My Mission Statement:
The purpose of my life is to bring heaven to earth through loving, inspiring, motivating, educating and exampling it to everyone around me.
When I was 20 I worked in aged care. My job was to provide care & assistance at the end of their lives. I unfortunately learnt during this time that the vast majority of people wasted their lives and departed this world bitter, disappointed and frustrated at how they had spent their lives. However, I did meet a couple of rare people who had lived deliberately. They had lived well and died well. I made the decision then to live life of passion and purpose. I did not want to arrive at the end of my life disappointed whinging and whining to the poor nurse who is looking after me.
The philosopher Seneca wrote “It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested… many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men’s fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares”.
After writing down my mission statement I found myself more naturally focussed. I found it easier to say no to the things that didn’t matter, the distractions, and deliberately spend time on the things that really did have meaning to my life. What rolled out after that far exceeded my expectations. The cafe I own and run was on the front page of the newspaper “Help is heaven-sent” and the title of the article read “A little help from Above. It’s almost like they quoted my mission statement!
All I did was wake up every morning and try and live my mission. It’s a pretty outrageous declaration and if I’m perfectly honest I failed at it every day. But by simply having a target written down to shoot for it was enough.
If you don’t have a mission statement written down I highly recommend investing the time to do it. Set aside a few hours with no technology nearby, a pen and a notebook. Write a statement that captures “why you are doing everything you do”. The theme or themes that have been with you for years. It’s meant to be bold. It’s meant to capture the best of who you want to be.
You will fail at it. That’s okay. The point is establishing a target so when you are off course you are aware of it.
It’s okay to change it. I adjust and fine tune mine at least once a year.
Make it broad enough to capture all of you. “Be a successful cricket player” is not enough. If you’re a cricket player you are probably also a husband, a father and a mentor to youth. Your job will change. Your passion for pursuing the pinnacle of your physical potential and passing the knowledge, skill and fun of professional athleticism to the next generation is a mission statement that would really capture the overarching theme.
It must be specific enough to draw out the unique strengths of your own individual personality. It’s not enough to say “be a loving and generous wife & mother”. Someone should be able to read your mission statement and have an idea it’s specifically about you. Anything too broad will fail to motivate you on your bad days.
Another point is you can’t “prescribe” a mission statement you can only “describe” it. By this I mean that you can not make one up for someone else. Without getting overly spiritual everyone’s path and calling is unique. A great mission statement will capture the idiosyncrasies of your personal journey.
I hope this helps. If you read this and write down your mission statement I’d love to hear from you!
