Writing a Personal Mission Statement...

[Volpone]

When I was 29 a man told me to read Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits for Highly Effective People." I did. But at the time I wasn't mature enough to get much out of it. At 37 I reread it and was amazed by how useful it was. I just needed to be ready to understand it.

One of the early exercises Covey recommends is to do a "personal mission statement." Businesses have them to ensure they don't lose their focus and doing one really helped me understand what motivates me and why I couldn't get excited by some jobs that were out there.

So I whipped one up. Mine is a page long, has a quote by Patton, and two from Teddy Roosevelt. It has a paragraph followed by 15 supporting bullets. I've added a note to myself at the bottom in handwriting and if/when I revise it I should add another quote by Hans von Seeckt.

I won't bore you with the whole thing, but one of the things that motivates me is a need to help people--the whole Lone Ranger thing. I state that money, degrees, licenses, and technical certifications are all tools that can allow me to help people and if I need to get certifications to better do my job, then that is what I'll do.

So right now, I'm reading a book by Michael Dell on running Dell Computers, learning to use MS Project, setting up QuickBooks, and learning to configure a "smart phone". I have books on warfighting, running a website, and building Access databases that I should be reading as well.

The trap there, is that I need to balance learning with doing. It is easy to delay action because you want to study something more. In fact all four quotes remind me of this:

"We live in deeds, not years."-Patton.

"It is hard to fail, but it is worst never to have tried to succeed."-T.R.

"The worst of all fears is the fear of living."-T.R.

"The essential thing is action...[F]or the man of action, character is of more critical importance than intellect. Intellect without will is worthless, will without intellect is dangerous."-von Seeckt.

Oh, and Bullet #8, it absolutely needs to be in my personal mission statement, but I should maybe do one without it to show to people:

8. I really, really like dirty, dirty sex. Hot, sweaty, monkey sex.

I've actually been doing OK on #8 lately.

 

[Dark Pickle]

If I tried something like that it'd be much more concise.

My problem is I'd change it every few years or so

 

[Volpone]

Hmmm... The winky-eye may mean a subtle nudge in the ribs. Shades, is that you?

Shorter would probably be good. And changing it every couple years would also be good. To my defense:
1) It's in a pretty good sized font with lots of whitespace
2) The top part is only 6 lines long--everything else is just there for refining the actual statment--sort of bylaws as it were
3) I've only had it for a couple years and I am thinking about changing it.

And anyways, you really don't need to change your mission that often. You may change yout techniques. Or your mission may change if you have some life-changing experience. But your mission is pretty much who you are and what motivates you. If you're driven to help people you may become a fireman or donate a kidney, but just because you can no longer donate a kidney, you still are going to be motivated to help people.

 

[Mirah]

Thanks for sharing.