How to Write a Personal Mission Statement: Part One

Written by Paul Piotrowski - Monday, June 9th, 2008

This is the first in a series of articles I’m going to write to help people identify and write a Personal Mission Statement. Having a Personal Mission Statement is a very important part of becoming an Inspired Money Maker.

Most people go through life unaware of what their mission is and unaware of how to discover and connect to it. A Personal Mission Statement will help to bring more clarity into your life and will be invaluable in your quest to make money doing what you love.

In this article, I want to define and clarify what a Personal Mission Statement IS and IS NOT, and help to expose some of the more common limiting beliefs / myths surrounding Personal Mission Statements.

First of all, let’s define what a Personal Mission Statement is:

A Personal Mission Statement is a short and focused statement which identifies what you will do, how you will do it, and who you will do it for. There are a number of key factors that make a great mission statement:

It should be short. Every word in a mission statement needs to be carefully chosen. One to three sentences maximum is all that should be needed to concisely state your personal mission.
It should be framed in the positive. It should describe what you will do, not what you won’t do.
It should be very easily understood by anyone, even an elementary school child.
It should be easy to remember and state at any time.
It should guide your day-to-day actions and bring clarity.

Some examples of Personal Mission Statements might be:

“To discover, simplify and teach truth, awareness and understanding to people worldwide.”
“To live each day with discipline, courage and strength and be an inspiration to those who feel weak.”
“To educate, enlighten and inspire the people of Canada to live a Green life in harmony with mother earth.”

etc.

Now lets look into some common misconceptions about Personal Mission Statements.

“Personal Mission Statements are for important people, not for people like me.”

As I have written about in previous articles, there are no extra people out there! This means that no matter who you are, you are not just some “extra” in the movie of life. You are here on earth to play a very important role. Just because you are not connected to or aware of your personal mission, it doesn’t mean you don’t have one.

By writing a Personal Mission Statement you are going to save yourself a lot of frustration in the future, especially when working on your path to make money doing what you love. Your mission in life will be to do what you love to do, and making money by doing what you love is an automatic byproduct of that.

“I have never written a Personal Mission Statement before so I must not be living my purpose/mission right now.”

Just because you aren’t consciously following a written down mission statement, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not already living your mission right now to some degree. You may be doing something very similar to what your mission is, but you may just not be doing it fully. For example, if your mission is to bring laughter to the world (Think Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey etc.), you may already be doing that when you go out for lunch with your friends, but you haven’t fully connected to your mission yet.

Be aware that you are very likely already living your mission at least in part, you’re probably just not aware of it. Meaning, a certain percentage of your daily life may be spent already doing what you’re supposed to be doing but you’re just discounting it as a hobby or something you do for fun.

“A true mission must be full of suffering.”

Don’t equate your Personal Mission Statement to some form of martyrdom. Just because you are living your mission doesn’t mean you aren’t enjoying yourself and having fun. In fact, if you are following your Personal Mission Statement and living your purpose, you will find yourself waking up in the mornings full of passion, excited to live the day.

“My mission must help the whole world.”

Your mission statement may not target the whole world. Your mission may simply be to help a certain group of people, regardless of their size. It is not the mission of everyone to change the entire world. Maybe your mission is to help infant babies, or single mothers, or the displaced Panda Bear population of a certain region on Earth.

“What I currently do is already close enough to my mission.”

Be careful not to take on someone else’s Personal Mission as your own, just because they are similar. Sometimes when we are not clear on what OUR Personal Mission is, we tend to follow others who are clear on their Personal Mission simply because they are on a similar path.

That would be like Michael Jordan deciding to play football like his best friend because he felt that being involved in “sports” was better than working at the grocery store. You need to get clear on your Personal Mission Statement, so that you don’t waste half your life running parallel to it on someone else’s track wondering why life is so hard. Can you even imagine Michael Jordan playing professional football? Do you really think he would ever be as good at that as Basketball? Find YOUR own path, don’t assume you don’t need to bother with clarifying one just because you’re already doing something that kind of feels right.

Next Steps

In the next articles in the series, I’m going to dive into more details relating the issues surrounding your Personal Mission Statement and then give you practical steps to take to brainstorm, create and write your own Person Mission Statement which will help you to gain more clarity and to become an Inspired Money Maker much more easily.

Stay tuned!

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Comments:

Janet says:

June 10, 2008 at 11:50 pm

Very worthwhile and practical information you posted here. It’s also worth mentioning that as your business evolves and you may need to revisit your mission to make sure you are on track…. Thanks for the insight.

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Michael L. Gooch says:

June 11, 2008 at 12:03 am

For me, it seems awful pompous of us to think that every organization is so unique and special that each one needs its own unique and special mission statement. It is so pretentious it’s painful to watch. And now we are doing mission statements for individuals. Good grief! Could you imagine the look on a trail boss’s face if you asked him for his mission statement prior to a trail drive? He might say, “What part of ‘sell these cattle in Omaha’ do you not understand?” I cannot help but laugh when I visualize cowboys sitting around a campfire developing a mission statement.
Everything within an organization evolves. Processes change, customers change, management and leaders change, owners change. How can a mission statement realistically encapsulate all this evolution without being so nebulous as to be worthless?
In case you are wondering, the mission statement on my ranch is this: Make Money / Have Fun. If this is not the mission, then why in the world am I doing it? All of the adjectives and descriptors that could be included in a mission I choose to simply call life. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs: Cowboy Wisdom for Today’s Business Leaders http://www.michaellgooch.com

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Paul Piotrowski says:

June 11, 2008 at 1:29 am

@Michael L. Gooch: If the mission statement “Make Money / Have Fun” is what works for you, that’s great. I don’t think there’s anything “pompous” about having a personal mission statement.

I’m not saying you walk around with a sign on your forehead stating your mission statement and bragging how important you are for having one. I’m saying that living on this earth for 100 or so years without taking the time to really think about who you are and what you want to accomplish while you’re here is kind of tragic.

Since I’ve come up with my own personal mission statement, it’s acted as a compass for me to help me make decisions in life and guide me towards the mission I have chosen for myself. It brought clarity to me, and this Blog wouldn’t even be in existence if it wasn’t for that process.

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Jonathan says:

June 11, 2008 at 1:54 am

I think the idea of a personal mission statement is a good one, even if one opts to keep it totally private. Having clearly focussed ideas is extremely important in my book, and as far as I am concerned anything that helps you stay focussed on your path is a good thing.

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Michael L. Gooch says:

June 11, 2008 at 4:04 am

Paul,
I give little credence to mission statements because as a veteran of the business world, they are useless. In fact, they are worse than useless because they drain time and energy from the people that must construct, revise and disseminate these strings of nebulous words. And no, my view is not popular among the VP and CEO types. Still yet, it is my view and it was formed from constructing a mission statement for Armco Steel back in 1975. This view has been fortified since by my experience at other companies. We may just have a difference in nomenclature. I certainly do believe in setting personal goals. Indeed, to write those goals down – that is, to put pen to paper is a good exercise. Years ago, I had a goal of marrying a beautiful, intelligent woman. That was 30 years ago and she is asleep in the next room. I had a goal of becoming the human resources director for a fortune 500 company. I have achieved that goal. I wanted a cattle ranch where I could raise registered angus cattle. Got that too. Two years ago, I set out the goal to write and publish a management book. It was published this month by Multi Media and I have two additional book contracts in work. As you see, I do think about who I am and what I want to accomplish. I just don’t like mission statements. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs: Cowboy Wisdom for Today’s Business Leaders http://www.michaellgooch.com

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Ryan says:

June 14, 2008 at 3:31 pm

Hey Michael,

I’m trying to figure out the goal of your last post. Was it to express your opinion concerning the uselessness of mission statements, or to just brag about your accomplishments to an audience that doesn’t care. You said you like setting goals e.g. beautiful wife, head of an HR department, etc. Isn’t a mission statement for one’s life just another overarching goal? All of Paul’s examples seem like goals to me.

I conclude that mission statements a type of goals, and you agree with setting them. Therefore, the point of your post couldn’t have been your dislike of mission statements.

Congrads on all your accomplishments! I’m sure your beautiful wife is proud. Maybe she should express it more often however, so you don’t need to seek praise on a message board.

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Michael L. Gooch says:

June 21, 2008 at 3:33 pm

Ryan, You missed the point. I was not bragging. I don’t give a damn if you are “impressed” or not. In the last few years, I have noticed more and more people getting on the personal mission statement wagon. With the dynamics of our personal lives, I feel this is problem and have seen it as a huge waste of time and energy. I was attempting to show that you don’t have to engage in this stupidity in order to succeed in life. The people I know at work and in my personal life that develop a personal mission statement are losers and are grasping at straws trying to turn their live into a positive experiance. If you don’t agree with it – fine. You don’t have to be a smartass about it. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs: Cowboy Wisdom for Today’s Business Leaders http://www.michaellgooch.com

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