A PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT “The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT or philosophy or creed. It focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based. You could call a personal mission statement a personal constitution. Like the United States Constitution, it’s fundamentally changeless. In over two hundred years, there have been only twenty-seven amendments, ten of which were the original Bill or Rights. The United States Constitution is the standard by which every law in the country is evaluated. It is the document the president agrees to defend and support when he takes the Oath of Allegiance. It is the criterion by which people are admitted into citizenship. It is the foundation and the center that enables people to ride through such major traumas as the Civil War, Vietnam, or Watergate. It is the written standard, the key criterion by which everything else is evaluated and directed. The Constitution has endured and serves its functions today because it is based on correct principles, on the self-evident truths contained in the Declaration of Independence. These principles empower the Constitution with a timeless strength, even in the midst of social ambiguity and change. ‘Our peculiar security,’ said Thomas Jefferson, ‘is in the possession of a written Constitution.’ A personal mission statement based on correct principles becomes the same kind of standard for an individual. It becomes a personal constitution, the basis for making major, life-directing decisions, the basis for making daily decisions in the midst of the circumstances and emotions that affect our lives. It empowers individuals with the same timeless strength in the midst of change. People who can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value. With a mission statement, we can flow with changes. We don’t need prejudgments or prejudices. We don’t need to figure out everything else in life, to stereotype or categorize everything and everybody in order to accommodate reality. Our personal environment is also changing at an ever-increasing pace. Such rapid change burns out a large number of people who feel they can hardly handle it, can hardly cope with life. They become reactive and essentially give up, hoping that the things that happen to them will be good. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In the Nazi death camps where Victor Frankl learned the principle of proactivity, he also learned the importance of purpose, of meaning in life. The essence of ‘logotherapy,’ the philosophy he later developed and taught, is that many so-called mental and emotional illnesses are really symptoms of an underlying sense of meaninglessness or emptiness. Logotherapy eliminates that emptiness by helping the individual to detect his unique meaning, his mission in life. Once you have that sense of mission, you have the essence of your own proactivity. You have the vision and the values which direct your life. You have the basic direction from which you set your long-term and short-term goals. You have the power of a written constitution based on correct principles, against which every decision concerning the most effective use of your time, your talents, and your energies can be effectively measured.” Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People THE IMPORTANCE OF A MISSION STATEMENT “All successful companies have clear mission statements. All successful salespeople have clear mission statements as well. As president of your own company, in charge of your own life and career, you need TWO separate mission statements, each of which supports and reinforces the other. The writing of your mission statements is the logical next step that follows from the definitions of your vision and values. It becomes your personal credo and determines your future. It is the organizing statement that serves as the directional mechanism for everything you do. Your personal mission statement is a definition of the kind of person that you wish to become, in every respect, sometime in the future. You business mission statement defines how you want to be known to your customers. For example, a personal mission statement could be: ‘I am an outstanding human being in every respect. I am warm, loving, compassionate, sincere, and forgiving in all my relationships with the important people in my life, my family, and others. I am an honest person, a good friend, and known for my qualities of generosity, helpfulness, sincerity, understanding, and patience. I am positive, enthusiastic, happy, and fully engaged with life. I am liked, admired, and respected by everyone who knows me.’ Your business mission might read as follows: ‘I am an outstanding professional in every respect. I am extremely knowledgeable about my products and services, and about my customer’s situation, and I am thoroughly prepared for each appointment. I am possessed of the finest character, known for my honesty, dependability, reliability, and determination. I am a warm, friendly, likable human being who takes excellent care of each customer and I am a pleasure to deal with in every way.’ This is a definition of how you wish to be seen and thought about by your customers. It is the way you want others to talk about you and describe you to other people. Once you have developed your business mission statement, you will have a set of guidelines that will help you do and say the right things in all your business activities. A mission statement is always written in the present tense, as though you have already become the person that you have described. It is always positive rather than negative. It describes the qualities you desire to have rather than the weaknesses you wish to overcome. And it is always personal. It begins with the words, ‘I am,’ ‘I can,’ ‘I achieve.’ Your subconscious mind can only accept your mission statement as a set of commands when you phrase it in the present, positive, and personal tense. Once you have developed your mission statements, you can read them, review them, edit them, and upgrade them regularly. You can add additional qualities to them and more clearly define the qualities you’ve already listed. They become your personal credos, your philosophy of life, your statement of beliefs and guides to your behavior in all your interactions with others. Each day, you can evaluate your behaviors and compare them against the standards that you have set for yourself in these statements. Over time, a remarkable thing will happen. As you read and review your mission statements, you will find yourself, almost unconsciously, shaping your words and conforming your behaviors so that you are more and more like the ideal person you have defined. People will notice the change in you almost immediately. You will find that you are actually creating within yourself the kind of character and personality that you most admire in others and desire for yourself. You will have become the molder and the shaper of your own personal destiny.” Brian Tracy, “Personal Strategic Planning for the Professional,” 1995
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 06:54:36 +0000
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