How To Write a Personal Mission Statement That Brings Clarity and Purpose To Your Life

If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything __Unknown

Do you know who you are? What you stand for? What your purpose is here on earth? Where you are going in life? What it will take for you to consider your life successful?

If you want to live the life of your dreams, then you must know the answers to these questions.

One of the major differences between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful people know exactly who they are and where they are going in life. There is no doubt. There is no wavering.

To bring clarity and purpose to your life, it is crucial that you develop a Personal Mission Statement and that you then live by that statement every day of your life.

How do you do that? Let’s find out.

The Components of Your Personal Mission Statement:

Your Personal Mission Statement doesn’t need to be long, but it does need to be comprehensive.

The following are the elements that we recommend be included in your Personal Mission Statement:

● Your life’s purpose
● Your core values
● Your rules to live by — how you will conduct yourself in the world

These components define who you are. Where you are going. Your character. Your ethics. Your life philosophy.

Your Life’s Purpose:

Your Life’s Purpose consists of two parts:
● Your Primary Mission In Life
● Your Life Goals

The first part of your Life’s Purpose is your Primary Mission in life; the overall reason you believe you were put on this earth. Something that is bigger than yourself that you feel passionate about.

Some examples of your Primary Mission could include:

● To make the world a better place everywhere I go
● To help one million people live better lives through my teaching and writing
● To advance science for the betterment of mankind
● To contribute to finding a cure for cancer
● To educate our youth and prepare them to live prosperous and successful lives
● To build buildings that will stand for 100 years
● To raise children that are God fearing and self-reliant

The second part of your Life’s Purpose consists of your specific Life Goals. What you want to accomplish in the next 10-20 years. This gives direction to your life, which is one of the objectives of a Person Mission Statement.

Your Life Goals will typically be related to your education, career, family, etc. These are the specific things that you want to accomplish in your life that would make you consider your life a success.

And your Life Goals should be aligned with your Primary Mission. Everything should be designed to move you in the same direction. Otherwise, you will wind up battling yourself and you’ll never become the success you want to be.

Your Core Values:

Core Values are deep-rooted. They are the values and principles you stand for and will not compromise. The beliefs you hold dear.

Your Core Values form a critical part of your character and your character defines who you are. So defining your Core Values is very important.

Here is a partial list of Core Values to get your thinking started:

● Honesty
● Trustworthyness
● Integrity (high moral standards)
● Ethicalness (high ethical standards)
● Faith in God
● Strong work ethic
● Humility
● Loyalty
● Courage
● Respectfulness
● Love of country
● Love of family
● Authenticity
● Compassion
● Fairness
● Justice
● Self-discipline
● Self-Control
● Optimism
● Positivism
● Team player
● Generosity
● Confidence
● Patience
● Kindness
● Forgiveness
● Love
● Joyfulness
● Perseverance
● Godliness
● Gratitude
● Persistence
● Commitment
● Wisdom
● Determination
● Contentment
● Peacefulness
● Helpfulness
● Tolerance
● The Pursuit of Excellence

Although you inherently know some of your Core Values, others might not be so obvious. They must be discovered.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Identify values that you admire in other people:
The values that you respect and admire in others are typically the same ones that you hold dear for yourself. Think about the people you like to hang around with. What attracts you to them? And think about people you have read or heard about that inspire you. What were their Core Values? Why exactly do they inspire you?

2. Identify characteristics that are repulsive to you in other people:
Core values are part of our being, so there is a lot of emotion associated with them. Negative emotions are usually stronger than positive ones, so pay attention when someone turns you off. What exactly about them do you find so distasteful? What values do they lack that pushes you away from them?

3. Identify values associated with any great moments in your life:
We all have great moments that, for a fleeting instant, put us on top of the world. Think about those moments and what made them so special. When we are inspired to great heights, it is often because we are in strong resonance with one or more of our Core Values. This is especially true of great moments experienced when in a relationship with someone else.

4. Identify values associated with any great disappointments in your life:
The great disappointments in life are often associated with violation of one or more of our Core Values that leads to a distressful outcome of some kind. As mentioned earlier, negative emotions are strong. Think back on those times and try to identify any Core Values you violated or that were violated by someone else. Broken relationships often provide some of the most unhappy sagas in our lives and they are usually the result of violated values or opposing values so pay close attention to relationship disappointments.

5. Ask your family and friends to list your Core Values and beliefs:
Our lives reflect our Core Values each and every day. Our friends and family who are close to us can see what values are important to us and what we stand for and believe in. Ask them to list the top four or five values they see in you.

Take your time in identifying your Core Values. Reflect on the methods listed above over a period of days or even weeks.

Make a list and revise it over time until you are sure it reflects your Core Values and who you are.

If you want to live true to yourself, then you must know exactly what you believe in. Living contrary to your Core Values will bring you nothing but misery. Every time you violate a core value, you will experience a sense of guilt and guilt is a devastating emotion.

Living contrary to your Core Values will be like spending your whole life swimming upstream. It will be exhausting and you will never achieve joy or happiness in life and you will never know why you are so miserable.

Spend some time now to identify your Core Values. Your happiness depends on it.

Your Rules For Living:

Your Rules For Living are your rules for engagement in the world.

Very few people ever think about their Rules For Living. They just go through life reacting to the circumstances they encounter. Unfortunately, they suffer a lot of unnecessary misery and pain by doing this.

They fall into the same traps, make the same mistakes, give into the same temptations, or enter into the same type of abusive relationships over and over again. They never seem to learn.

By defining your Rules For Living, you will define ahead of time how you will handle certain situations and deal with certain types of people. You will know what temptations you must avoid. What habits you need to develop to be successful and to lead a productive, fulfilling life.

Here are some potential objectives for your Rules For Living
● To maximize your potential
● To become more productive
● To help keep you energetic and healthy throughout your life
● To avoid many of the pitfalls in life
● To remove temptations from your life that could trip you up
● To make you a better person, a better friend, a better spouse, a better parent, and a better citizen
● To instill in you an optimistic, positive attitude and to maintain that attitude throughout your entire life
● To bring joy and fulfillment to your life
● To help you to live without regrets
● To help you build strong and lasting relationships with other people
● To help you avoid doing things that damage or destroy relationships

A good way to get started defining your Rules For Living is to establish the virtues you want to aspire to. Virtues are character traits that enable a person to flourish.

For example, when Benjamin Franklin was a young man, he was disappointed with how his life was going so he launched his Moral Perfection Project. In this project, he defined 13 virtues that he wanted to aspire to. These virtues were pragmatic, being those virtues that he felt would get him ahead in life and business. He followed these 13 virtues for the rest of his life and attributes much of his success to them.

For each virtue, he gave his own personal definition. These definitions then became his Rules For Living.

Here is Benjamin Franklin’s list of 13 virtues and their definitions that guided his life.

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order: Let all things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself (i.e. waste nothing).
6. Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
11. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Our article on virtues lists 32 additional virtues to consider. Be sure to check it out here.

Other things to put in your Rules For Living can include details about:

● How you will carry out the specific duties of your job to be most productive and effective
● How you will treat and respect other people
● How you will avoid conflicts and confrontations with other people
● How you will nourish and take care of your body
● How you will take responsibility for your life
● How you will continue to learn, grow and seek wisdom throughout your life
● How you will be guided by your purpose in life
● How you will avoid temptations that can cause you damage

Finally, take a look at our article, 25 Characteristics of Successful People for additional ideas to add to your Rules For Living to make your life exceptional.

Take your time in defining your list of rules and refine it over time. Don’t be afraid to add or subtract rules over time as your life evolves.

You want to grow to be the very best person possible in all areas of your life. Your Rules For Living help you to do that.

A Personal Mission Statement Example:

Craig Ballantyne, the current owner of the Early to Rise newsletter, has published his Personal Mission Statement in the form of 12 rules he lives by. He advocates that these 12 rules allow him to live a better, more productive, stress-free, guilt-free life and attributes much of his success to adhering to these ruled.

Here are Craig’s 12 rules:
1. I go to bed and get up at the same time 7 days per week (8 p.m. and 4 a.m.) I stick to my diet, avoid caffeine after 1 p.m., and avoid alcohol within 3 hours of bedtime.

2. I write for at least 60 minutes first thing every morning.

3. I do not check email before 11 a.m. and I do not talk on the phone unless it is a scheduled interview or conference call.

4. I act polite and courteous, and I do not swear.

5. I create a to-do list at the start & end of every workday and update my daily gratitude & achievement journal.

6. I do not engage in confrontations with anyone, in-person or online. This is a waste of time and energy. If I have caused harm, I apologize and fix the situation. And then I take a deep breath, relax, breathe out, and re-focus my efforts back on my work and goals.

7. I am guided by these two phrases:

a. “Nothing matters.” – I can only work towards the major, massive goals and my vision of helping others, while the opinions of others do not matter to my goals.

b. “It will all be over soon.”

8. Everything that happens to me – good and bad – is my personal responsibility. I blame no one but myself. These are the choices I’ve made – this is the life I’m living. I will accept the consequences of my actions.

9. I will help 10 Million men and women transform their lives.

10. I will not be the person I don’t want to be. I will not be petty, jealous, or envious, or give in to any other of those lazy emotions. I will not gossip or speak badly of others, no matter who I am with or what environment that I am in. I will not be negative when it is easier to be positive. I will not hurt others when it is possible to help. I will know the temptations and environments in life that I must avoid, and I will, in fact, avoid them, even if it means loosening relationships with others who “live” in those environments. It’s my life and that matters more than what other people think of me.

11. “I will always keep the child within me alive.” – Ted Nicholas.

12. “I will write with honesty and feeling.” – Ted Nicholas. The opinion of others does not matter. What matters is the number of people that I can help by sharing advice and encouragement in my writing.

You can read Craig’s full article here.

Although Craig’s format is a little different, he has all the elements we recommend for a Personal Mission Statement.

● Rule 9 is his Life’s Purpose
● Rules 4, 10 and 12 define his Core Values (e.g. respectfulness, gratitude, peacefulness, tolerance, contentment, positivism, and honesty)

o Note: In these rules, Craig defines what he is against instead of defining his Core Values. However, knowing what you are against indirectly defines what you are for and, thus, your Core Values.

● Rules 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 define his Rules For Living (How he will engage with the world)

Action Plan:

Here is your Cerebral Advantage Action Plan for constructing your own Personal Mission Statement.

Step 1: Define your Life’s Purpose. First, identify your Primary Mission in life. Something that is noble and larger then yourself. Next, define one or more Life Goals that you want to accomplish in the next ten to twenty years. These are goals that, once accomplished, would make you successful in your own eyes. Make sure that your Primary Mission and your Life Goals are aligned and all move you in the same direction.

Step 2: Compile a list of your Core Values. These are the values and principles you live by and that you won’t compromise. These values define who you are.

Step 3: Compile a list of Rules For Living. This is how you will conduct yourself in the world: In your job, with your family, with your friends, with difficult people you encounter.

Step 4: After compiling your Personal Mission Statement, set it aside for a week or two then review it again for completeness and accuracy.

Step 5: Once you are satisfied with your Personal Mission Statement, sign and date it. This now forms a binding contract with yourself to live by the values and rules defined in the statement.

Step 6: Print two copies of your Personal Mission Statement. Keep one with you at all times in your wallet or purse. Put the other one where you will see it each and every day and read your Personal Mission Statement every day.

Step 7: Live your Personal Mission Statement every day. Be careful not to violate any of your Core Values as that is a sure recipe for unhappiness.

Step 8: Update your Personal Mission Statement, as needed, as your life unfolds. Any time you change the statement, sign and date the new document and print two new copies: one for your wallet or purse and one to put in a prominent place where you will see it each and every day.

Summing Up:

No matter our circumstance, we should all strive to design and live the life of our dreams. We should all want to be the captains of our own destiny.

To do that, we must first know who we are and where we want to go in life.

It is truly amazing how many people have no idea what they want in life. They have no idea what their lives will look like five or ten years from now.

And they have little idea of what they really stand for or why they hold the views they do.

Successful people, on the other hand, know exactly who they are, what they believe in, and what they want their life to be. They can describe in detail exactly where they will be five, ten, even twenty years from now. Their vision is clear. Their destination is never in doubt.

A first step in going from being a victim of circumstance drifting through life to a confident, successful person is to create a Personal Mission Statement defining exactly who you are, what you stand for, and where you are going. This will give you a level of clarity about yourself that is absolutely essential for success.

Take some time right now and get started.

This is an important step in your life’s journey. Do it today.

To help you get started, here is a basic template for your Personal Mission Statement.

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PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT OF JOHN DOE

My Life’s Purpose:
● My Primary Mission In Life:

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● My Life Goals For the Next 10-20 Years:

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My Core Values:
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My Rules For Living:
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This Personal Mission Statement defines who I am, what I believe in, where I want to go in life and how I will conduct myself in life to be the best person I can possibly be and to reach my full potential.

From this day forward, I hereby commit, to the best of my ability, to live each and every day of my life in accordance with this Personal Mission Statement.

 

Signed: ___________________________ Date: ________________

Think Right. Live Well.

Other Articles You Might Like:

● The Secret to Making Bold Improvements in Your Life
● The Power of Precise Thinking
● Your Mind Is Like a Garden. Tend It Well.
● 25 Characteristics of Successful People
● There is Magic in the Mornings! Become an Early Riser and Get More Out of Life.
● David Kekich’s 100 Credos: A Formula For Successful Living
● How to Use Questions to Supercharge Your Critical Thinking
● 46 Virtues For Living a More Joyous, Fulfilling and Successful Life