During one of my recent day-job trainings, there was this quote about stating a mission that’s really clung onto me. The gist of it is that you need to repeat what your mission over and over in order to refine it and make it clear to yourself and to everyone else.
I guess it’s kind of a less “woo woo” way of thinking about “manifesting” something in the universe. If you’re at all familiar with the concept of “The Secret,” apparently you’re supposed to just “put what you want out there” and the resonance of the universe somehow materializes a million dollars or something. I don’t put any faith behind that idea, but I do think that there’s truth in the idea that what you’re concentrating on is going to cause you to achieve goals because…well, you’re concentrating on them.
I think this can be best summarized by my favorite bit of “Star Wars wisdom” which comes from a throwaway line in Episode I: The Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon says to Obi-Wan “your focus determines your reality.”
This post feels a little rambly, but what I’m trying to get at is that I need to start refining what the mission of my creative “career” is. What I do right now is really fun - just doing whatever the heck I feel like whenever I want to. But in reality, it’s not going to generate any more money or influence. Not that anyone reading this needs to always feel like their creative works or journey should be in that constant elusive pursuit of “professionalism” but…I can’t let it go. I’ve tried, but I can’t.
So if I can’t let it go, then I should try to take it a little more seriously. I have the skills, but I don’t have “the mission” which determines the focus. I once wrote a Medium article saying that my mission was “writing positive things for teens” or something, but I don’t think I’m there, anymore. I think COVID took that out of me, though I’m not sure why (something worth thinking about, I suppose.)
So…who do I want to create for? And why? What benefit is it to the world?