With a background in business, I was familiar with companies having mission and vision statements. I always saw them as something that you had to have on your website in case people wanted to read it to get an idea of what you stood for. But I never really understood the impact of having one until recently.
I work with a leadership coach and was given an assignment to identify my core values and develop a personal mission and vision statement. When I set out to complete this assignment, it started off as just something to cross off my to do list. But as I looked into what a mission and vision statement was and wrote my own, I realized it was a pretty life changing assignment.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been mildly obsessed with figuring out my purpose and trying to decide if I was doing the right things to fulfill my purpose. And I’ve heard of people talking about their ‘why’ and what makes them jump out of bed in the morning, but that didn’t really stick with me. I love sleeping, nothing made me want to jump out of bed. Thinking that I needed to have this jump out of bed feeling made me feel worse because I felt like nothing I was doing was that exciting and there must be something wrong with me.
Well, I’ve realized I’m on my own journey and if I’m at least intentional about making my day about something that I value, that will be enough for now and will eventually get me to that jump out of bed feeling. When you know what your values are, you can create a life that has meaning.
After taking time to identify my values, I discovered what’s really important to me. That helped me to create my personal mission and vision statement. It’s important to know what your mission and vision statements are because it’s a guideline to how you want to live your life. Your mission statement describes your purpose, who you are and what you do. It’s where you currently are in life and why. Your vision statement describes where you’re going.
When you have your mission and vision statement you know where your life needs to go. It’s a measurement for everything that you do. Whenever you have a decision to make or need to plan out your day, you can see if it aligns with your mission and vision. Do things that match up so that you can live into your purpose.
Your statements should empower you and give you energy. Your statements should be the driving force of how you live your life. For me, your personal mission and vision statements might not make you jump out of bed, but it will help guide you along your way so that you know you’re on the right path.
You can even say your statements as daily mantras to remind yourself of why you’re here and why you’re doing what you’re doing. Or you can write it on your mirror or somewhere that you’ll see if for inspiration. I actually put my mission and vision statement in a beautiful frame on my desk so it’s a daily reminder for me to live into.
You can find my personal mission and vision statement on my About page, here.
Do you have a personal mission and vision statement? Share it in the comments!
Be you. Be*YOU*tiful.