Instruments for Navigating – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

How do we get started and know we’re on the right track?

Photo by Torsten Dederichs on Unsplash

In aviation, several instruments make it possible to fly through the toughest weather. Interestingly, a plane exists to get from point A to point B in good weather or bad, carrying something or someone. A pilot who can fly in rough conditions shouldn’t seek them out on purpose. What matters is being able to steer around them or find a way out. There’s a common belief that January is the month when nobody knows how to get started or how to get through it. So what instruments do we have to keep going in rough conditions, the way pilots do?

Like pilots, anyone who knows their life purpose and has a plan or strategy to carry out already has the instruments to do what’s in their hands, whatever the moment. The clarity we think we need to get started turns out to matter less than we assume. That frees us from the idea that we need every possible piece of information before mapping the route. What matters is getting started. When the weather hides the ground, a pilot always knows where they are thanks to the instruments on board. Life works the same way: purpose tells us where we are and where we ought to be heading.

When we feel lost, all we need to do is measure how far we’ve come against our purpose, the compass that always points to our north. The first step in any plan may not be the most important one, yet it’s the most meaningful. It shows our ability to act and to own what we set out to achieve, and I mean goals that give meaning to our existence and move us toward our reason for being.

Purpose is a very powerful tool. More and more companies focus on living the purpose they were created for, on reviving the founder’s purpose, on capturing that identity statement while the founder is still alive, or on bringing every founding partner’s purpose together into one. We’re investing a lot of time in finding that third, fourth or fifth leg of the table. So why does such a seemingly simple statement matter so much? Because it will be the main instrument that lets us navigate the roughest conditions. It will tell us what’s right and what isn’t, and it’s without a doubt the greatest source of inspiration for taking that first step.

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S. I dedicate this post to my friend and brother Alberto Muñoz. Happy birthday, and here’s to 100 more years. Thank you for your friendship, your affection and above all for letting me live my purpose to the fullest: "to be the best father, husband and friend…". I hope to keep living up to the friendship part, and that you always tell me what I need to hear, the things that lead me to do what’s right and act in tune with my purpose, even when I don’t want to hear them. A big hug, my friend.

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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