Guidelines
for Personal Credo/Mission Statement:
-
Keep it simple,
clear and brief. The best mission statements tend to be three to five sentences
long.
-
Your mission
statement should touch upon what you want to focus on and who you want to
become as a person (character) in this part of your life. 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.
-
Make
sure your mission statement is positive. Instead of saying what you don’t want
to do or don’t want to be, say what you do want to do or become. Find the
positive alternatives to any negative statements.
-
Include
positive behaviors, character traits and values that you consider particularly
important and want to develop further.
-
Think
about how your actions, habits, behavior and character traits in this area
affect the important relationships in your life.
-
Create
a mission statement that will guide you in your day-to-day actions and
decisions. Make it a part of your everyday life.
-
Think
about how your mission affects the other areas of your life. Is it consistent
with your other personal mission statements? Will it conflict with or
contradict something else? Is it balanced?
-
Make
it emotional. Including an emotional payoff in your mission statement infuses
it with passion and will make it even more compelling, inspiring and
energizing.
Remember that your mission statement is
not cast in stone. It will continue to change and evolve as you gain insights
about yourself and what you want out of each part of your life.
Personal
Mission Statement Sentence Templates
Here are some sample personal
mission statement sentence templates to get you started (check out the sample
values list or ideas on possible values you could use). Use these templates as
seeds to get your creative juices flowing.
- “To … [what you want to achieve, do or become]
… so that … [reasons why it is important]. I will do this by … [specific
behaviors or actions you can use to get there].”
- “I value …[choose one to three values]…
because …[reasons why these values are important to you]. Accordingly, I will
…[what you can do to live by these values].”
- “To develop and cultivate the
qualities of …[two to three values or character traits]… that I admire in
…[an influential person in your life]… so that …[why you want to develop
these qualities].”
- “To live each day with
…[choose one to three values or principles]… so that …[what living by
these values will give you]. I will do this by …[specific behaviors you will
use to live by these values].”
- “To appreciate and enjoy
…[things you want to appreciate and enjoy more] by …[what you can do to
appreciate/enjoy these things].”
- “To treasure above all else
…[most important things to you] by …[what you can do to live your
priorities].”
- “To be known by …[an important
person/group]… as someone who is …[qualities you want to have]…; by
…[some other person/group]… as someone who is …[other qualities]…;
…”
Feel free to
combine these sentences in any way to carve your own unique personal mission
statement. Here is a part of a potential mission statement for the health &
fitness area using the first sentence template:
“To be healthy, fit and energetic so that I can
enjoy life to the fullest and have the energy to pursue all my goals. I will do
this by exercising regularly, following a nutritious diet and eliminating
negative habits that are impacting my health.”
