Building a Personal Mission Statement

By: Kathryn Travis

I have been working in the Liberal Arts Career Development office here at Purdue for 5 months.  I started this job thinking that it was a secretary position where I would spend my days answering the phone, typing correspondences and interacting occasionally with students. However I have spent the past five months learning more about career development, internships, relationships and most importantly myself.

In college I struggled to decide what major to study, what clubs to be involved in and what I wanted to do after graduation. I changed majors three times and floated around to different clubs and organizations. It wasn't until my Senior year that I had figured out what I was going to make a career out of. During a community meeting in the town where my college was located I realized that my passions and skills could align.

Throughout my college career I studied the importance of mission statements for business and organizations. During the first few weeks in the workplace I learned the importance of sticking to those mission statements as a guide for success. It wasn't until much later in life that I realized the importance of a mission statement in our own personal lives.

Mission statements provide clarity and direction for our daily lives. They make us more effective and spur us to truly take the lead in our lives.

Creating a mission statement is not something you do overnight. It takes deep thinking, careful analysis and often a few drafts. However it is something that once created will change the way you think and work. I encourage each of you to spend some time during your college careers to write a personal mission statement.

To get started you can follow these simple steps to creating a Mission Statement:

1. Ask Questions: Use Tina Shu's, 15 questions to discover your personal mission, as a guide.
   
   15 Questions to Discover Your Personal Mission
   15 Questions to Discover Your Personal Mission
2. Narrow it down
3. Write your statement 
4. Make action statements:Think about specific actions, behaviors, habits and qualities that would have a significant positive impact in this part of your life over the next one to three years.
5. Set a plan for review and evaluation in a few weeks time

If you need further assistance writing a mission statement consider using FranklinCovey's Mission Statement Builder which can be found here - http://www.franklincovey.com/msb/

Have fun with this and let your statement be reflective of who you are.  Most of all, let your statement be one that guides you as you make future decisions

“Every decision we make is ultimately governed by some kind of interest or goal or objective or value or principle, whether we know it or not.” – Stephen Covey