PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT 1

Personal Mission Statement

Edgar Naen

Department of Communication, Ottawa University Arizona

Seminar in Applied Communication

David Cook

April 17th, 2022

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Personal Mission Statement

Today I was asked to write two sentences. It doesn't seem like a complicated task until

realizing that those two sentences are supposed to guide you through life. Those two sentences

are called “Personal Mission Statement ''. A personal mission statement is one or two sentences

that resume your values and your goal in life. “It is very challenging, but important, to have a

sense of your vision and mission before just completing goals;” (Su-Ting T. Froghna G. 2016).

The article “Using Your Personal Mission Statement to INSPIRE and Achieve Success”

describes this task as challenging because it is about describing your personality and aspirations

with just a few words. But as Stephen Covey talks about in his book “How to Develop Your

Personal Mission Statement '' we can consider it as a flight plan. When a pilot has to fligh a plan

from a location A to a location B (s)he makes a flight plan. This plan is going to determine things

like the take off time, landing time and the itinerary. The personal mission statement uses the

same principle. It is about putting down the important values of an individual and how they are

going to guide this individual to achieve certain goals. My personal mission statement is:

“I want to inspire people to grow, and do the right things for them to achieve their goals. I

will do it by making the right decisions and by spreading my positive and happy energy to the

people around me”

It has been a certain number of years that I can’t decide what I want to do in life after

college. I was first interested in becoming a cook like my dad. After working for three years in a
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kitchen part-time I realized that it was not for me. I also thought about trying to pursue a

professional career in golf and even if this idea is not completely dead, I’m not sure that it is

what I truly want. Thinking more about what I like in life and my values, I realized that I want to

help people get better at what they do. I started my statement by saying that “I want to inspire

people to grow”. I have been obsessed with helping people deal with their problems, grow, and

make the good choices that would make them happy. My problem is that in everyday life, it is

not an essay to keep up with people on the long ride. I might have a good discussion with a

friend but won’t see this person for a long time, and so I don’t get to keep helping this person. By

coaching a sport like soccer or volleyball, I would be able to follow people's progress on an

everyday basis and which will leave me more room to help them grow in their sport but also their

life in general.

The second thing that I speak about in my statement is about making the right decisions. I think

that life tests us a lot, and sometimes, in complicated moments, we can be tempted to take

shortcuts and make decisions that do not match our values. Because I’m aware of that, I want to

be able to always act and behave according to my values and inspire people to do the same.

The last thing I talk about is my energy. I’m always trying to be happy and positive even if it’s

sometimes complicated. No matter what is happening; I will always try to find the positive in

each situation, which helps me to move on from the negative. I also always try to be happy and

behave that way. Like Baker, D mentioned in his book “What Happy People Know”, “Happiness

is a way of life- an overriding outlook composed of qualities such as optimism, courage, love,

and fulfillment. It’s not just tiptoeing through the tulips of a la-la land, and it’s not something

that changes every time your situation changes. It is nothing less than cherishing every day.” I
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relate to this description of happiness because I realized that no matter how complicated life is,

it’s always more enjoyable when I focus on the little bit of positivity and happiness there is. I

believe that the way I think is a gift and that I should use it to make the life of people around me

a bit more enjoyable.

I don’t think that I learned anything by writing this Personal Mission Statement. I think

that it just confirmed what I knew deep down inside me. I always knew that I wanted to be a

positive influence on others but there was always a lot of doubt about it. Taking the time to write

it down made me realize that coaching is something that I truly want to do. I also think that this

statement will be a good help in my life because like Stephen Covey says, I have a “flight plan”

and whatever happens between the starting point and the final destination I will have something

to attach to.
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References

Baker D. (2004). What Happy People Know. St. Martin's Publishing Group.

https://books.google.com/books?id=9B5r2yLq65AC&dq=change+for+better+life&lr=&s

ource=gbs_navlinks_s

Covey S. (2009). How to DEvelop Your Personal MISSION STATEMENT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzcNFFl8TSA

Su-Thing T. (2016). Using Your Personal Mission Statement to INSPIRE and Achieve Success.

The Official Journal of the Academic Pediatric Association. Vol 17, Issue 2, Pp 107-109.

https://www.academicpedsjnl.net/article/S1876-2859(16)30500-9/fulltext