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Mission drift is when you unintentionally broaden your focus and start moving toward things you you never intended to pursue, your life travels the path of least resistance, and you end up where you never planned or wanted to go. In this episode we explore mission drift and talk about a few ways to avoid it or get back on track when it is happening.
Mission drift will take you places you do not want to go: How to avoid it.
We sometimes get mission drift with the podcast, but when you are writing or podcasting out of your life, you transition and transform, so it is only normal that a podcast from a certain leadership perspective is going to morph back and forth within parameters.
Here are our anchors…
… this is about Calibrating our Lives. As spiritual leaders we experience transformation before we lead transformation. As spiritual leaders our focus is upon those we love and lead, modeling the way, lifting, encouraging, and being a “ladder” of sorts so they can stand upon our shoulders and reach things neither of us could alone.
As spiritual leaders we experience transformation before we lead transformation.
… this is about pressing beyond the tough stuff. Pressing beyond hardships, tragedies, pain, seemingly insurmountable challenges. We both lost 30-year partners in life, with still a lot of life for us to live. Aftershocks follow earthquakes. We will experience aftershocks for the rest of our lives. It influences our perspectives and our journey. It cost too much to waste, so we want it to matter in a healthy way.
… this is about the great adventure. We’ve learned to see life differently, to hold things loosely, to love more intensely. Those are gifts. We want to risk safety and the status quo and be bold enough to live the adventure God gives us. LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE. It is short, it is fragile, it is a gift, and it ought to be JOYFULLY lived, and we are on a journey (not a destination) discovering joyful living.
… this is about the Christ-life. We are passionate followers of Jesus Christ. This influences and informs every crevice of our lives. We aren’t wanting to be offensive or in-your-face with it, it is simply who we are and who we are going to be.
So, we recommit ourselves to these anchors.
You have to keep refining your mission through course adjustments. As you grow and gain new revelations, you see yourself in a different way, in the light of God’s inspiration. Every new revelation should cause new transformation.
“Every new revelation should cause new transformation.”
First, state your mission… again.
A mission connects you to the broader picture and it also fine tunes the components.
I get the big-picture mission, but every chunk (like, for us, this podcast) has to be adjusted into the mission and we have to answer the “why” again and again.
What is your “WHY” and…
What is the “BIGGER WHY” it supports?
Second, what’s the difference between mission drift and refining the mission?
Drifting is unintentional — refining is intentionally adjusting.
Mission drift is really easy, and it is constant.
On the great adventure we must have a passion that moves us forward… but we cannot be moved forward by everything that stirs our passion.
Third, you have to ruthlessly and surgically remove the unintended growth.
Regarding trees, have you ever heard of suckers? They are all of the little shoots that spring up around the tree and the new little limbs that pop out all over the tree. Crabapple trees are really good at producing suckers.
And why do they call them suckers? Because they are superfluous branches that have no function except to suck nutrients and resources away from the productive branches of the tree.
It’s called pruning. God does it (John 15.2).
We have to transition from season to season. When you are trying to launch your life and find opportunity, you let a lot of things grow hoping one of them will be your path. In a later season of life, the one we are in, you have to prune back and cut off some very valuable things that took years to grow, simply because it’s time to redirect.
Fourth, you have to take lots of risks and keep trusting.
Again.
The great adventure simply requires continual risk and trust.
One of the reasons we started this podcast in the first place was to open one more channel to make our pain and losses worth it. Through our losses and the grief journey we’ve learned a LOT of lessons. Among those lessons: things change and you can’t keep them the same no matter how hard you try.
- You have to be willing to change direction.
- You have to be willing to let go of what’s in your hand.
- You have to be willing to trust where you are going is going is better than where you were.
- You have to be willing to redefine “better.”
Finally…
I think most people end up in a place in life where they never intended to be, and don’t really want to be, but they are used to it, it is comfortable and they settle (down).
At some point in our lives we cross the threshold where we are where we are going to be, and that’s a good thing and not a bad thing… if it is where you hoped to be, where you wanted to be, where your focused mission took you.
If its someplace you don’t like, don’t want to be, and you’ve already crossed the threshold of the possibility of redirection — it stinks to be you! BUT, the good new is… there probably is still time to redirect if you start right now.
