Why not build mission statements for your life and improve the
trajectory of your personal growth?
One of the first steps to embracing neurodiversity is self-advocacy—identifying your own strengths and values and allowing them to guide you to more purposeful living. Understanding what you are good at and what brings you joy allows you to be better in control of your environment, which can help you to speak up when you need change or support to accomplish your goals.
So how can you become a good self-advocate? Well, one way is to create a personal mission statement. After all, companies create mission statements in order to drive their business forward—why shouldn’t you do the same?
There are an unlimited amount of choices we need to make in a 24-hour day, everything from our daily living needs to what we want to watch on TV. If we do not have a mission statement that describes the overall purpose of our lives, we may not be making the choices that best align with what is most meaningful to us and our individual needs to thrive.
Companies rely on mission statements to explain the overall purpose of their business. These vision statements are used to inspire their teams to achieve long-term goals. Without an overarching mission based on the core values that the business holds most important, companies would not be able to identify success, measure achievement or scale their operations. By creating a personal mission statement, you can use the things you find most valuable in life to drive personal success and growth.
Use values as your compass to guide you towards your talents
To create a good mission statement, you first need to get clear on what your personal values are. Unlike goals, values are not actionable items, but they allow you to guide your behavior. Values are the personal qualities we consider important and that we want to have in our daily lives. Our values may vary in different domains of our lives, and everyone’s sets of values are unique. Discovering our values serve as a daily compass that we can use to create behaviors that align with our core mission and include the activities that fuel us.
Once we are clear on what is important to us, we can use that as the prominent driver in finding a path that best meets our needs. This clarity in our personal mission statement allows us to maintain contact with “deeper values,” despite setbacks or challenges that naturally arise in our lives. It also helps to buffer burnout and mental health challenges.
Give it a Try
Here’s a simple list of steps to create a great personal mission statement and use it to improve your daily life:
1. Become intentional
Most of us are living on autopilot. How often do you jump out of bed straight into your morning responsibilities, without even a moment’s pause to check in with yourself? Stop and consider your daily habits as you go about your day. This kind of intentional living allows you to slow down, something our bodies need a lot more of in our modern society. As you slow down more, you may begin to discover what parts of your day bring you more stress and which parts you look forward to. Analyzing these patterns and habits throughout your day can help you begin to better understand what you align with the most in your life.
2. Make a list of the things that are most important to you
This can take days! Take your time and think deeply about what is most meaningful for you. What are you most curious about? What are you naturally inclined towards? What do you want others to know you as? Companies take months and hire highly trained consultants to help them through this process. Exploring and defining your mission can be a joyful process if you allow yourself time, compassion and honesty. After you have your list, look through it and try to sum it up as best you can in a few sentences by answering this question: what is it that you want to get out of your life? Write whatever you come up with at the top of your list.
3. Post that list where you can see it
Once you’ve gotten clear on what matters the most to you and summed it up with your mission statement, post your list in a place that is visible and accessible for you regularly. Revisiting this list allows you to remember what you are good at and what brings purpose to your life, and helps you remain on task when you are struggling with making everyday decisions
4. Celebrate your uniqueness
We are all meant to be unique and contribute our gifts to the work we do, and by building environments that harness those talents, we can increase our confidence and self-esteem. Companies pay big bucks to the innovators and industry disruptors, and neurodiversity or brain-based differences are the key to creation and innovation. Having pride in the talents and strengths that we uniquely hold helps us stay motivated and connected to our deeper purpose.
5. Update your list as necessary
Values are meant to evolve with us, as we grow (or as companies scale). It is natural that values change as we better understand ourselves or as we experience different chapters of our lives. Be vocal about your values to remind yourself of what is important. If you find that your values have changed over time or if new priorities surface, you can update your list of values and your mission statement at any time.
6. Reflect on your work
Practice pausing to look back on what you’ve accomplished, finding gratitude for the experiences that align (and mis-align!) with your values. It is natural for us to get off track or get distracted while working towards our mission. The practice of reflection serves as a data-driven tool to assess and tune into what is working for you and where you need to make changes. Companies use business performance metrics to measure their work towards their mission—and you can do the same.
When we take time to focus on ourselves, our needs, wants and strengths, we are able to show up for others in a more complete manner. Just like a company culture that drives performance and services that are guided by their overarching vision, we can also optimize our impact in the work we do by first recognizing our own visions and values.
Values-discovery should be a priority for us all, not a privilege for some.
Let Behavior Pivot Consulting help you live a strength-based existence and achieve greater professional goals. Learn more about our individual behavior consultations to help you understand your personal strengths and values. Let’s pivot together!
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