How to Write a Personal Mission Statement

How to Write a Personal Mission Statement

Mission statements are everywhere. They’re on walls in company lobbies, in social media bios, and stated on almost every website. Mission statements help companies cast a vision for it’s future. They define a business or organization’s identity and purpose. 

Sounds like a pretty useful tool, right? You can have a mission statement too! It could be just what you’ve needed to identify your goals and find the motivations to achieve them.

A personal mission statement defines who you are as a person (or team member if you are doing this for work) and identifies your purpose. It explains how you plan to pursue that purpose and why it matters to you. It should be only one or two sentences and state exactly what you’re all about – in simple terms.

A good personal mission statement should include three things:

• Your skills and abilities – what you like to do
• Your personality traits – how you operate
• Your values, dreams, and passions – why you want to excel

Think about your life principles and goals. Why did you set these goals? How do your goals make you a better person? Your mission statement should answer these questions in 50 words or less, so try to get to the heart of who you are and keep out any unnecessary details.

Whether you’re a stay at home parent, student, business executive, or entrepreneur, everyone should create a personal mission statement. It helps you focus on how to meet your long-term goals and serves as a guidepost for where you want to go in life. It keeps you from wandering off track. When ideas, plans, or offers come into your life you can hold them up to your personal mission statement to decide if this new thing is truly a fit or not. If it doesn’t fit within the confines of your personal mission statement, then it isn’t for you. For example, if your passion is being outdoors, is it wise to take on a career that requires you to be in an office 60 hours per week? No, don’t set yourself up for failure or misery.

People fail at what they set out to achieve because they lack clear focus and goals. They lose sight of who they were made to be. Once you have your personal mission statement, start using it right away. Frame it and put it somewhere you will see it often. Seeing and living out your written purpose every day will add so much value, productivity, and fulfillment to your life.