Having a mission of service is one of the most critical components of a meaningful life.

It’s my 3rd C in the 3 C’s of Meaningful Reinvention; the first two are Connection and Creation.

In Simon Sinek’s vernacular, a mission is your “Why?”

Why are you taking the actions you’re taking, particularly when those actions most likely (if they’re to be meaningful and drive fulfillment) drive you out of your comfort zone?

Having a mission is what makes leaving your comfort zone tenable.

Because when we break free from our cozy and comfortable lives and seek life beyond our comfort zone, we will experience a wave of emotions.

These emotions can be fear, shame, guilt, embarrassment, and feeling like a phony, to name a few.

Even writing them feels heavy, let alone experiencing them. They’re burdens on our backs, and without a mission of deeper service and meaning, they are often heavy enough to stop us in our tracks.

Creating yet another time in our lives where we started and stopped a meaningful action before it had a chance to come to fruition. We start stacking enough of these starts and stops together, and before we know it, we become the person who,

“Never finishes, so we even begin in the first place?”

When we have a mission outside of ourselves and our own self-interests, we’re no longer carrying those burdens for ourselves; we carry them for others.

When we carry emotional baggage in service to others, the burdens grow lighter, and our willingness to carry them grows exponentially.

Writing my first book, “Blank Canvas: How I Reinvented My Life After Prison” was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

Every day, I chose to stare at the worst version of myself and the consequences of that worst version in the face and feel them, as if they were happening all over again, to capture the emotions I desired the reader to experience.

Many days, I didn’t want to sit down and write; I didn’t want to carry that burden, and I didn’t think I could.

There were also many days when I did carry that burden for my two writing sessions and had to endure a shameful hangover that weighed on me for hours afterward.

But I had a mission, and it was as clear as could be because it came directly from my heart,

“To help one person.”

I carried those burdens for the entire 6 years it took to create “Blank Canvas” for that one person, whoever they are.

I couldn’t have finished the book without a mission, and if in some way I did, it would have been self-serving instead of serving some other self.

But the idea of connecting with your mission can carry its own weight.

Is it it big enough, is it grand enough, will it send impactful ripples throughout the world?

Will it impact millions of people?

Is it worthy of other people’s measuring stick?

What kind of mission do you embark on?

Only you can answer that, but I want to share something I’ve learned over the years to make connecting with a mission accessible and attainable:

Your mission doesn’t have to change the world.

We’re such a performance-driven society that we believe everything we do has to be massive. Otherwise, it’s not worth it.

I was recently a Luminary aboard Explora Journeys, an incredible experience where I delivered two talks over a nine-night cruise through the Caribbean.

I discussed the power of mission in one of my talks, and an audience member shared this story.

“I’m of the age where my friends are starting to lose their husbands. There’s a saying related to the loss of a spouse,

“Lose your spouse, lose your friends.”

It’s a common phenomenon that friends withdraw after their friend’s spouse dies. They don’t want to be a “burden”; they don’t know how to deal with the weight of death and what it means in their lives.

The life of a widow becomes very small and isolating.

So what I’ve been doing is making sure I send my widowed friends regular text messages. They may only be a sentence or two, but I make sure they’re consistent.

They can be as simple as,

“I just want you to know I think you’re amazing.”

And these simple texts mean the world to the people receiving them. I can’t get over how much people appreciate them. I used to think you had to do something huge to make a difference, but your talk showed me all you really have to do is make a difference.”

This woman is creating an impact within her community. She’s changing people’s lives, one text at a time, because she’s letting her friends know she sees, hears, and is there for them.

Give yourself permission to pursue a mission that’s meaningful to you, regardless of its perceived impact.

Because if you want to live with purpose, meaning, and fulfillment, you don’t have to change the world; you just have to change one small component of it.