Personal Mission Development

During your personal mission development, you examine and evaluate the things you want, the person you are, the things you want to do, and the person you want to become.

Out of that process comes the end result of your personal mission development: the personal mission statement.

This then becomes a tool for achieving goals and dreams and in effect, becomes the code by which you live.

People talk about "finding" their lives. In reality, your life is not something you find - it's something you create.

-David Phillips

By setting a new standard for yourself, you are placing yourself in a more resourceful state. By relying on this new standard for decision making based on what is truly important to you, you move your life in the direction that you want it to take.

Instead of being at the mercy of outside forces, you choose your destiny. Instead of being influenced by circumstances, you control your environment. There will always be surprises and things out of your control, but you can greatly improve your ability to shape your life.

Inspiration can be an elusive companion. Sometimes, it seems like we can't get inspired at all. Other times, we get inspired for a short time, and then, for various reasons, we lose it.

There are several steps in the personal mission development process.

Identifying and clarifying your values helps you to be able to create a mission statement that is based on, and supports, what is most important to you.

Determining the roles you play and how you want to contribute in those roles works to put your behavior in perspective, and under your control. This allows you to prepare, before each day, before each encounter, how you want to act and react to the situations you find yourself in.

In addition, the process of writing a personal mission statement will include uncovering and writing down what can be called, your life's purpose. Now, that might sound like a big term, but don't let it scare you off.

Generally speaking, this is how you want to be, what you want to do, what you want to have, and how you want to be thought of... the major things that you would want to accomplish in your personal and professional life.

But, you're in charge. The resulting statement itself can be as simple as the Nike slogan... "just do it" or like this one from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens... "nothing less."

The point is to go through the process.

As you work through your personal mission development, you'll no doubt bring out great thoughts about things you have accomplished. You'll also find areas where you wish you had done more, or differently, or better. You need to evaluate those in light of your current life situation.

Are those things that you still want to experience and accomplish today? If so, then they may form part of the basis of your personal mission statement.

Think all of this through. Do you have a talent that you have been neglecting? What accomplishments have made you happy in the past? Are there things that you are very interested in, but have never explored? Do you want to make a bigger contribution is some way? If there were no limits, what would you do with your life?

Personal mission development is not a one day process. Unless you've been thinking about this for a long time, you will not sit down and write out your mission in life in one sitting. It's also an ongoing process. No one keeps the same goals and dreams their entire lives.

Your life is a work in progress, and so is the development of your mission. Periodically you will review and revise your mission statement.

Note: During the personal mission development process, keep the notes you make on these topics. Take notice of what's lacking or what you'd like to do more of, and spin these off into a separate goal setting exercise.

In fact, if you find you're having trouble with your mission, it's a good idea to do some goal setting activities, and then come back to the mission statement later. This goal setting lesson plan might be helpful.

While you're working on developing your mission, keep these self improvement ideas in mind.

Since this process of uncovering your life's purpose is intensely personal, and also has some rules to it, coming up with a personal mission statement definition is not all that easy. You'll want to review the examples on this web site that I've provided for you, as well as the examples of others. You'll find that mission statements vary widely in their style, tone, and content.

Click here to see an example of a personal mission statement.

Note: The rules that I mentioned above are actually guidelines to get you through the process, and there are really no hard and fast rules for the mission statement itself.

Since your mission statement describes your unique purpose in life, it will become the standard by which you live. It is your anchor in the stormy sea of life. It is your safety net, and it is also your springboard. It is both the airplane that gets you there, and the parachute that allows you to land safely when the unexpected happens. Your personal mission statement will keep you inspired, and that will keep you motivated.

Most of us are busy doing what we think we have to do, that we do not think about what we really want to do.

-Robert Percival

I've created a sample mission statement based on the example set by Dr. Randall Hansen. Please feel free to use it as part of your development process.

If you're stuck for ideas, a fun and easy way to come up with a mission is to use acronyms. Check out these mission statement examples using acronyms.

You can add components to your mission statement for any aspect of your life you choose -- marriage, career, learning, and so on. For example, here are some personal mission statement examples for students.

If you want to do more with your life, and feel good while doing it, personal mission development can get you there. If you want to be more secure, more inspired, more grounded, and more successful, this is a good place to start your foundation.

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