The other day, one of the members of the Phoenix Book Publishing and Marketing Group posted the following graph on Facebook––four interlocking circles labeled “That which you love,” “That which you are good at,” “That which the world needs,” and “That which you can be paid for.” (Click on the following to see the graph.)
Passion:mission Graph

Where Love overlaps Talent, that is one’s Passion; and where Love overlaps World Need, that represents a person’s Mission in life. World Need overlapping Being Paid is a person’s Vocation, and Talent overlapping Being Paid defines a person’s Profession. And, where they all overlap in the center is Purpose, or the reason why a person is born.

There is only one tiny problem with this very edifying graphic––the world needs a heck of lot more than my puny talents, IF I knew what they might be. Do any of us perceive our own talents accurately? If you do, you’re very fortunate indeed.

I have found that there’s not a huge demand for what I’m good at, which isn’t all that extensive, anyway. And many of us might have a mammoth love for something, such as performing in a Broadway musical, but we freeze up when more than three people are looking at us expectantly.

So, I propose that the size of each circle in the graph is probably different for each one of us, meaning that our Passion slice might be much larger than our Profession, Vocation, and Mission slices. Or we might have a huge Mission slice, but we don’t make a lot of money at it. However, in the case of those whose mission is to save abandoned puppies, I’m sure they feel more than adequately compensated by puppy licks.

Why not take a moment to think about your own purpose graph? You just might figure out why YOU were born.