Your life mission statement gives you a focus, a guiding principle which helps you to make difficult choices. When you put a lot of effort and focus into discovering and determining your life mission statement, you can create shortcuts for future decisions. When you’re struggling with a future decision, you can come back to your life mission statement and see if that decision would help further or hinder your life mission.
Some examples of life mission statements are:
To inspire positive change through teaching.
To live a life of honesty, integrity and unconditional love and to make the world a more beautiful place through art.
To create innovative healthcare solutions that improve the lives of others.
To offer support and inspiration to others through leadership and subject matter expertise.
To help men, women and children find hope after loss.
Before you start writing a life statement, spend some time going through the following 12 questions and answer them. These will give you the foundation of creating your statement.
What is it that makes you feel alive, satisfied, and fulfilled?
What skills and abilities do you have?
What negatives are you prepared to put up with?
What would you regret if you didn’t make any changes?
Where do you find your flow?
What changes to the world do you want to make?
What do you want to be remembered for?
What qualities are you known for?
When have you experienced the most joy in your life?
What fears are you prepared to face for your mission?
What are your key values?
What do you want to be known for?
Create your statement – 1 to 3 lines – and leave it somewhere you can see it all the time. You can keep coming back to it and amend it until you feel it really reflects how you want to spend your life.
Here’s a link to some templates for your life mission statement. I’d love to see your ideas!