Do you have a Personal Mission Statement?

Seems like a silly question, huh?  I mean, mission statements are for companies and organizations, not people, right?  Well….

Personal Branding is a hot concept, and while I don’t completely buy into the personal branding BS, most people would be well served focusing some attention on their personal brand.

A Personal Mission Statement is a completely different animal.  While personal branding is the act of focusing other people on your accomplishments and abilities, creating a personal mission statement is for internal use only.  Not that it should be a secret, but the mission statement is designed for your own use.

For example, just after Heather and I got married we decided to create a 5-10 year plan.  We both had some consumer debt going into the marriage and we both have student loans from graduate school.  Neither of these things are crushing, but they represent a significant monthly expense.  We have entertained the idea of living overseas and realized that we would need to be in a better financial situation to make that a reality.  It would be very challenging to have jobs that pay in Rand or Shekel, or Zimbabwean Dollars and bills that are due in US dollars.

So we set the goal of paying off all our consumer debt and a significant portion of our student loan debt.  Originally we thought this should be done in five years.  The opportunity to come to Beaufort changed our timeframe.  Moving to Beaufort has extended the time available for achieving our goals.

I wouldn’t call this our mission statement, simply because we don’t devote our entire lives to meeting this goal.  However, the quasi mission statement serves to keep Heather and I focused.  When the thought of buying new dining room furniture hit us a few months ago, we both were pretty excited.  We would soon have our own place, not an apartment; we would be in Beaufort for a while and could get settled in; and wouldn’t it be nice to have a dining room that matched?  After a few days of being excited, one of us thought about our 5-10 year plan.  This begged the question: Does the dining room furniture help us achieve our goal?  Probably not.  Does it help us pay off our debt?  Definitely not.  Does the purchase make it easier for us to relocate overseas?  Absolutely not, probably makes it more difficult.  So we decided against the furniture.

Without a concrete understanding of future goals, it’s very easy to become distracted and weighed down with the distractions of our consumer society.  I encourage everyone who has future goals and aspirations to think about creating a mission statement. No need to be too formal, Heather and I don’t have this motto printed on our door or tattooed on our foreheads.  You might be surprised how helpful having a personal mission statement is to achieving your goals

Tagged as: future, goals, lifehack, marketing, mission statement, personal mission statement