (and your entire team) need to know what you want to accomplish together. Get them on paper and discuss ways to get there. Your goal should be to help the team get to their goals…or to remove obstacles so they can make it happen.

Communicate…and then do it again! Once you have created a mission and your goals, it’s easy to get back to “business as usual.” If you do this and ignore the goals, then you lose the entire value of the exercise. Create a weekly email to the team with updates, congratulations, shout outs and more. Yes, it’s work. But the team will come to look forward to the updates and everyone enjoys a public pat on the back.

Have a regular staff meeting where you bring the team together to re-cap. If you can, get everyone in the same room. If you can’t do that, use go-to meeting or some other meeting software. Just make sure that once you have the momentum going, you keep it going…intentionally.

Focus on Culture: I have always said that I wanted to create a business where I wanted to come to work. Of course that culture will stem from the top. But culture WILL happen. Make sure you have something to do with it…on purpose!

Have Fun With It: Now maybe this has something to do with my personality, but I think a company that has more fun, gets more done. But either way, studies show that happy people are more successful. So with that in mind, why would you not want to create happy employees? So make a point of creating activities that help your team have fun together.

Oh, and this doesn’t have to be just some Kumbuya, fake, team-building moment. You can create fun moments when creating fun videos or having pizza at the staff meeting. You know your team best. But make fun a point.

Live It! Everyone on your team will know if you are doing this for real. So be authentic. So make sure, when you are creating your mission, it is something that really resonates with you! You are the one that will have to lead by example a ton of the time. So make sure you have chosen a path you can really walk.

Finally, you need to repeat. Each year, you might want to re-examine to make sure things are on track. This process is not designed to pigeon hole you. You want to be able to consider and attack new opportunities as they present themselves. Of course!

By painting this picture for yourself and for your team, you can now attack these new challenges and opportunities like you mean it…On Purpose!

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