Defining your personal mission statement

Crafting a mission statement is not an easy feat. We establish them for our companies and various organizations, but often fail to create one to live by personally. Have you determined what the true mission for your life is and how you want to live it?

I recently went through the exercise of creating a mission statement with teammates in my department at work as well as defining a yearly mission/theme for an organization. The process was similar, and I genuinely enjoyed the collaboration and creativity required to land on a short statement defining the group’s main purpose. Identifying the drive behind the work provided a sense of motivation and direction.

If we have mission statements for our corporate and philanthropic work, why do we glaze over the mission of our personal lives? Do we actually spend the time to think about our purpose, for what we are called, and where our passion lies? Maybe now and again, but we rarely define it.

Why is it important to define it? For starters, life is busy! It is easy to get sidetracked with the monotony of tasks and fail to truly live the path we’d like our life to portray. We often say yes to far too many things that don’t truly support our passion. In a desire to do good or enjoy life, we get burnt out because we overburden ourselves. By defining our personal mission, it provides a guideline to weigh new tasks against before determining if it is something we should spend time pursuing. It reminds me of the phrase, “Make sure your yes is worth your less.” By saying yes to one thing or adding another responsibility, you will be giving less of yourself to something else. If it’s not within the guidelines of your personal mission and it isn’t something you need to do for work, family, etc., then say NO!

So, how does one come up with a personal mission statement? Consider the following and jot down some notes for each question.

• What do you love to do – personally, spiritually, at work, in our communities, etc.?
• What do you value most?
• What are your strengths?
• What brings you joy?
• What fires you up?
• What do you want to be known for?
• Are there are causes or groups of people you feel called to help?

What words stick out to you from what you wrote? What verbs truly demonstrate what you’d like to accomplish? I invite you to pray over this and circle the ones that stand out the most. Massage them a bit. Perhaps use a thesaurus and see if any other words jump out. Your statement can have numerous parts, but it should be simple enough that you can memorize it. If you want it to be more in depth, I suggest establishing various pillars to define your mission in more detail, but the main statement should be simple. I will share my personal mission statement below based on this exercise.

MY MISSION:
To change the world by witnessing my Catholic faith, sharing love, and cultivating community.

It may seem broad at first, but I also have thought through what that truly means for me to live it out. I will I change the world by:

• Witnessing my Catholic Faith – By living my faith fully no matter the setting, I seek to evangelize to bring people closer to God. By being more kind, considerate, generous, sacrificial, and loving my neighbor, I will strive to show others the true purpose of life – to get to heaven. I will show them Jesus through my actions. I hope to redefine their view of Catholicism and faith. I hope to encourage conversations of faith with everyone I encounter.
• Sharing Love – For me, this means sharing love with everyone I encounter, and being vulnerable with family, friends, coworkers, etc. It means providing forgiveness to those who hurt me. But mainly, I feel passionate about sharing love with those who may have not received it. I will do that by being a foster parent, going on mission trips, and serving the least in my community.
• Cultivating Community – In community, we find support, joy, love and people to walk alongside us in the journey. I seek to create that for people in my church, workplace, family, city, etc. Helping to cultivate these smaller communities of dependency and tighter knit families provides a better world for children to be raised, families to thrive, love to be created, and hope to be restored.

Through these pillars, I hope to be a positive light for other people to support them in finding more joy and purpose in their lives, ultimately pointing them to the love of God. I seek to be a small vessel in the transformation of communities in hopes of making the world a better place.  

Going through the exercise listed in this article is the first time I ever put my personal mission statement in writing. I’ve thought through these pillars and their definitions numerous times, but I have never gone to the extent to shape the words and create one statement for the mission of my life (at least for this season). I look forward to reframing my life around this statement every day. It is my why, my purpose. It is the deeper meaning when I fail to see the big picture. It is the mission for my life, the one the Lord has called me to complete.

For which mission do you feel called?