John Adair's 100 Greatest Ideas for Personal Success

Idea 33: A sense of purpose

From the gods comes the saying ‘Know thyself’.

Juvenal, Satires, 2nd century BCE

Your energy and your personal effectiveness flow from your sense of purpose. Understanding and developing that sense of purpose are not intuitive. They are usually a product of introspection and being aware of your situation, and integrating all these things together.

You should distinguish between action thinking – identifying objectives, making plans, evaluating or reviewing results – and reflective thinking. Here you are standing back and taking a helicopter view of your life: who you are, where you have come from, where you are going. More specifically, you will be thinking about yourself in relation to your role, and your role in ...