Personal mission statements are powerful. They keep you honest and true to where you should be spending your valuable, precious, irreplaceable TIME. People that know me have heard me say a million times, “We spend the majority of our days on what I call the daily minutiae of crap.” In other words, stuff that sucks up our time but frankly is pretty worthless in the grand scheme of things. When you have a personal mission statement it serves as your beacon to not only provide a litmus test of where and when to spend your time but it also allows you to measure things against your values…where you work, your personal relationships, your volunteer efforts and so much more.

A personal mission statement defines who you are as a person (or as a team member where you work) and identifies your purpose, whether that’s in the office or simply in life. It explains how you aim to pursue that purpose, and why it matters so much to you.

A meaningful personal mission statement contains two basic elements. The first is what you want to do – what you want to accomplish, what contributions you want to make. The second is what you want to be – what character strengths you want to have, what qualities you want to develop.

Examples:

My personal mission statement: To leave anything I touch better than I found it through courage, curiosity and kindness.

So from my mission statement you can see a few values that are important to me are courage, curiosity and kindness. A few other values are helping others and competence. Family, friends and health are also high on my value list. Another important things to note about mission statements are they are not set in stone! They can change and evolve over time…it’s totally a working document while it guides you through life and work.

So what’s your mission statement?