On Tuesdays I write about Living my Legend. This section is inspired by The Alchemist and is an account of my journey of living my potential.
Values to mission statement
Last week I wrote about my five personal core values. These values are the things I want to experience in my life. They are the foundation for a mission statement for my life, a timeless translation of who I am and what I want to experience in my life. It gives a sense of direction, quite like a compass, when faced with difficult decisions.
My five personal core values need to be reflected in my mission statement. They are what I want to experience, so if I make a compass to guide me, I should use these values to direct me in the right direction. In the article about my values I already gave away some hints as to how the values give me energy:
- I need love and have a lot of love to give
- I’m here to have lots of fun
- Freedom is a value that’s really strong within me
- The things I do, think and say are in connection with who I am
- I aim for growth in most aspects of my life
Writing the mission statement
These parts need to be combined into a short, bold mission statement. Short because it needs to be easy to remember. Bold because it describes who you are and what you want to experience and most of the people haven’t reached this yet. So it’s perfectly acceptable to put ambition into the mission statement. There are more guidelines to make a mission statement, like it cannot contain dependencies and you should avoid vague wish-words (like want, aim, seek and so on).
The process of sculpting the mission statement is a creative process. Take some parts, make phrases, shuffle them around, combine them, erase parts and so on. There’s no science in this, it needs to be a statement that feels right and has the right words in the right places for you. It may need to mature over several weeks, write a version, let it rest for a week and look at it again. Sculpt some more and let it mature again. It may take a couple of weeks, but it should feel right.
The result
I’ve undergone this process already, so I can present you my mission statement here:
I, Lodewijk van den Broek, love life and have a lot of love to give. I enjoy authentic growth and I help others to grow. I’m here to have lots of fun and enjoy my freedom in comfort and vitality.
So there it is, this is my mission statement. My guide to positive energy. Quite an accomplishment already, but I’m not done yet. This still is pretty high level. To make it usable on a day-to-day basis, I need to translate this into guidelines and goals. I’ll work through that in another post.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
That is one of the most positive and concise mission statements I have seen. There are corporations that could learn from you, particularly the one I work for!
Thanks Stephen! I think that knowing your direction is very important. This goes for people, but for corporations it’s probably even more important, since they have to make sure to align groups of people in the same direction. There are a lot of companies with room for improvement on this area, including the one I work for.
ENJOY, Lodewijk!! and prosper…
i m aiming for my own mission statement and from all the online material i searched for developing a personal statement, yours is the one i learned from !!
My mission in life….I want to be a good man not big man. I want to be happy, healthy and creative….
That is a beautiful way of looking at things. Thank you.
I really like the way you wrote the mission statement. And it’s clear how you’ve derived it from core values. I’ve got mine created now, just a few questions:
Do you recommend a coat of arms? Or some type of symbol that defines the person you are? It would really be a visual summary of the core values ….
I really want to get a tattoo with my coat of arms, but it seems that new ones keep popping up as I experience more and more situations in life. So I’d have to ask the question, when will your core values be finally etched in stone?
Thanks for sharing, very nice site!
I truly couldn’t say. I believe they will never be really set in stone, life is simply too dynamic. There are many life-changing events – good and bad – that change one’s perspective on what’s ultimately important in their lives.
I do believe that a set of personal core values exists and that this set remains important, no matter what life asks from us. Working seriously on discovering them will reveal them, but that’s something that you can only feel yourself.
If you feel that new core values keep popping up all the time, my feeling is that you might not have gotten to the core yet. I’d hold off on the tattoos
I’ve been looking for someone who can share experience in making mission statements. Thank you. I see there are others like me too developing their mission statements.
hi,
This is a wonderful mission statement whoever has written this.I can relate all this points so well.These are the ultimate ans simple things which every one needs to acieve.
I am currently busy with a module in leadership and management, and the one thing I need to do is to develop my personal mission statement. Thank you for sharing yours! Throughout the research I did so far (a lot from Covey!
) I also found that this statement is not set in stone. And as far as I am concerned, the statement should always be positive, easy to remember and only one to three sentences in length.
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