What lights you up? Inspires you? Energizes you? When do you find yourself losing track of time because you are so absorbed in an activity and can’t wait to get back to it and do it again? What would you love to do even if you didn’t get paid to do it? Fast-forward to your golden years. What might you wish you had done more of? Now take a moment to compare your lists. What common themes do you see in your answers? What words get repeated? What activities keep getting mentioned? What threads are woven consistently throughout your story? Summarize the patterns you see by circling common words or writing a few summary sentences below both lists.

Once I have chosen my top three goals for each of the Three Players, I ask myself three crucial questions: What do I want? Answering this question forces me to bring clarity to my vision and the end I have in mind. Why do I want it? Answering this question helps me reconnect to my Meaningful Mission and tap into my deep motivation to take action. Sometimes when I ask this question, I struggle to answer, which may indicate I need to ask myself another question: Do I really want it? What’s the next step? Answering this question causes me to focus on the next practical move I need to take to move forward. I don’t have to know what I will do six months from now, only what I need to do next to keep moving forward.

Your job is to create a vision that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. If it doesn’t, go back to bed until you have a bigger dream.