One of the most underrated benefits of getting crystal clarity on the purpose of your business is the time and energy savings that come from values-based decision-making (VBDM). 

Each day you and your team are faced with countless decisions, and making decisions takes energy. Small decisions, big decisions—they all take some energy to make, oftentimes a lot of energy. But when you have a clear purpose (consisting of a vision statement, a purpose statement, and core values), every decision you make can be run through the filter of these three questions:

1. Will this move us closer to our vision?
2. Is this consistent with (or does this further our) purpose?
3. Will this align with our core values?

It is amazing how many decisions can be made swiftly (or not have to be made at all) because the answer to one or more of these questions is No. 

When that happens, you don’t have to spend another ounce of energy thinking or, in many cases, agonizing about them. Your purpose gives you the compass to focus on what is important, and to let go of all the rest. Or, as Stephen Covey famously put it, it allows you to keep the main thing the main thing. 

For the more visual learners out there, here’s a VBDM decision tree you can use until you get the hang of it:

If you actively employ values-based decision-making in your business, you’ll be amazed at how much time and energy you save that you can allocate to really moving your business forward, toward its purpose. 

So while it may seem like it TAKES a ton of time and energy to figure out your purpose and to go through the process of creating vision, purpose and values statements, if you do it right the process will actually SAVE you a lot of time and energy in the long run.

And who couldn’t use a little more of those in their business and life as a whole?