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11.02.01

Many of us have heard about mission statements through our company, or have seen books on it in the business and self-help sections of the bookstore. But do individuals really need mission statements? What good are they? Aren't they just an intellectual exercise for people who think too much? While there are plenty of questions surrounding mission statements, I would like to answer some that I think are important.

Why have a Mission Statement?

A personal mission statement is for those people who want to use their time and life effectively, so that they accomplish meaningful goals that lead to satisfaction. Without clear goals, we often waste our lives on urgent activities that have little or no real importance. Writing a personal mission statement can help you focus on what is truly important to you, and can help you balance and integrate all parts of your life so you don't feel like you are pulled in too many directions.

But it sounds like so much hard work, and I don't even know if I would stick to it.

Writing a personal mission statement *is* work. It means you have to begin the work of looking INSIDE of yourself to ask "what do I really want? Who am I really? What do I want to do with my life?" Many of us are afraid of these questions. We think that there is no way to figure it out, or if we could, it would be impossible anyway, so why try? But the truth is that you can know yourself and what you want, and you can dream and accomplish your dreams if you are willing to let the difficulties of pursuing those dreams change you (for the better) along the way.

But writing a mission statement isn't just work, it's DISCOVERY. Discovery, expression and often healing of the real you will make your life so much more fun! When you find out what really makes you tick, you don't have to force yourself out of bed every morning.

"Without the passion of [a mission], 'discipline' is regimentation and restraint - control yourself, grit your teeth, white-knuckle your way through life. The basic paradigm is that without some form of tight control, we'll mess up. We don't have trust in ourselves that, left to our own internal motivation, we would moment by moment make effective choices.

But the passion of vision releases the power....We become followers of our inner imperatives, voluntarily subordinating the less important to the deep burning "yes!" Instead of control, we're focused on RELEASE." The key to motivation is motive. It's the why. It's the deeper "yes!" burning inside that makes it easier to say no to the less important."

- First Things First by Covey

Sticking to a mission statement is a little like sticking to a budget. You decide what's important to you, and then you have to review your goals regularly to stay on track. And each time you get off track, you can ask yourself why. Maybe your mission statement needs to be changed - perhaps you realize you are living according to your parent's expectations, or society's, or perhaps your own list of "shoulds." As you get to know what you really want, revise your mission statement. It doesn't have to stay the same for a year, or even a month! The more you can revise it to reflect what you really feel called and inspired to do, the more fun and effective your life will become.

Nobody stays on track all the time. The key is to remember this - it's not how many times you get off track, it's how quickly you get back on. Be gentle with yourself. Remember that reviewing and living by your mission statement can make your whole life hum with excitement, decisiveness, and accomplishment of the things that make you happiest!

How do you write a mission statement?

Thankfully, there are many great tools out there to help us build a mission statement, which I have listed and described below. In my thinking, however, there are only three real components of a mission statement. Your passions, your compassions, and your faith.

1. YOUR PASSIONS

By this, I mean your natural gifts, and the activities and subjects you gravitate towards. Think of the activities that you do during which time just disappears - you could do them for long periods of time and really enjoy yourself. Hidden in these activities are the clues to what you should be aiming at with your life. These things should be part of your mission statement.

In my mission statement, you will find my passions - pedagogy (teaching) and performing (both are activities I enjoy and am gifted at), and healing (subject matter I'm interested in).

I have two suggestions for discovering your own passions.

First, explore your past. Look back and see which activities really gave you enjoyment and feelings of accomplishment and contribution. The most powerful tool I have ever found for exploring your past is found in Nelson Bolles What Color Is Your Parachute (link included below), in the section titled "Your Favorite Transferable Skills." In the exercise, you write seven short stories about incidents from your past where you did something that you really enjoyed. Then, you go back and evaluate each story according to a grid, checking off skills with people, things, and ideas. When you are done with all seven stories, you can see which skills you used the most - it can be a real eye opener! Then, you prioritize the top 10 skills you used, and there you have it! Your passions! Now, you might not be highly skilled in all of the things you listed, but Bolles emphasizes that if you love it, you can become good at it.

Second, explore your desires and interests. You never know, you may not have experienced the activities and subjects that really light your fire! Go out there and experiment! As an example, a good friend of mine recently picked up one of my guitars and started hacking around. In all the time this person has known me, they never thought to try playing one of my guitars, which are always out on their stand in my living room. But something funny happened when she did - she couldn't put it down! She discovered a passion that had never been tried! You too may have passions that will awake as you explore new things.

2. YOUR COMPASSIONS

By this, I mean the group of people whom your heart goes out to when you see them suffering. Many people pursue only their passions, but their inner motive never matures to one of compassion - so they spend their lives using the gifts they love, but only for their own enjoyment, and they often end up dissatisfied even though they are doing what they love to do. This is because they have not learned the secret of being motivated by compassion, or the desire to contribute to others, which leads to deep satisfaction. I have three suggestions for developing your compassions.

First, practice being compassionate to yourself. We all have an inner critic who derides us when we fail, or belittles our dreams as impractical or selfish. Learning to replace that voice with a compassionate one takes some time and effort. You can develop compassion for yourself in many ways.

Second, you can try the practice of "sitting mediation." This involves sitting quietly for at least 20 minutes at a time, preferably between 30 and 60 minutes. As you sit, focus on your breathing, and relax. Allow your thoughts to rise into your mind, and observe them as if you were a third party. Don't judge them or try to figure out answers to problems, merely observe non-judgementally. Say to yourself "aha, this is what I am thinking about. I wonder why? That is interesting." Let each thought pass away gently, and sit quietly as other thoughts and feelings surface. Over time, your deeper thoughts and feelings will come to the surface for your observation. Observe the various emotions and pains in your body. What do they mean? What do they say to you? This practice of nonjudgmental self-observation will help you become gentler with yourself, and will in turn make you more compassionate with others.

Third, change your self talk. Someone once asked "If you spoke to your friends the way you speak to yourself when you make mistakes, would you have any friends?" Consciously refuse to call yourself names in your head, or to hate yourself when you make a mistake. Instead, choose to speak encouragingly to yourself like you would to a friend. Say things like "It's OK, we all make mistakes." Then try to find solutions with yourself. Ask things that will help you learn from your experience. "Why do I do that? What could I do differently next time?"

Second, keep the suffering of your target group in front of you. Have you ever seen a news clip about some group of people, and you identify with their struggle enough to want to be a part of the solution? This could very well be the group that you can serve with your passions and gifts. Keep pictures, articles, and video clips of their struggle in front of you to remind you and rekindle your compassion. This will keep you moving in the right direction.

Third, spend some time actually helping others. If possible, spend some time helping your target population, or individuals who resemble your target. This will help you determine if you really want to serve them, it will help you develop wisdom and skills related to their issues, and it could very well motivate you in becoming a compassionate person as you experience helping others with your gifts.

3. YOUR FAITH

Faith is a controversial subject. Who is right about God? Is God interested in my everyday affairs, and my direction in life? I am not here to suggest any answers to those questions, but let me state a few generic principles which we can all apply.

First, practice regular meditation and prayer. Each of us must be motivated from the inside out - we must be in touch with our deep selves, and our connection to the divine. There is no way to do this without the regular disciplines of the inner life. If you have no inner connection, you will have little satisfaction or power in your daily actions. See my favorite books for some suggestions.

Second, if you believe God talks to you personally, what is God saying? What do believe God is asking you to do with your life? Admittedly, this is an area where people are often very confused. We can misapprehend the "voice of God" because of interference from our own misunderstandings of God, our own strong desires, our own unspiritual habits, and superstitious interpretation of events. With regard to hearing the "voice of God,", I make three suggestions.

First, always bounce your ideas off of someone you consider spiritually mature, like a pastor, teacher, mentor, or other person who demonstrates patience, kindness, and love (the signs of a truly spiritual person).

Second, test it by looking for corroborating evidence in the other two areas - does it line up with your passions and compassions? If not, it may not be the voice of God.

Third, move in that direction and watch what happens, both internally and externally. Do you grow spiritually? Do you enjoy it, or does it give you spiritual strength and joy? Do your circumstances seem to change to help you move in that direction? If so, then you should continue. If not, you may not be hearing God.

Third, discover and develop your own "world view." Most humans feel the need to be part of something larger than themselves, something that helps humanity or the world. To make sense of life, and of our own lives in particular, we need a bigger framework through which to view, interpret, and assign meaning to our efforts. Faith often answers the bigger questions like "What is worth doing? What is wrong with the world, and how can it be fixed?" Having answers to these questions can help you aim at a satisfying future.

Not only can these answers be intellectually investigated in one or many of the religious or secular world views (Chrisitianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Humanism, etc.), they can be actively pursued in a faith community, or other "community of meaning" that practices the world view and values of their creed. Join some others who are spiritually minded and whose efforts contribute to the world, and add your efforts to theirs.

How often do I change my mission statement?

As part of Covey's 7 Habits, I reconnect with my mission statement each week so that I am constantly living according to what is important to me. I change it any time I start to feel that it is incomplete, or doesn't reflect who I am today - since my perspective, self-knowledge, and priorities change over time. This may be as often as every few months. And once a year, I take extra time and do a serious review of my mission statement.

Can you recommend some books on mission-related topics?

What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Nelson Bolles. This book has wonderful exercises for clarifying what you are good at, and where you would like to go with your career.

The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life by Laurie Beth Jones. This book is a simple, fun, and practical how-to book for living a purposeful life more in line with your passions. Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down trying to write a mission statement, but Jones' book is pleasantly brief, with lot's of examples to help you, making it easy to start and finish. This book is also a very aesthetically pleasing - sort of green gilded edges, nice layout - it looks like the publisher took great care in preparing the entire presentation. I have returned to this book many times to master the basics of writing my own mission statement. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen Covey. This is the first in a series of books Covey has published on living effectively. His system is, IMO, the best out there. It's a little tough to read, but if you read it, buy a Covey daytimer/planner, and do it, you will see powerful results. If you would like to read First Things First (which I highly recommend), you should read this one first. RECOMMENDED.

First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy by Stephen Covey. This book, second in the series, is my favorite. It gives you details on how to plan your life from your mission statement. I can't say enough good things about this book. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. This is a two tape series. You can get the book too, but I like the tapes - they are not a verbatim reading of the book - they are recorded seminars that she gave from the book, and are very good. In The Artist's Way, you will learn exercises and perspectives that help you silence the inner critic and release your inner artist! The passionate, creative person that you really are.