“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
These words of poet Mary Oliver strike a cord with me. You see, I believe that you and I did not appear in this life by random chance. We are here to play a unique part in the ongoing circle of life. Whatever it is you plan to do, that path is already calling to you.
Question is, how do you find that path? How do you know where to go and what to do to have the most impact?
I’d like to offer you an app to help you find and stay the course.
This app is not for your Ipad or Android – it’s an app for your life. The acronym APP stands for ALIGNMENT, PASSION and PERSEVERANCE. Together, these three components will unlock the doors to success in your life, no matter where you go. Let’s take a look at each of them.
Alignment
The first part of the app is ALIGNMENT. It asks you to live a life that is aligned with your core values and goals. You will always have the most impact when you make decisions that are aligned with your core values and goals.
Betraying or compromising your core values may look like a shortcut. It may even bring the initial trappings of success, but it will always leave you feeling empty and unfulfilled. True peace of mind comes from living a life that is aligned with your values, truth and principles.
When you make choices that are aligned with your core values and goals, you’ll be in integrity; you’ll be strong, and you’ll find a way around every obstacle until you reach your goals.
Passion
The second part of the life app reminds you to pursue your dreams with PASSION.
What is it that you feel most passionate about? What gets you out of bed with enthusiasm, lighting up your face when you talk about it? Pay attention to these signs, because the very things you care about passionately, are also the things you are hardwired for.
Before you choose a path, listen to your heart and align with what you feel truly passionate about. When you do that, you will stay in harmony within yourself. You’ll find the energy, motivation and drive to reach your goals.
Perseverance
The third part of the life app deals with PERSEVERANCE. You see, life’s great results usually reward not those who dream big or get lucky, but those who persevere in actively pursuing their dream. It is how you follow through and persevere, that separates winners from losers.
Perseverance is the ingredient that converts dreams into reality. The more perseverance you develop, the better your chances of success. Perseverance will require you to go out of your comfort zone and to practice self-discipline; it will quietly demand that you keep on keeping on, even when all the odds seem to be stacked against you!
Winners know how to persevere: They stay focused, take action daily toward their goals, and press on until the results show up.
Together, alignment, passion and perseverance make for powerful results! Let’s look at a few examples:
Wangari Maathai used this APP to bring about incredible transformation in Africa. She felt passionate about destruction of the land caused by deforestation in Kenya. She was touched by the needs of rural women who reported that their streams and food supplies were drying up, and they had to walk further and further to get firewood.
Wangari Maathai developed a vision of reforestation to help her people. She started to plant trees, and recruited other women to join her in the effort.
At first, community leaders laughed at her and dismissed her. But Wangari had a vision. She passionately believed in her cause, and she persevered.
She established the Green Belt Movement to conserve the environment and improve livelihoods. She organized rural women to grow seedlings and plant trees to bind the soil and stop erosion, to find ways together to store rainwater, provide food and firewood, and earn a decent living.
Wangari also started community education programs to advocate for greater democracy and leadership accountability. Since 1977, the Green Belt Movement has planted over 51 million trees in Kenya, effectively reversing destruction of the ecosystem in east and central Africa.
It all started with one woman who was aligned with her core values, who passionately believed in her vision to alleviate human suffering, and who persevered until the results showed up. Her ALIGNMENT, PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE brought about powerful results.
Fulfilling your life purpose may not call you to distant lands, but it will call you to live from your heart’s truth.
That is what happened to Jessica Jackley shortly after she graduated from college.
Jessica Jackley heard a speech by an economist from Bangladesh who had developed the idea of micro financing: loans offered to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
She was so completely blown away by this concept that she quit her job out, dropped everything and moved to East Africa to find out how she could help. There, she learned about the very real problems people face throughout the third world: A farmer in Tanzania who needs $25 for seeds to plant his crops, a seamstress in Peru who needs $100 for a new sewing machine to earn a living; a rice harvester in Cambodia who needs $50 for a bicycle to get his product to market.
Jessica saw the need, and she developed a vision to help. In 2005, she co-founded Kiva.org – an organization that allows people to lend money to entrepreneurs in the US and developing countries through the internet.
On Kiva, individual lenders like you and I can sort through profiles of potential borrowers and make loans to those we find most appealing. The minimum loan is only $25, and the interest rate is 0%. Risky loans? No, not really.
The repayment rate for loans is more than 99%, and since Kiva was founded in 2005 it has had an enormous impact: some 910,000 people have pledged almost 1/2 billion dollars in loans to more than 1 million people in 72 countries. About two-thirds of Kiva’s borrowers are women who are now able to break free from the cycle of poverty.
Jessica had a vision of how she could make a difference in the world. She used the APP of ALIGNMENT, PASSION and PERSEVERANCE to launch one of the fastest growing crowd-funding social benefit websites in history. Today, Kiva empowers people around the world to feed and educate their families, to make an honest living, and to restore their pride.
Wangari Maathai and Jessica Jackley have both made enormous contributions to society, and they used the same app I’m sharing with you now. They found something they felt PASSIONATE about, they made decisions that were ALIGNED with their core values, and they PERSEVERED until they succeeded.
If they could do it, so can you. Your future beckons, the choices are yours, and now you have this APP for life.
And so, in closing, I ask you again,
What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
May you always live in alignment with your values, and may you pursue your dreams with passion and perseverance until they come true!
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.