TLDR
Create a one sentence job description/purpose statement for all the important roles you have: husband, father, business owner, financier, etc.
It will set you up for clarity and give you a way to measure what counts.
Defining Your Purpose
When you get up in the morning, how do you know what is most important?
When you go to bed at night, how do you know if you achieved it?
A one sentence job description that gives you purpose, that defines your win, is what you need.
If you’ve been a reader of the blog then you know I’m a believer in creating a “Life Plan” for yourself. I use a model loosely based on the one described in “Living Forward” by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy. As a part of creating your life plan you establish “accounts” for yourself. For me, these are essentially the roles I have in different areas of my life: I’m a husband, a father, a small business owner, a grandparent, a leader in my local church. So, for each of those accounts, or roles, I need to create a purpose statement before I create a plan around that account. But how?
As you read on, don’t be guilty of the “genetic fallacy“. If you’re not a religious person or Jesus follower, that doesn’t mean what follows is irrelevant. Sometimes it’s not a “religious thing”, it’s just a “thing, thing”.
Clarify the Win
In another life I was part of a church staff. I was a computer security geek by day, but nights and weekends I was a “family minister”, which meant I coordinated all the activities and staffing to help parents teach their children how to become followers of Jesus. In that role our staff tore through the book “7 Practices of Effective Ministry” by Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner, and Lane Jones. Although it’s aimed at church leaders, it has some gold nuggets for any organization.
One of the first points made in the book is that you have to know what the “win” is if you want to keep people on board. People want to be on a winning team. They need a scoreboard. If they’re consistently losing, they’ll leave. If the score isn’t posted prominently, they’ll abandon the effort. If they don’t know how to score, they’ll make something up and take you in the wrong direction.
You have to clarify the win.
So what is your win as a dad? What is your win as husband? What is your win, when it comes to your finances?
Another “Stanley-ism” (what I call one of the many Andy Stanley quotes or concepts I’ve adopted) is the idea of a “one sentence job description”. Chances are, if you’re working for a big company, you have a job description with lots of bullet points that goes on for at least a couple of pages. How do you know if you’re checking the boxes every day so that when your annual review comes around you know you’ve done what you were hired to do? Wouldn’t it be great if your job description was just one sentence? It would be easy to know that you were doing your job.
When it comes to your life plan, the “purpose statement” you design for yourself should be short, easy to remember, and define the win. In short, your purpose statement is your one sentence job description.
For example, my one sentence job description for my marriage account is: As her husband, I love Stacey in the same way that Christ loves the church; I build her up, provide for her, serve her, and lead her.
Whether or not you like my purpose or agree with it, it’s easy for me to remember and clarifies the win for me as a husband: Did I build her up today? Did I serve her today? When I wake up in the morning, can I plan ahead for ways to provide for my wife?
My one-sentence job description for my “Kids” account is: My kids feel comfortable calling on me for any reason: advice, help or just for fun.
My win with my kids is that I have an open, welcoming, relationship with my adult kids that encourages them to call me. And they do. Often. It has been a long term goal of mine and my wife that our kids would want to keep their relationship with their parents when they became adults. We’re winning! And in all my interactions with them, I try to keep the door open for future relationship.
A one sentence job description will help you plan the day ahead and give you honest metrics to measure the day you’ve finished.
By the way, creating and clarifying the win is hard. You may think you have it down, only to find yourself massaging it over and over. That’s okay. But if you can’t measure your performance, if it doesn’t give you direction, and if you can’t easily keep it in mind – it’s not ready.
Clarify your win and create a one sentence job description. I guarantee it’ll help you move in the direction you want to go in every area of your life.