For business, mission statements if written properly will provide direction to all levels of the organization. A cleverly written one will answer questions to how to deal with customers, coworkers and the public in general.
But I must admit I have never been a fan of personal mission statements. Mission statements are an opportunity to be vague with your future plans. And having blurry direction for your life is not the most efficient path from point A to point B. Clarity, focus and a solid plan is what leads to progress in your personal goals.
With that said, if you are new to goal setting or simply have some time to kill, Nightingale Conant has a free Mission Statement Builder. It’s ok, I guess. I didn’t find it all too revealing or earth shattering. However, a mission statement is better than no goals at all.
So I went through the process of creating a personal mission statement using their tool. Note, I did not agonize or put a lot of thought into my answers. I basically, put down the first answers that came to mind.
First, you enter 5 positive characteristics that define you.
Next you list your goals. This isn’t all that bad, but when you see the end result you will understand why it’s not great.
So enter your goals and one financial goal:
Step 3 was a surprise, here you eliminate 2 of your goals and 2 of your characteristics. Huh? Well, Ok if you insist….
Make your selections:
One more next button click and my mission statement is signed, sealed and delivered. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I could go back and edit.
Like I said before, I don’t like personal mission statements. I don’t believe they give specific direction or clarity. Of course others swear by the method. (i..e Stephen Covey) so I’d like to hear what your thoughts are. Do you get results from a mission statement or not?
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The challenge is how to define positive characteristics which are indeed our best talents or indeed our current self. Not all of us can really read ourselves in precise manner. Thus, we could end up trying to achieve something by not being our best self.
The second issue is how to define goals and action steps which are very vivid so we can literally taste them upfront. Its not simply about the what; but more than that, it’s about how good we could sense our goal & action steps in practical way. That way, the predefined action steps will dictate our upcoming action unconsciously.
Er, what ???
Mission statement. I guess we do have a mission, but highly simplified, it is to serve mankind. Now, that can be broken down into sub-categories, but primarily we do not serve ourselves. We are served, without a doubt, and are paid generously by our clients, but that is not the primary purpose for being in business. We are here to provide our clients with something they can’t, or would rather not do for themselves; something that adds quality to their lives, something that brings them to a higher level of being. That’s very general. And a little Zen, but specifics would take a lot longer and wouldn’t qualify as a mission statement. I guess this is something that is playing in the background of everything we do as a business.
Long ago I worked for a company that suddenly required personal mission statements for each tech in my department. I went to http://www.dilbert.com, which has a mission statement generator in the games section, and printed one out for everyone in my dept. We laminated and posted them. The VP we were supposed to impress was actually impressed.
Mission statements have a use but that wasn’t it.
I do not like how you address and start this. My students LOVE: http://www.nightingale.com/mission_select.aspx and we use it in our STUDENT SUCCESS courses. Our students do this and enjoy it, then do their GOALS paper, PASSIONS paper, lifeline to age 100 with an outlook to the goodness of the world because of their productiveness to when they would have been age 150 [past their birth], time monitoring, 75th birthday party celebrating how they want to be known and loved, and their CAREER EXPLORATION paper. In my course, they get to fully examine their life [self-centered, selfish course, YES]. Every person should examine his /her life purpose. Each one of us should have a mission, just like companies. One of the last tasks my students do is to take all of the above and make a VISION DREAM BOARD or interviewing PORTFOLIO – it makes all of their work and goals come to ‘In Living Color’ and it is SUPER. If more would do these tasks, college or not, we would have more success; and less crime and low self-esteem. There are life coaches out here to help persons with their success life journey. Thanks and take care.
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