Years ago, I attended the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People signature program. One of the exercises there was to write your personal mission in life.
The book says:
To find out what your principles are, envision your own funeral. Imagine that as your casket is being lowered down into the ground, your family and friends are standing around watching. What are they thinking about? When they think of you and your life, which statements, images and memories come up in their minds? What do you want them to think, imagine, and remember? It is precisely these statements, images, and memories which should be your principles. You should live toward these principles everyday. All of these principles combined make up your mission statement.
Though I did write some things in the provided notebook, there was little time to actually put that much thought in it.
According to Stephen Covey, a mission statement “takes deep introspection, careful analysis, thoughtful expression, and oftentimes many rewrites to produce it in final form.”
So I decided to put my mission down on paper the net so that I would know where I want to steer my life. I know it’s not something that I can come up with overnight. But I need to write it down now, so that I would at least start somewhere and just keep on rewriting it each time I gain more insights. Thus I am keeping this blog evergreen, changing the date each time I add something. I hope this journey into myself will lead me to finding my purpose in life.
My Mission in Life
To have no hangups at my deathbed. Life is too short to spend on doing the same things your whole life. There are millions of different adventures to experience, dishes to taste, places to see, ideas to grasp, people to meet. I aim to try as much as I can while I still can.
To touch lives, to improve life. It’s actually the mission of my former company, P&G, and I would like to adapt it for myself. There is no better feeling in the world than making other people feel happy, making a difference in their lives, inspiring them. What makes me happiest is hearing people tell me that I inspired them.
To leave a legacy, to be remembered. This is the selfish part of part 2 of my mission, the Enneagram #4 personality in me wanting to avoid ordinariness. When thrown the question on which I would rather have: fame or fortune? I choose the former, though of course I would want to be famous for the right reasons. What those reasons are remains to be seen.
To live a life of passion. The only life worth living is the one you’re passionate about. So I want to eventually find my Literature subject in life and major in it. And also to find love the way it’s described in Meet Joe Black: “Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. If you don’t start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I’m not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back. Because the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love – well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.”
i don't know if you're already aware of the site lifehack.org<br /><br />you'll love it im sure. 🙂
Hi,<br /><br />I love that quote in Meet Joe Black… I also love the part about what love is…<br />"Reveal everything that there is to know about yourself, and let the chips fall where they may"<br />Reading this made me think about my mission statement.<br />All the best in your life and I hope all your dreams come true.
I don't remember that part but it sounds really nice, so thanks for reminding me. What is your mission statement?