Why You Must Define Your Mission

Today, we're welcoming guest contributor and founding XYPN member Matt Becker to the blog. We're excited to share his passionate message that he sent us after experiencing the XYPN LIVE 2015 conference. Enjoy!

I'm in the car right now I am driving back from Charlotte; I'm recording this message on my phone. I just spent the whole week in two conferences, XYPN LIVE 2015 and FinCon.

And if you didn't go XYPN LIVE 2015, that's cool -- but you need to go next year because it was f****** awesome. No one asked me to say that. It was awesome because of the people and because of how much everyone cared about what we’re doing and the importance of what we’re doing.

I'm just honestly floored by the quality of people who are a part of this Network.

But what I really want to say is that I'm excited and I have all these things going on in my head and it’s basically been just like nonstop recording audio for myself and whatever. But I also wanted to share this message with others, too.

Fact: Entrepreneurship Is Hard (Really Hard)

Starting a business is really f****** hard! It’s also great and amazing and liberating and the best thing or one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. But understand that it’s really, really hard and you go from these moments where they're just the highest high and you feel awesome.

Everything you’re doing is working and people are liking you and you’re getting clients and you're like, "oh my god... I might actually be able to do this thing."

And that will immediately be followed by a moment where you feel like a complete failure and everything might be falling apart and you have no idea what you're doing and why did you ever think you were qualified to start whatever it is you’re starting. You'll think you're an impostor and there are all these other people who are so much better than you.

What makes it so hard is that you fluctuate between those two emotions really quickly.

They can be in the same day, they can be in the same week, in the same month -- you go up and down and it is draining. No matter how much you care about it how much you love, it is draining.

And I have a lot of these moments, both the highs and the lows. Here's reason I get back to these moments like right now, where I'm so excited is the mission behind what I'm doing: it's not that I want to I want to run my own business, or I want freedom and flexibility with my time, and that I want to be able to go coach my kids soccer team, or go to their school plays, or be one of the cool blog people over or whatever.

Don’t get me wrong, I want all of those things.

Yes, I want the lifestyle stuff. I have an ego. I want to be the person who people know. Those things aren't bad and you can want them. That doesn't make you a bad person. I want them too.

But that’s not the mission. Because if those are the things that are driving you, then it will never be enough to push you through the the hard part.

How Do You Define Your Mission?

The mission is the difference that you're making in the world. For me, the fact that I had more financial knowledge -- a better understanding of financial planning than most people (not advisors, but the general public) -- made me want to help other people with what I knew.

Figuring out financial stuff was confusing and overwhelming and stressful, even when I had this knowledge. There were times when I didn't feel like I knew what to do. I didn't feel like knew the right answers, I felt a lot of pressure to like make good decisions and provide for my family, I wanted to be the man who knows how to handle things.

But I didn't feel like I knew how to do it. And I looked for help and I couldn’t find it.

There wasn't anything that could really, actually tell me what to do. That was lonely, and caused more anxiety and the sense of being overwhelmed.

I know that feeling. I know that if I felt that way with my financial background, then there were millions of other people feeling the same way -- and maybe even worse.

So, my mission is to be the resource for other new parents that I could never find. Give them something simple like hey, here's what you need to do, here's how to do it. Here’s a step-by-step process. If you handle those things, if you follow these steps, you're going to be fine.

Just do these things and you’ll be fine. Your family will be provided for. You’ll have the financial foundation. Your kids will always have everything they need. You'll be fine and you can stop worrying about it and you can just get back to your life.

And get back to being a parent. And get back to doing work you enjoy. And get back to spending time with friends and family or traveling or whatever it is that you like to do -- because you’ll be fine if you just do that. It’s simple and I’ll show you how to do it.

My mission as a business is to be that for other people. And when I’m in those moments of terrifying failure and rejection and crippling insecurity -- that mission is what gets me out of that awful negative mindset, and what gets me to keep taking the steps forward.

Find What Drives You

Wanting a "lifestyle business" doesn't drive me. It’s the mission. It’s who I'm serving and why I'm serving them that gets me going and gets me up in the morning. Gets me to put the next foot in front of the other.

And so all I’m saying is: find your mission. What is the impact that you're making on the world? If you can find that and you believe in it then you are going to be just fine.

You’re going to have something that almost no other business in the world cares about (because they just want the money). You're going to have a purpose and you're going to care. And you're going to be focused on helping people and everything you do is going to be about making a positive impact on the world.

That's what is going to not only to see you through the hard times but what will also make your business awesome and give you all of the other things that you want.

About the Author

Matt Becker is the founder of Mom and Dad Money, a fee-only financial planning practice dedicated to helping new parents build happy families by making money simple. His free time is spent jumping on beds and building block towers with his two awesome boys.