The last couple of years have been challenging. Keeping focused on your true north in the midst of trials is difficult.  We all know that conditions will never be perfect. Sometimes life is extremely difficult.  I believe that cultivating and focusing on our vision helps to overcome life’s obstacles.  Our circumstances and trials should pale in comparison to our vision for the future.  A vision makes our life meaningful and compels us to overcome.  Our purpose can relate to different areas of life, including: Spiritual, physical, relationships, family and business.

One of my Biblical mentors Paul, said: “I press toward the mark for the prize…”  Paul kept his focus on the prize in the midst of horrendous persecution and circumstances. For me, my relationship with God is the foundation for my true north and paramount to my success.

Here’s what I believe. What’s done is done, enjoy the memories and learn from mistakes. Face the realities of present. Sticking my head in the sand and merely hoping something will change is futile.  Create a healthy, positive environment for success, growth and change. Actively cultivate a compelling vision for the future. Stay focused on the prize.

Viktor Frankl’s 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate during WWII and describes his method of finding a reason to live.  I’ll let Frankl have the last words of this post. Here are some excerpts from his book:

* Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

* Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.

* Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, every-one’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.

* Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

* For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.

* Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time. When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.