Mission Statements

Having spent many years studying business, the importance of a strong mission statement is not to be underestimated when it comes to a company’s (or any organization’s) success (for-profit or otherwise). But it turns out that mission statements are a powerful tool for us as individuals as well. A personal mission statement is a great way to focus your reason for getting up each day into a single, succinct blurb.

So what’s the purpose of a mission statement? It can be your mantra when you need an extra boost to pursue your goals and a reminder of what’s most important in your life. It can also serve as a compass for decision making – helping you to evaluate options in terms of whether or not they will support your self-defined ultimate purpose on this earth. Perhaps most importantly of all, the process of crafting your mission statement can be an empowering experience; opening up your imagination and your heart to possibilities you may have dismissed as naïve or improbable in the past.

So what makes a good mission statement? Any business student will tell you it’s a short (ideally a sentence in length)  articulation of your reason for operation that is specific enough to be measured but broad enough to ensure you have a purpose for many years to come. If you need a little inspiration, Google your favorite businesses and check out their mission or vision statements. In fact, a particularly good example is Google itself. You can find this text on Google’s Corporate website.

“Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Notice that Google hasn't pigeon-holed itself, the organization is able to keep this mission even as technology changes. Once you have some solid examples to get your wheels spinning, block out a little time for yourself to do some soul searching. If you’re having trouble narrowing down what your purpose is for your mission statements, here are a few questions to get you started:

•    What topics get you excited, agitated, bring out the rawist emotions in you, or maybe even get you angry when they arise in conversation?  What is it you’re so passionate about that gives rise to these emotions?
  
•    What activities do you look forward to the most? Which of these activities  give you a sense of purpose and fulfillment?
•    When was the last time you woke up and bounded out of bed, ready to take on the day? What did you do that day that gave rise to this feeling?

For some of us, crafting a personal mission statement that sticks may be a simple task, while for others it may take some serious reflection. Maybe you are already living your mission statement each and every day, and that’s wonderful! Or maybe your true purpose is to create a more peaceful planet as an animal activist and you work in a puppy mill – that’s ok too!  You’ve now taken the first step to reaigning your actions with your life purpose.

My own mission statement is a work in progress, but the groundwork is in place. Here’s what I have so far: To help others discover health, happiness, compassion for all beings, and a curiosity about the world around them. While I still have some fine tuning to do, I think this statement really sums up what I feel my purpose is.  

Tune in next time for some more tips for creating YOUR mission statement and making it a reality!

Video: Lost Generation

My good friend Julie shared this video with me and I loved the message so much I wanted to share it with you. After spending a great deal of energy searching job postings today and feeling increasingly discouraged about the employment front, this video gave me just the gentle reminder about priorities I needed. 

Passion

Image found here.

We had an interesting class discussion the other day and it made me think about the buzzword of many a leadership program, passion, in a whole new way.  The term is thrown around so often in the business school that I've been weary of using it too frequently myself. So when my professor started talking about passion at the beginning of class, I admit, I started to tune out.

I am glad that I didn't completely lose focus, however, because he was not talking about passion in some sort of grandiose manner. Rather, he addressed the issue of passion in such a realistic and applicable way that I left class that day feeling refreshed. His point was that the reason so many people are unhappy and unproductive in their working lives is because they are not doing what they're passionate about.  

Ok, so far this is probably old news to most of us. But what really struck me about his lecture was that he took that idea one step further - the reason so many people are in jobs or living lives they are not happy with is because they do not even know what they are passionate about. That means they might go to a job that makes them miserable everyday from which they receive no sense of satisfaction, but they do not even know what would excite them enough to pursue a different path.  That's powerful.

So how does one wind up in such a predicament?  From a student's perspective, I can understand the pressures to obtain a job right out of school.  We are taught to justify taking employment that does not reflect our true ambitions because we need security.  Our passions can come later, after we have a stable income and food on the table.  But wait, then comes an expensive wedding and the expectations of having children.  By that time you have already established a quality of life that would be compromised by the risks associated with a major career change or lifestyle transition.  And perhaps, over enough time, we have been so busy trying to maintain the lives we have built that we no longer know what we are truly passionate about.

The truth is, I do not know for sure what I am passionate about anymore either.  I have been so busy with classes, work, taking on leadership roles for the sole purpose of bulking up my resume, and pragmatically searching job postings, that I have less and less time to pursue my own interests... if I could remember what they are.  

Have you run into this problem?  Perhaps you are in the minority of people who wake up excited to get to work each day and disdain the sun's fall in the sky as it means you might actually need to stop for sleep.  For the rest of us - do you know what passion you would pursue if you could? What is preventing you from making a change and going after it?

I think my most prominent passions are purely delicious foods, finding new ways to decrease my own ecological footprint and encouraging others to do the same, animals and animal rights, bicycling, and getting people to laugh.  In an ideal world, I turn these passions into my life's work. If anyone has suggestions for how to do that I hope you will share. In the meantime, you'll have to read on to find out whether or not I can figure it out on my own.