What Is Your Mission Statement?

Anyone who has been involved with helping a company or foundation to create a mission or vision statement knows how difficult and time-consuming the process can be. However, once an organization’s beliefs, values, and vision are on paper in concise, easy to grasp language, it’s much easier to communicate that vision to others and to set specific, reachable, and supportable goals.

The same thing is true for our personal lives, and even for our families. The time and effort to put in writing where you are now, what is important to you, and where you want to go are well worth it, both in terms of personal growth and daily satisfaction.

FranklinCovey’s website has an easy to use tool to help you or your family Build a Personal Mission Statement. If you approach the process thoughtfully, it will take at least ten or fifteen minutes if not longer to answer all of the questions, but at the end you can email yourself your personal or family mission statement and refer to it whenever you feel lost or unsure or unmotivated.

On a side note, the Franklin Planner, for which the Franklin of FranklinCovey is named, is based on ideas of none other than Benjamin Franklin. Click here for an example Franklin’s daily schedule—in essence, his day planner—from his autobiography. Covey is Stephen R. Covey, author of the bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

I encourage you to try the Build a Personal Mission Statement exercise, even if (or maybe particularly if) it’s not the kind of thing you usually do. Like me, you might learn some things about yourself along the way.