Geneva's Blog

Friday’s health tip:

Consider water preloading – drink 2 cups of cold water right before your meal.

This not only promotes a feeling of fullness but will boost your metabolic rate by up to 30% over the next 90 minutes.

Good evening, collaborative Readers,

The blog is back and better than ever! I’ve taken some time to think about the structure I want to write with, and how to organize my thoughts so they’re not coming at you chaotically. Don’t look at me like that – I will try! Let’s just plan for limited chaos, okay? Great, thanks for your support!

I have the desire to see people accomplishing their mission, to live in a world where we are all completing our assignments. Until recently, I have been thinking about our missions interchangeably with our purpose. Now, I am seeing purpose as the first subheading under that main title of Mission. Purpose is what I have written about so far, and I think we’ve covered a lot of that subject matter. The next subheading I will be taking on is Responsibility. First, I will finish of this segment with one more post on Purpose.

As you saw above, I am also adding a quick and simple health tip to the beginning of each post because health and nutrition is another thing I am passionate about! It may be completely unrelated to the blog topic, but it’s fun and it’s my blog, so I can write it how I want to, right?

Okay, I’ve got my mug of tea – do you have yours? Get comfy and let’s go!

We’ve talked about the importance of your community; both as regards to how we are being supported by and how we are in service to that community. Today, let’s talk about the alignment between your purpose and the purpose of your very closest community. That might be your spouse, your business partner, your best friend, etc.

On the surface, it often looks like we have completely different missions than our closest humans do. You might even have seemingly unrelated jobs, totally different skillsets, and opposite interests. That being said, you are close for a reason. Maybe you have the same passion. Maybe your strengths complement each other. Maybe God put you in each other’s lives because you needed each other.

For example, consider a married couple with different jobs. One is a high school teacher, the other is a corporate lawyer. One enjoys gardening and lawncare, the other loves to read. You may not instantly see their aligned purpose by looking at these external factors, but when you dig a little deeper, you find that they are both highly passionate about helping kids in foster care and improving the foster care system in their county. Half of the lawyer’s salary is donated to a non-profit dedicated to finding forever families for foster children. The teacher is licensed to train foster parents in child development education, and participates in these workshops every week. They have planned their lives around this purpose, and are both being very intentional about how they are contributing toward it.

I could give you several different scenarios of ways different people work together to serve their various purposes. However, you would still need to discover your own alignment for yourselves. There are some key takeaways from this one example:

• First, this couple has discussed and clearly articulated their mission; to help kids in foster care, and to help improve the system. The more clearly we can articulate our purpose, the more aligned we will be with each other and ourselves. This is why companies have mission statements. They want the entire organization to be aware of and remember why they are there.
• The second takeaway is that this clarity allows for better understanding and support within your closest community. There should be a synergy that comes with this alignment that makes you more effective as a team, even if you are not working together directly. Imagine not knowing what purpose your partner has or the why behind their long hours at work. That would be less effective at best, with the strong possibility of loneliness, frustration, and discord lurking in the background.

This may not be the most scientifically researched out of all my posts, but I do think that it is key to living effectively and feeling fulfillment in our purposes. 1 Corinthians 12:18-20 says “But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body” I think that’s what we’re talking about here. Being aligned and working together will take us much further than any of us could go alone.

Thanks for your time! I’m excited to dive into Responsibility in the coming posts! Please feel free to interact here or on social media, and I look forward to hearing from you!