The Hope QuotientSample

To maximize your impact, to make sure what you do is fulfilling, to be at your best day after day, ask yourself four critical questions.

Question 1: What are my unique factors? Consider your personal strengths and abilities. People who take the time to figure out what they do best, and do it, not only like going to work—they feel better at work, are paid better because of their work, and generally arrive home in a better mood. One of the keys to life is to figure out what God made you to do better than most people and run as fast as you can in that direction.

Question 2: When am I most fulfilled? It is possible to build a life with a lot of success but very little significance. Ultimately, that’s not going to lead to any sense of personal fulfillment. Thirty or forty years from now, what do you want to have accomplished? There is a world of causes out there, and you have only one life to make an impact. Find out what you’re great at. Use those gifts to make the largest impact you can for God and for good.

Question 3: When am I happiest? This is a more important question than most people realize because happiness and fulfillment have to be balanced. Spending the rest of my life playing golf every day with my three best friends would make me happy, but it’s probably not going to be fulfilling. On the other hand, if I’m not doing things I like to do and I’m grinding life out only on the things that bring fulfillment, I’ll probably be miserable doing it and end up quitting. Impact and fulfillment happen best with happiness and fulfillment.

Question 4: What is best for my family? There is little joy in the lives of people who have sacrificed their families in order to pursue some career goal. As you think through the first three questions, how could your answers dovetail with your answer to this fourth question? What would make both you and your family happy?

Think Up:

Every job has a “pay the rent” un-fun part, but what kind of work tends to lift your spirits? 

What fires you up? What do you absolutely love to do? On days when you’re glad about going to work, what are you doing? What gives you the greatest pleasure? What makes you smile? What are you doing when your heart swells and you think, I really like this? (Read on).