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Victor Hugo once said, “There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” A mission statement is that idea. You may call it a credo or a philosophy; or you may call it a purpose statement.
What is important is that vision, purpose, and values are more powerful, more significant, and more influential than the baggage of the past or the accumulated noise of the present. The power of the personal mission statement lies in your vision and in a commitment to that vision, that purpose, and those principle-centered values. They will control your decisions, determine your outlook, and provide the direction for your future.
This idea—this principle—of beginning with the end in mind is based upon the concept that all things are created twice: first in the mind, as a thought or intellectual creation; and second in reality as a physical creation.
But here’s something to think about carefully. The opposite of a mission statement is the opposite of beginning with the end in mind: beginning with no end in mind, no intellectual creation, no envisioning of the future. In other words, to let life happen.
Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist who was imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany in World War II.
Man’s Search for Meaning.
He spoke about it as detecting rather than inventing their meaning.
What is life asking of me? What is my responsibility in this situation? What kind of future contr...
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He quoted Nietzsche: “He who has a ‘why’ can live with any ‘what.’”
So as you look at your mission statement, you’ll need to work basically on two things: vision—your sense of the future—and the principles that you want to live by. Your vision is the end, the destination. Principles are the means, like the flight plan. Vision is who you really are and what you could become. Principles are those unalterable truths you feel so strongly about that you are willing to accept them as your own set of values.
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nothing gives so much direction to a person’s life as a sound set of principles.” So get perspective, take time, and be patient. Prepare to pay an enjoyable price in order to cultivate this sense of vision and purpose, committed to values that are principle centered and based upon natural laws that are universal, self-evident, and belong to all enduring cultures and religions.
First, the mission statement should be timeless. That means you write it as if it will never change.
Goals are situation specific. Instead, principles are general rules that deal with the totality of our life.
Second, the mission statement should deal with both ends and means, which means our destination and the way that we get to our destination. In practical language that would
be the development of a purpose or a vision and then the value system, hopefully one that is principle-based and enables us to accomplish our purpose or fulfill our vision. Third, the mission statement, because it is based on principles, should deal with all the roles of your life. Fou...
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What are these four? Well, we have our body, that is, the physical. You could combine it with the economic, because we need money to take care of our body, our physical well-being. The second is our relationships with others. We could call it the social/emotional aspect. Third is o...
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The body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit. The essence of these needs is captured in this phrase “to live, to lo...
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Albert Schweitzer once said, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will really be happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
Helen Keller observed, “Many persons have the wrong idea about what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
We all lead three lives: our public life, our private life, and our deep inner life.
But our deep inner life is our most significant life. It is where our heart is. It’s where we have the capacity to explore our own motives, to examine our own thoughts and desires, and to analyze our problems and our needs.
Our secret life is where we are able to tap into the power of the four human endowments: self-awareness, conscience, imagination, and independent will.
When you are dealing with the development of a personal mission statement, you need to go into the deep inner or secret life, which influences the other two. It is the part of you where you decide the most fundamental issues of your life.
It truly is a secret life. No one knows the thoughts and intents of your heart.
You alone have that awareness, and you can step in on your own deep inner life; you can examine, explore, and change it. Many people, unless they are in pain because of something they care about that is not being fulfilled, will not go into their deep inner life at all. In a sense, they’re not living. They’re just being lived, publicly and privately.
as you decide what your mission statement is about, ask yourself, “Am I prepared to act this way privately and publicly?”
Developing a personal mission statement is profound and deep work. Get perspective. Take time and be patient. Give yourself several weeks, perhaps even months.
Viktor Frankl shared a brilliant insight about developing mission statements. He said, “The thing I learned is that you don’t invent your mission, you detect it. You uncover it, as it were.” You see, everyone has special gifts, unique qualities, and characteristics. And they need to work inwardly until they detect those aspects.
Isn’t that interesting? The more I listen, the more I hear.”
Three words again: Reexamine your motives. “Examine my motives for three hours? What is my center? What is my life about? What is my core? What is my mission? What is my vision? What is it that I am all about?”
he begins to observe a pattern. He discovers that he has put at the center of his life himself and the fulfillment of his own needs. He is following a selfish pattern. Even his so-called service or selfless activities are selfish in that he wants to be known for them, to be seen, and his service to others is anything but anonymous.
He discovers that his private life is different from his public life. He puts on that he is caring, but inwardly he could look and find a selfish motive that he is trying to serve within himself.
He starts to use his imagination instead of just living out of his memory. He draws heavily upon his conscience. When you live out of your memory, you focus on the past. When you live out of your imagination, you focus on the future.
exploration. It took the first two prescriptions of quieting down his life and his spirit and remembering happy times to prepare him for
the period of self-analysis, self-awareness, and self-exploration to develop the willingness to examine his own motives and cultivate new ones.
Write your troubles in the sand.
We must give Arthur Gordon, the author of this story, credit. It is called “The Turn of the Tide.” It is a beautiful story and contains a lot of wisdom. It teaches that you don’t start writing a mission statement without first preparing to write it.
When you prepare for your own mission statement, ask the deeper questions. What are your unique gifts? Listen to those who see the potential in you. Listen and sense their affirmation of you. Study the lives of people who’ve inspired you—your heroes and what it is that you admire about them—so you can get a sense of the principles on which you want to build. You want to write a mission statement that is timeless, that will not change. It may in fact change, but you want to write it as if it will never change.
