When I was in college, one of the courses had a very interesting segment about mission statements. Mission statements are often done in the corporate world and serves as a guideline to the mission that a business hopes to acheive...but....it can also serve any of us on a personal basis. Why not plot a mission for your own life? I will share with you something I wrote that explains the value of a doing exactly that and then I will share with you my own personal "Mission Statement". I hope you can see the importance of this after reading how it is meant to effect your life.

Mission Statement Development

By Ruth Smith

          When the class began talking about mission statements it all seemed a little overwhelming at first. Questions began to formulate in my mind about how I would go about finding out my purpose in life and what exactly my life was really all about…….. Just what was a mission?

          According to Webster’s dictionary there was one definition of a mission that seemed to help digest the meaning of the word. A mission was a self imposed duty or function. So to interpret this definition it meant that a person would layout or plan in proper order the function that they feel their life serves. Sometimes it seems that we carry on with everyday life and never stop to give the meaning of our lives any serious thought. So where does one begin to accomplish that? According to Stephen Covey one can achieve that by asking the following questions and writing down the answers:

1)    What are some things, either material or non-material, I want to have in my life that is truly important to me?

2)    What are my interests, life long dreams, my greatest worth in my work and my personal life, list my talents and the things about my life that I would like to change. 

3)    What person or persons in my life served to be most influential and what character traits or virtues do they possess that I would strive to equal.

4)    List some of the key roles you play in your life and the key person involved in those roles, such as spouse, parent, manager etc.

The hardest thing about doing this is being perfectly honest with yourself and sometimes it involves opening up parts of your life that you kept in the depths of your soul. But the discovery after completing the above questions will be a wondrous discovery of yourself…who you really are! It can be a very difficult thing to do to sit alone in a quiet place and do some soul searching. But the beautiful part is to discover the person you really are that you never allowed the time to do that before. If for only a few minutes we escape the demands of our everyday fast paced world and give that time to finding ourselves or sort out the things in our life that need special attention. A time to cleanse our souls of the things that torment us in our life that always seems to come back and torture our conscience minds and to finally give it all meaning and direction. The good of this discovery certainly outweighs the bad. We discover for the first time our “true self” which not only serves to give us a feeling of private victory but to also give us direction in our life, a game plan if you will. Now instead of aimlessly moving through life we finally have a game plan. Just think how effective we can be with others if we make precise decisions about out own life, realizing our own self worth, desires, virtues and goals.

          Mission statements can be written for our life in general covering all the aspects of life that effects us or it can be aimed at one important phase of our life such as our married life, parental life or our work life for example. Once a mission statement has been completed, it is not something that is set in stone. Naturally our lives change as does our needs, wants and goals. Mission statements can be revised or refined to suit our lives as the years pass by. The most important thing is that we never lose touch with our dreams, our goals or ourselves and that we strive to attain the goals and virtues we have set for ourselves…in other words, to thine own self be true.

          At different points of our lives we need to go back and reflect on our mission statements. Evaluate how your doing in achieving what you have set out to do and if you are addressing the issues you have listed. Does your mission statement still motivate and challenge you??? If so then you are probably on track and if not then revise it to fulfill the mission you have in mind at that particular phase in time.

          A mission statement, according to Stephen R. Covey is a very powerful documentation of the expressions of your purpose and meaning in life. It can help you to make decisions about your life and be able to take charge of the behaviors and virtues you have chosen to follow.

As in the words of Robert F. Bennett:

“Your life is the sum of all the choices you make,

both consciously and unconsciously.

If you can control the process of choosing

you can take control of all aspects of your life.

You can find the freedom that comes from

being in charge of yourself.”