Mission Statement Exercise - ACCP



ACCP Academy

Leadership and Management Certificate Program

Personal Mission Statement Exercise*

The purpose of this exercise is to discover important areas of your life and then write a statement that depicts those that you consider significant and essential. A mission statement provides an “end in mind” aspect to your life and gives you a greater sense of where you are going. It enables you to lead your life while also leading others. It focuses your life around the important relationships and activities that YOU determine to be most crucial to your personal and professional success. This initial exercise takes about 45 minutes to complete. However, the creation of your final personal mission statement may require up to 6 months.

Creating a Personal Mission Statement is like writing a constitution. Do Mission Statements change over time? Yes, in the sense that a constitution changes, they do. Amendments are added to constitutions and of course, as your life changes, you may want to make adaptations. You own your mission statement. It is yours and therefore you may change it. However, you should write your mission statement as if it will not change, realizing that realistically it will change. Your Personal Mission Statement will become a crucial centering force that provides a sense of balance in all significant areas of your life.

To successfully complete this exercise, the following steps will be necessary:

1. Take 45 minutes to complete this exercise, including the 5-minute write at the end of the exercise.

2. Take approximately 1 hour to think by yourself and contemplate the meaning of the words you have written during the 5-minute write. Make changes in the text and begin the process of formulating your mission statement. This should be completed within 1 week.

3. Continue to work on your personal mission statement over the next several months. Your mission statement should be completed within six months.

The following pages only involve steps 1 and 2 of this Personal Mission Statement Exercise. Complete each section as instructed below.

I. What do I want to HAVE or what do I want to achieve in my live? List 4 or 5 important items. HAVE does not necessarily mean “things.”

II. What do I want to DO during my life? How will what I do relate to my achievements? How have I contributed to others lives? Use the following four questions to discover what you want to DO during your life.

a. When I envision the future, what do I see?

b. If there were no limitation on my time and resources, what would I see myself doing?

c. What activities are of greatest worth in my personal life? In my professional life?

d. What legacy have I left for others to follow?

III. What do I want to BE? Which people have been examples to me? Who are the people who have influenced me the most and what outstanding characteristics or attributes do I admire most in these people? Which of these characteristics would I like to add to my strengths?

IV. How can I best maximize my strengths to produce the future I want to have?

a. How could I maximize these strengths in my personal life?

b. How could I maximize these strengths in my professional life?

c. On what personal weakness do I most need to work?

V. Project your life forward to your funeral at age 90. You have asked several individuals to speak at your memorial service. What would you like them to say about your life? What difference have you made in their lives? What legacy have you left for them to remember? You may also use a 90th birthday celebration, if this approach feels better to you. Use the following approach to answer these questions. Think of up to 7 key roles in your life. For each role select a key person that represents a very important relationship associated with that role. For example, one role might be husband or wife, and the key individual would be your spouse. Another role might be father or mother and then the key individuals would be your children. What would you like each of these individuals to say in paying tribute to your life? What legacy have you left?

Role Key Person Tribute Statement

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2.

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VI. Five-minute continuous writing exercise. When you have finished answering the questions above, write for 5 minutes without stopping. Don’t worry about how your paper looks. This quick writing exercise will become the foundation for your mission statement. Simply write whatever comes to your mind for five minutes.

Use this page to make changes to your 5-minute quick write. As you quietly sit alone and begin to work on your mission statement, get into your deep inner life. You will need to go off by yourself for at least an hour and contemplate what you have written during your 5-minute write. Each of us has a public life, a private life, and a deep inner life. The inner life is where the answers to the mission statement are found. You should continue to work on your mission statement until it is completed. This will take up to 6 months. You will know when it is completed.

*Materials adapted from: Covey, SR. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1989), and from the Franklin-Covey website ().

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