PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT WORKBOOK

Any great journey starts with a single step, and writing your personal mission statement is no different.

As you approach this process, think of it as a journey that is not time-bound, not guided by deadline, not imposed on you by any external requirement. Rather, it will take the time it takes, and will take no more and no less than necessary.

The process presented here offers a roadmap to developing this statement. Dedicate time when you can give focused thought to the exercises within this guidebook. It needn't be at a desk. It doesn't have to be long stretches. Simply strive to find time each day to give thought to the step that you're at.

first step is done: you have found this guidebook. Welcome to the voyage that will change your life.What was the inspiration for this book?

It all started one day in the car as I was driving along First Avenue North in Saint Petersburg, Florida, heading home from an afternoon meeting. "Maybe this is as good as it gets...?" I tentatively thought, realizing that after keeping up with the latest personal development trends I felt that there wasn't a specific end-goal that would indicate to me that I had made it. The grind of constant attention to making things productive, optimized, efficient, rewarding, mindful, and tidy had exhausted me.

Sure, I was living my life fully and grateful every day, but I felt that without finding something that would indicate that I had achieved my goal of personal development, I would continue to feel incomplete and inadequate. Conversely, however, I really enjoyed day-to-day life. I was happy. I journaled. I had practices for mindfulness. But I felt that I still couldn't get off the treadmill of self-help movements.

In many ways, the self-help trends got me here.

In that moment, however, I recognized that they couldn't get me there: to the place of recognizing that I had become the person who I was meant to be. They created a tableau in my world view that had me feeling disjointed. I had envisioned each as the be-all, end-all complete fix. I realized that I didn't have anything that stitched all of these valuable experiences together. Without something that captured the bigger picture, I only had small pieces of the collage.

And then it struck me one day. When I met my husband a decade ago, I had been so impressed to learn that he had a personal mission statement which he used to inspire a daily life of purpose and to inform bigger life decisions. Over time, seeing how he used his statement made me realize that if I had my own statement, all of the deliberate personal-growth efforts would be connected, and I would know which areas still needed additional work. I drafted, redrafted, revisited, and finally landed on the statement I have today.

Armed with this personal constitution, I found that my daily life became much more resolute. I knew what I stood for; I knew what I valued; I knew who I wanted to be.

And several years later, I realized that part of my mission had still gone untouched: using the words that I write to connect to the spirit of the world. I had been a regular contributor for a local newspaper and my day job fulfilled much of my creative writing aspirations, but I knew there was more to be done. This book, and The Mission Labs project, was born out of this journey as the on-the-ground tactical method for helping others develop the mission statements that define purposeful lives. The Mission Labs' sole purpose is to link together the self-development work you're already doing with your higher vision for yourself, a link that creates a powerful, on-purpose life.