How to create the life
you aspire to have

Plan your future keeping your mission and vision in mind

By Angela Civitella

Previously published April 29, 2020

Most successful organizations rely on clear mission and vision statements to define their purpose and chart their future. These statements articulate what they aim to achieve, align their teams, and prevent distractions from core objectives. But while companies use them to stay on course, many of us rarely stop to define a similar sense of direction for our own lives.

A mission statement defines your purpose in measurable, action-oriented terms, while a vision statement captures your values and the kind of person you aspire to become.

Creating a personal mission and vision statement can be just as transformative on an individual level. It provides clarity, focus, and motivation—helping you make better decisions and stay aligned with what truly matters to you. A mission statement defines your purpose in measurable, action-oriented terms, while a vision statement captures your values and the kind of person you aspire to become.

In this article, we’ll look at the benefits of creating personal mission and vision statements and how they bring clarity to your own objectives and goals.

Why create Mission and Vision Statements?

We all have very different ideas about what success means. What’s important, however, is that you take the time to define your own version of success. Otherwise, how will you understand what you should be working toward, and how will you know if your decisions are helping you move toward your goals?

Along with goal setting, mission and vision statements are useful for bringing sharp focus to your most important goal, and for helping you to quickly identify which opportunities you should pursue.

Shaping this goal into a mission statement helps you keep it at the front of your mind and enables you to focus your energy and resources on it. Without this focus, you can become distracted or spread your effort too thinly across multiple competing goals.

Note: By creating a personal mission statement, you make one of your personal goals supremely important. This gives you the best possible chance of achieving it, which is essential for some types of goals. However, if you focus exclusively on one goal, you’ll inevitably have to de-emphasize others. Ensure that you’re comfortable with this decision, and that those important to you are not negatively affected as a result.

‘All of us have very different ideas about success. What’s important, however, is that you spend time defining your version of success.’

Mission versus Vision

So, what’s the difference between a mission statement and a vision statement?

Mission statement – This defines your purpose. It’s what you ultimately want to achieve in your life or career, expressed in a specific, measurable way.

Vision statement – This approach is more emotional. Here, you define your core values and explain how you’ll apply them to your mission.

Tip: As your career progresses, your goals and objectives are likely to evolve as well. Therefore, ensure that you regularly revisit your mission and vision statements and update them as necessary.

Creating Mission Statements

Follow these steps to create your mission statement:

1. Identify what you do best – Your unique strengths will likely point to what you would like to do most with your life and career.

2. Think about what success means to you – If you get stuck, make a list of past accomplishments that really made you feel as if you did something worthwhile. Your aim is to create a shortlist of measurements to help you track your progress.

3. Identify your personal goals – Take the time to explore what you might want to do with your life and career, and then narrow down to the goals you most want to pursue, across the full range of life areas.

4. Combine the first three steps – Look at your goals, your unique strengths and your idea of success, and then identify the one goal that you most want to achieve. Ensure that the goal is expressed in a way that is both measurable and attainable, and that it’s described in the most powerful and motivating way possible.

5. Keep refining – Edit and perfect the words until you have a clear, concise statement that identifies your ideas and how you’ll measure the results.

‘By creating a personal mission statement, you make one of your personal goals supremely important. This gives you the best possible chance of achieving it…’

Creating Vision Statements

Now that you’ve created your mission statement, move on to your vision statement:

1. Identify the humanistic side of your mission – Look carefully at the mission statement that you just created. What is most fulfilling about what you’re going to do? What really impacts your emotions? And what will help other people?

2. Make a list of your core values. What are they and why?

3. Visualize who you’d like to become – Picture your “best self”. Are you a strong leader? A compassionate friend? A mentor? Make a list of words that describe how you would like others to see you.

4. Combine the first three steps – Bring these steps together and write your vision statement. This should be energizing and motivating, filling you with energy and excitement as you read it.

Tip: There is no specific formula for writing your own mission and vision statements, and you can make them as specific or as broad as you like. Just ensure that they’re punchy with motivational statements that describe what you want to achieve.

‘As your career progresses, your goals and objectives are likely to evolve as well. Therefore, ensure that you regularly revisit your mission and vision statements.’

Key points

Spending time creating personal mission and vision statements is well worth the effort. These tools can help you make important career decisions and remind you of the direction you want to take in life.

Ensure you allow yourself sufficient time to think deeply about each step in the process. Identify the right words, goals, and core values. Then create clear, concise statements that are motivational and fill you with purpose.

Continue refining the statements until they are both exciting and meaningful, and remember to revisit your mission and vision statements as your career progresses.

Image: Michael Chaize via StockPholio.com

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