Writing a personal mission statement

If you want to reach a destination, you need to know where you are going. A personal mission statement is a valuable tool to define where you personally want to go. As you travel on your journey, and inevitably are faced with forks in the road and other challenges, you will be able to refer to your mission statement and get back on course.

Habit 2 of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey says “Begin with the end in mind”. One of the exercises has you imagine your funeral, to really think about what you want, literally, “in the end”. It’s a very interesting exercise that can reveal some surprising things you did not expect. See the previous blog post for more.

Before we get to the actual mission statement, let’s briefly discuss 4 important areas that are useful to this exercise. Be warned, this blog post is a little long but its really great stuff.

Centers

We all have different centers that provide us value. These centers can change from time to time. For example, a person can be Work centered. In this case work is what brings them personal value. They may even describe themselves as workaholics. This center has definitely been one of mine. The problem with this center is that fluctuations at work, or loosing a job, can have dramatic impacts on a sense of self worth.

Another center is a Family center. In this scenario, a person’s family is where they derive value. Families can be immensely rewarding. Families are naturally made up of people and when conflicts arise, as they eventually do, because we are all human, it can impact a person’s self value and make it challenging to overcome. There are many other centers such as Money, Fame, Spouse, Self (self centered :-), Pleasure. We all likely recognize these centers as we’ve lived, or are living them every day. The problem with them is that they all change, are influenced by other people, circumstances, and are not reliable. Not to say they are not important, because they are, but they are unreliable as a foundation.

The book suggest that there is one reliable center that is solid, never changes, and is not influenced by people, circumstances, or time. That center is the Principal Center. I’ve written about how the book defines Principals in this previous blog article. Principals are natural laws which are self evident and determine long term consequences for actions. A mission statement that focuses on principals, can endure, be timeless, results in positive consequences, and act as a solid foundation and a destination for a person’s journey.

Roles & Goals

In addition to centers, we all have different roles in our lives that are equally important. Each of us has a role as an individual, a son or daughter, a family member, a worker, a student, a teacher, parent, sibling, church goer, husband, wife, partner and so on. There can be many.

It is critical to balance the goals in each role in order to truly be effective. Imagine what would happen if we neglected our Individual role. Let’s say we stopped being healthy (exercising, eating well, etc). How would that impact our other roles/goals? Would we be able to do well in our work goal if we were constantly ill, low energy, and not able to do things because of our health? Let’s say we ignore our family role. Would we be happy if we met another goal, let’s say a work goal, but have neglected/diminished our family relationships. I think it’s pretty obvious that our roles are linked and attention is required in a balanced way to be effective.

Left and Right Brain

We all have two halves to our brain. The left deals with details, sequential, analytical things. The right deals with emotions, imagination, and big picture. Most people are dominant in one side or the other. The right side is important for us to visualize our First Creation (the imagined goal) and the left side is important for the Second Creation, to execute and make it happen.

I’ve learned that I am more left brained and deal with analytical matters rather than emotional. As I’ve been working on being more effective, I’m learning to develop my right/emotional right side to help me with understanding people and situations more. I don’t have to decipher everything into steps, numbers, or causes. I can simply take feelings for what they are at face value.

Affirmations and Visualization

If you think about it, you are made from a set of scripts. For example, when you are sick, you do certain things to take care of yourself or others. These scripts are created by your parents (how you were raised), your education, what you learned in school, doctors, friends, yourself, and so forth. These scripts determine our default actions/responses in most cases and were written in different ways and through our experiences.

These scripts can be intentionally changed if we choose to change them. One way we can change them is by writing an affirmation about the thing we wish to change and then imagine ourselves in the situation and how we would like to respond. This is a form of self programing and can help us to change scripts that we wish to alter. For example, instead of loosing it when my kids misbehave, I want to be calm, listen, and be helpful.

This tool must be used with caution because if you imagine negative things such as stress/anxiety in certain situations, that is what you will experience. How we program ourselves, intentionally, or naturally, should focus on correct principles and our mission statement. The book goes into this subject in greater detail if you wish to learn more.

Mission Statement

With the above things in mind, let’s discuss how to write a mission statement.

A personal mission statement will be different for everyone. Each person is unique and so is their destination. Your mission statement will span your roles and your goals. It will reflect what you are about and what is important to you in each role/goal.

Examples are always a great way to learn and the book discusses a couple of mission statements. The following is an excerpt from the book.

A friend of the author’s mission statement

• Succeed at home first.
• Seek and merit divine help.
• Never compromise with honesty.
• Remember the people involved.
• Hear both sides before judging.
• Obtain council of others.
• Defend those who are absent.
• Be sincere yet decisive.
• Develop one new proficiency a year.
• Plan tomorrow’s work today.
• Hustle while you wait.
• Maintain a positive attitude.
• Keep a sense of humor.
• Be orderly in person and it work.
• Don’t fear mistakes, fear only the absence of creative, constructive, and corrective responses to those mistakes.
• Facilitate the success of subordinates.
• Listen twice as much as you speak.
• Concentrate all ability and effort on the task at hand, not worrying about next job or promotion.

A woman seek to balance home and work

• I will seek to balance career and family as best I can because both are important to me.
• My home will be a place where I, my family, friends, and guests will find peace and happiness.
• I will seek to create a clean and orderly environment yet livable and comfortable.
• I will exercise wisdom in what we choose to eat, read, see, and do at home.
• I want to teach my children to love, to learn, and to laugh and to work and develop their unique talents.
• I value the rights and freedoms and responsibilities of our democratic society, I will be a concerned, involved in the political process to ensure my voice is heard an my vote is counted.
• I will be a self starter individual who exercises initiative in accomplishing my life goals.
• I will act on situations and opportunities rather than be acted upon.
• I will always try to keep myself free of addictive and destructive comments.

The book gives some next steps to figuring out what is a person’s “end in mind” and some are mentioned below.

• For the funeral visualization – Think about family, friends, work, and community service. Also think about character, contributions, and achievements.
• Look at your roles as you see them.
• Look at the different centers of your life.
• Start a collection of notes, goals, and ideas to use for your personal mission statement.
• Separate yourself from daily activities and work on your mission statement.

I have created a mission statement for Yomez which is to “Help people become more effective“. My own mission statement is not so simple and I have not completed it. I have started by charting each role and goal and what I want, but I have more work to do. Writing this blog article has helped me further understand this and I plan to take some time this weekend to make progress.

I encourage you to write a mission statement for yourself, to have that changeless core that can guide you on the journey you choose to take.

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