How to Write a Personal Mission Statement: Part Two

Jun 11

Comments: 2 Posted by : Paul Piotrowski

Yesterday, in my article “How to Write a Personal Mission Statement: Part One” I covered the basics of what a Personal Mission Statement is, and some of the misconceptions relating to the concept of having a Personal Mission Statement.

Today I want to dive right into a quick little exercise that will help you to write a Personal Mission Statement which you can then tweak and personalize to your liking. The very first part of writing your mission statement is going to address identifying the action words which most inspire you.

Below is a long list of action words. Take a few minutes to scan through the list and identify three verbs that most resonate with you and that you are the most passionate about. You might need to print this page out in order to do this more easily and use a highlighter to highlight verbs that you feel most connected to. In the beginning you might just highlight or circle any words you like, and then narrow it down to three.

Here is the list of verbs. Pick three:

Accomplish
Acquire
Adopt
Advance
Affect
Affirm
Alleviate
Amplify
Appreciate
Ascend
Associate
Believe
Bestow
Brighten
Build
Call
Cause
Choose
Claim
Collect
Combine
Command
Communicate
Compel
Compete
Complete
Compliment
Compose
Conceive
Confirm
Connect
Consider
Construct
Contact
Continue
Counsel
Create
Decide
Defend
Delight
Deliver
Demonstrate
Devise
Direct
Discover
Discuss
Distribute
Draft
Dream
Drive
Educate
Elect
Embrace
Encourage
Endow
Engage
Engineer
Enhance
Enlighten
Enlist
Enliven
Entertain
Enthuse
Evaluate
Excite
Explore
Express
Extend
Facilitate
Finance
Forgive
Foster
Franchise
Further
Gather
Generate
Give
Grant
Heal
Hold
Host
Identify
Illuminate
Implement
Improve
Improvise
Inspire
Integrate
Involve
Keep
Know
Labor
Launch
Lead
Light
Live
Love
Make
Manifest
Master
Mature
Measure
Mediate
Model
Mold
Motivate
Move
Negotiate
Nurture
Open
Organize
Participate
Pass
Perform
Persuade
Play
Possess
Practice
Praise
Prepare
Present
Produce
Progress
Promise
Promote
Provide
Pursue
Realize
Receive
Reclaim
Reduce
Refine
Reflect
Reform
Regard
Relate
Relax
Release
Rely
Remember
Renew
Resonate
Respect
Restore
Return
Revise
Sacrifice
Safeguard
Satisfy
Save
Sell
Serve
Share
Speak
Stand
Summon
Support
Surrender
Sustain
Take
Tap
Teach
Team
Touch
Trade
Translate
Travel
Understand
Use
Utilize
Validate
Value
Venture
Verbalize
Volunteer
Work
Worship
Write
Yield

Now that you’ve got your three verbs identified, write them down on a piece of paper. Next, we’re going to look at the top three core values you have that really drive you. Once again, go through the list below and this time I want you to identify three values you really resonate and connect with. There may be more that are important to you, but really try to just narrow it down to the three most important ones to you. If you know of a value you have that isn’t on the list, then use that one. This is by no means a totally comprehensive list, but it does contain the most common values people have. Pick three:

Achievement
Advancement
Adventure
Affection
Amazement
Challenge
Change
Community
Competence
Competition
Cooperation
Creativity
Decisiveness
Democracy
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Ethics
Excellence
Excitement
Fame
Friendliness
Growth
Honesty
Independence
Influence
Integrity
Intelligence
Involvement
Knowledge
Leadership
Loyalty
Freedom
Faith
Power
Privacy
Purity
Purpose
Recognition
Responsibility
Security
Self-Respect
Serenity
Simplicity
Sophistication
Speed
Stability
Status
Truth
Wealth
Wisdom

Ok, now you should have three action words, and three values identified from the lists above. In the next part we’re going to identify the causes and/or groups of people that you would like to help in the world. Once again, this is not a completely comprehensive list, but it does provide a starting point. Scan through the list and identify the one group of people that you feel most passionate helping and working with, lets say for the next 3 to 5 years at least.

Pick one of the following:

Agriculture
Bloggers
Children
Charities
Education
Elderly
Energy
Environment
Family Issues
Health Care
Media
The Poor
The Homeless
The Justice System
Parks & Recreation
Veterans
Substance Abusers
Nutrition
The Ill & Disabled
Public Safety
Government
Youth
Roads & Bridges
Business
Non-Profit Agencies
Churches
Synagogues
Spirituality
Politics
Defense
Human Development
Infants
Child Protection
Child Care
Justice
Home Health Care
Water Rights
Tourism
Entrepreneurs
Space
Exploration
Animal Rights
Animal Protection
Labor Relations
Literacy
Border Issues
Civil Rights Issues
Sexuality Issues
Fashion
Art
Books
Immigration
Movies
Design
Sports
Food
Computer Technology
Administration
Management
Construction
Labor Relations
Travel
Finance
Real Estate
Printing & Publishing
Religion
Community Development
Reproductive Issues
Research
Biotech
Women’s Issues
Gardening
Broadcasting
News
Journalism
The Performing Arts
Music
Law
The Internet
Online Communities
Infopreneurs
World

Ok, so now you should have three verbs, three values and one group of people or cause that you’ve picked from the groups above.

Now comes the tricky part. There will be some tweaking necessary here. What you want to do now is to follow this basic template as a starting point.

My Mission is to ( Verb 1 ),( Verb 2 ) and ( Verb 3 ) the value of ( Value 1 ), ( Value 2 ), ( Value 3 ) of / to / in ( Cause or Group ).

So, for example, lets say that you picked Advance, Inspire and Teach as your three verbs, and you picked Community, Freedom and Independence as your three most important values. Then as your group of people you picked Entrepreneurs. Using those words, you could write your mission statement as:

My Mission is to Inspire, Teach and Advance the value of Community, Freedom and Independence to Entrepreneurs.

Of course you now have to tweak it a bit to be really clear on what you want. For example the final statement might end up being:

My Mission is to Inspire, Advance and Teach the value of Freedom, Independence and Community to Entrepreneurs.

So, now that you have a mission statement like that, imagine a project idea coming along where you could work with a group of local Entrepreneurs to create a community meeting group which meets every month to discuss things like starting your own business, managing your time effectively, tips on developing systems and processes in your business to allow you to work on your business without always having to be there in person etc. Do you see how a project like that totally fits in with your mission statement?

Having a mission statement like that could also help you if you were thinking of starting your own Blog or website or online business, because it would help you to be clear on what you’re passionate about. For example, my personal mission statement totally fits in with this Blog so while working on this Blog and helping it grow and become successful I am working on my personal mission. This allows me to be much more passionate and excited about writing articles for this Blog, compared to someone else who’s just in it for the money.

This Blog is just one of many projects I can work on to help me fulfill my mission, but at least it provides a compass for me to know that I’m heading in the right direction. Also, if for example I was looking for a job, it would be really easy for me to compare possible job openings out there to my mission to align myself with a job or career path that fits with my mission.

Put together your Personal Mission Statement, and see if it helps to clarify things and to help act as a compass in your life. You don’t have to share your statement with anyone else if you don’t want to, it could simply be something you’re aware of and keep in the back of your mind.

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