Arianna Merritt, M.Ed.

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Creating a Personal Mission Statement

Arianna Merritt

I have been thinking about writing a personal mission statement for a while now.  However, I was unsure of how to articulate “my mission.”

Have you ever felt like this?

I started on this path, by first creating a vision board to get a sense of what is important to me and what my goals are. A vision board is a visual display of the goals I would like to accomplish in my life.  Vision boards are really fun to make. If you haven’t made one, you should give it a try! You can check out mine here.

Soon after, I realized I needed to write a personal mission statement.  It took a bit longer than I had hoped, as I had many general ideas but needed to get specific.

According to Covey, Merrill, and Merrill (1994, p. 113), “An empowering mission statement:

    1. represents the deepest and best within you. It comes out of a solid connection with your deep inner life.
    2. is the fulfilment of your own unique gifts. It’s the expression of your unique capacity to contribute.
    3. is transcendent. It’s based on principles of contribution and purpose higher than self.
    4. addresses and integrates all four fundamental human needs and capacities. It includes fulfilment in physical, social, mental, and spiritual dimensions. [”To live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy”]
    5. is based on principles that produce quality-of-life results...
    6. deals with both vision and principle-based values...An empowering mission statement deals with both character and competence; what you want to be and what you want to do in your life.
    7. deals with all the significant roles in your life. It represents a lifetime balance of personal, family, work, community – whatever roles you feel are yours to fill.
    8. is written to inspire you – not to impress anyone else. It communicates to you and inspires you on the most essential level.”

Over the past few weeks, I was inspired to actually write my statement for two reasons.  First, I gained clarity about what I actually want to do with my life.  Secondly, I was inspired/encouraged by a fellow blogger Tara Jacek to get my thoughts on paper.  Tara – you started a ripple effect too! Thank you so much : ) I gave her the following picture and my mission statement and she designed a poster (see below) for me.  I love it.

Social support and encouragement are valuable tools.  Tara showed me such support through designing a display of my mission statement.  I am  excited to share it with you. I hope it encourages you to write a mission statement for yourself. You should check out the one she made for herself as well.

Goals written down are more likely to be accomplished (Gail Matthews).  Let's start a ripple effect and accomplish our personal goals through supporting each other!

Have you created a personal mission statement? I'd love to see it!

Thank you for reading and your presence at this beach retreat. You Rock! I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comment section below.

See you at the beach!

Reference: Covey, Stephen R., Merrill, A. Roger, and Merrill, Rebecca R. First Things First: To Live, To Love, To Learn, To Leave a Legacy New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

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