Men and women of great importance have tended to be men and women of great clarity and focus. That’s not to say they’re simple people; only that they often share a quality of single-mindedness that others can follow or despise but rarely match.
The idea of the clear picture is prevalent in the literature of business and life from generations past, and will continue to be extolled in new language for generations to come. Stephen Covey talks about the first creation; Brian Tracy talks about the power of goals. Dan Pink talks about answering the “big question”—distilling your purpose down to a single affirmative sentence. John Whitmore, in his book on coaching, talks about one effective question (that should be used judiciously and with great care) that many coaches rely on: “If you could write your own obituary, what would it say?”
We could go on book after book, sage after sage, and find the justification for the principle at hand. But let’s face it: it’s not the kind of concept anyone really argues with. No one is blogging somewhere about the merits of confusion, diffusion, aimless wandering and the like. We know, fundamentally, that we should develop our purpose and distill our values down to that single, powerful phrase that we can use to guide our lives.
The problem is that we often don’t. We rarely devote time to activities like this, either personally or professionally. At work, many office cultures pride themselves on fire-fighting and rushing from crisis to crisis. Long, slavish hours are the norm in some organizations, with people measuring themselves more by time-in-office than by effectiveness. And at home, we often run ourselves nearly as ragged, devoting our time to the very worthy causes of childrearing, our spouse, chores or other obligations.
Plus, let’s face it: TV, computers, devices and other technologies have shown themselves to not always be the timesavers they purport to be but, sometimes, to be great time-sucks. We can out-task our forebears, but who had a better grasp on their fundamental purpose in life?
Of course, this isn’t meant to be a “times are getting worse” diatribe. But there’s a lack of focus on what we call The One Sentence—the great and noble purpose that one truly commits to, down deep, and finds great pleasure pursuing for the rest of their lives. That takes passion, courage, dedication, changelessness and a whole lot of maturity. These characteristics don’t just come to us; we develop them in the process of seeking that one sentence. The magic is in the effort, in the search for meaning. When we cast off temporary things and seek permanence, legacy, and influence, we slowly and almost imperceptibly begin to build our very selves.
Question: When will you dedicate time to develop your one sentence?
