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o, God started with one. At any one point in time for the past few years, the number of people alive on earth has been over 7 Billion. But the starting point was one! Today, the rate at which population in the world grows is staggering. Yet, it wasn’t that way in the beginning. This exponential growth is unprecedented.

In our world today, the exponential growth of both the good and evil is unrivalled to any other dispensation since creation. Yet it wasn’t that way in the beginning. The speed of an airplane on a runway just before take-off is unstoppable…in fact once it crosses the line, there is no stopping it. Yet, that speed is not always that was in the beginning of it’s taxiing off the runway! That exponential growth in speed is absolutely important to the take off.

Nuggets on Purpose

And so the same thing is important in our pursuit of purpose. I have shared over and over again about several things about purpose:

• Purpose is seldom known in the beginning
• There is always a process of purpose discovery
• Purpose is refined to clarity as we keep taking action
• Our purpose has several hints, some of which come from our potential and our values.
• Purpose is for a lifetime, once served there isn’t anything left on earth
• Purpose transcends generations. In other words, it is bigger than an individual or a single generation.
• Purpose offers the ultimate fulfillment in life and without it any other attainment is shrouded in misery and regret of not pursuing purpose.
• Purpose is unique to individuals
• Purpose doesn’t operate in seclusion. We need to complement one another’s purpose and strengths

How Do You Know You are Getting There?

In summary, pursuit of purpose is a journey and a process. The good thing is that this journey realizes a crescendo of exponential growth at some time. In other words, you will not remain on the discovery path forever. There is going to come a time when you will hit a patch of unprecedented growth that will be shown by the following signs:

• Your peers notice how different you are
• You are recognized as the go to person, the specialized one in the area of your pursuit
• You are respected by strangers
• Your work speaks for itself
• You are sought by people across the globe for your services
• You are ushered into the presence of Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses
• Your calendar is populated with requests
• Provision follows you, and you do not necessarily look for money
• You necessarily have a team, men and women of like passions that help you push your purpose and impact

But when does this happen? Exponential growth is a very unique phenomenon. I have come to realize that it is not linear. In other words, when your purpose grows, it is never a steady growth from year in year out. There comes a time when the growth is unprecedented, unpredicted and absolutely mind boggling that if you were never prepared for it, it might hurt you. That is why it is important to have structures in place that will support your exponential growth.

How Do We Get There?

I believe there are 7 pillars of nurturing your exponential growth of purpose. Most of them have already been discussed in here in one format or another, but it doesn’t hurt to re-state them again.

1. Effort

I will say it over and over and over again. Purpose, though a highly spiritual thing, is seldom realized through waiting, praying, fasting and doing as many spiritual gymnastics. How do I know that? I know that because I did it for years. I wanted to discover my purpose through a spiritual high. It never happened, until I added effort to my spiritual gymnastics. What is effort? It is simply action taken towards what your heart resonates with. I thought I was a gifted writer. So I started writing. I thought I was an encourager, so I started speaking. All along, my purpose was shaped. That is the first pillar of exponential growth of my purpose pursuit.

2. Faithfulness

The faithfulness that I am talking about must be taken in the context of marriage. If you are faithful in your marriage, you will not cheat. Once you have zeroed in on your purpose, it is important that you remain focused with it. Chances are that you will not see the growth, see the results and see the impact as soon as you thought they would come. The unlearned normally give up here and move on to other things that are purpose unrelated, but promise a quick buck. Right then and there, exponential growth is nipped in the bud. The world is awash with stories of those who gave up just as they were entering their moment of exponential growth.

3. Consistency

This builds on the faithfulness and the focus I talked about. Consistency has to be approached with intentionality so urgent and scientific. In other words, we ought to find out what we can do either on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis that directly contributes to the growth of our purpose. Our greatest fight as I have said in another article, is the fight of consistency. This is the greatest catalyst to achieving exponential growth in our pursuit of purpose.

4. Momentum

Dave Ramsey has a very powerful formula that puts all the above pillars in perspective. I will share it shortly. Momentum is the greatest friend I have ever had in my pursuit of purpose. In fact, my greatest focus in my life is to make sure that my momentum is not interrupted in any way. The beauty of momentum is that it is the nervous system of exponential growth. At some point in time, when your momentum has peaked, you need less effort in navigation and cruising to your purpose. We cannot do without it.

5. Time

Aha! Like we said, purpose and process cannot be delinked one from another. This happens over a period of time. Time and timing are very critical in exponential growth. It takes time and consistency for momentum to build. It also takes great timing for you to notice the beginning of exponential growth so you can get positioned for it. Time is the greatest miracle God ever created.

6. Tracking

Intentionally measuring your progress is critical. Without intention and tracking, it is easy to veer off like a ship on the waters with no direction. You end up nowhere. Tracking progress is done when you have already determined where you are going and why. That is why planning and purpose are absolutely critical. Just because you have purpose does not mean that you should not plan. In fact purpose awaits a plan. Planning is done where there is purpose. Planning can never be complete if there is no mechanism of tracking progress.

7. God

This represents the Divine. Purpose will always be linked to the Divine. The Divine is the initiator of purpose in the first place. The Divine has a view unrivalled by anything. The Divine is not limited by time, resources, lack of any kind. Yet the Divine works in order to bring very many unrelated things together in order to serve its Ultimate Purpose. That’s why Divine connections are absolutely critical. This has come last as a pillar because I have realized that the Divine is always waiting for us to be ready for those connections. When man partners with God in purpose pursuit, the impact is incredible! The exponential growth is taken to limits unprecedented.